Reform, AL, September 8, 2006--Forest Technologies Holdings LLC plans to process hardwood flooring and decking, said Deanna Morgan, executive director of the West Alabama Economic Development Authority, according to a report in the Tuscaloosa News.
The company is leasing the former Q-Glass plant, a 16,000-square-foot building near Reform, from the Pickens County Industrial Development Board.
Morgan said the industrial board and Pickens County Commission get the credit for landing the company.
“They have worked very hard on this project," Morgan said. “Everything I’ve asked them for they came through with."
The Reform operation is an expansion of Forest Technologies, which now employs 17 workers in a plant in British Columbia, Canada, that manufactures portable sawmills. The company was attracted to Pickens County by the industrial board’s standing offer of free land and buildings to companies that promise jobs. The company ended up leasing the building.
The County Commission also voted to give the company tax abatements as an incentive.
“The only cost they [Forest Technologies] have is the cost of the insurance and the upkeep of the building, but the industrial development board still owns the building," Morgan said.
The lumber for the hardwood flooring will come from Surinam in South America, and Reform’s geographic location played a part in the decision to expand there, said Lindsay Flett, co-owner of Forest Technologies.
“It was the area and the people and the way the economic development board welcomed us into this county," Flett said.
The company buys trees from Surinam that will be sawed into boards and shipped to Reform. The trees are exotic South American species that were covered by a lake when a hydroelectric dam was built 40 years ago. The trees are standing underwater and must be dried before they are turned into flooring.
Divers take air-driven chain saws underwater to cut the trees, said Greg Robart, a business consultant to Forest Technologies. Some use air pumped from the surface while others are skilled at holding their breath for long periods of time.
“They are actually very proficient and very safety conscious," Robart said. “We’ve had no serious accidents and we’re very proud of that fact."
The hardwood flooring and sawmill manufacturing operations complement each other, Robart said. Some of the mills are being sold to small family operations in South America that are working under strict environmental rules. Forest Technologies will buy some wood from the sawyers who buy the mills.
The operation also gives Forest Technologies an opportunity to serve as a distribution center for another company’s forestry machinery.
“They’re expecting to grow and to have to increase the size of the building," Morgan said.
Equipment should arrive this month, with the operation starting up in mid-October.
Morgan said most of the jobs would pay $10.50 per hour and up. Skilled labor, such as welders, would be paid more.
The West Alabama Economic Development Authority was formed in 2000 to promote economic development in Fayette, Lamar and Pickens counties.
The rural counties are dotted with empty buildings because of the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in recent years, mostly because of outsourcing to other countries.
