Holden, WV, October 10, 2005--The flat slabs of wood flooring that traveled from pallets on the floor through a staining machine, heater and polyurethane coating process in Mingo County impressed French businessman Patrick Poirer on Friday afternoon, according to the West Virginia Gazette.
The Columbia Flooring plant was “very huge,” held lots of stock and contained a lot of equipment that was well organized, he said. More employees were working than Poirer was used to seeing in European factories that are more mechanized. But one thing impressed him the most.
“The plant is very clean,” Poirer said during the tour of the plant in the James H. “Buck” Harless Wood Products Industrial Park. “It’s amazing.”
He was one of 15 French businesspeople, along with one Japanese businessman, who visited the Mingo County flooring plant while learning about West Virginia’s wood industry. The group will travel the state until Tuesday, meeting economic development, government and wood products industry officials.
The visiting companies are mainly involved in residential construction-related industries. They were in West Virginia to learn about the country’s and state’s wood industry and form relationships that eventually could turn into business partnerships.
The French visitors are from the Vosges region in northeast France, which is similar to West Virginia. The area has wood, paper, agriculture, textile and metal working industries, said Jacques Alexandre Vignon of CAPEV, the region’s economic development organization. About 60% to 70% of the region is covered by forest, he said.
“West Virginia is famous and comparable with the Vosges,” said Poirer, the manager of BRD, which specializes in planning and wood manufacturing for packing, decking and cladding. “West Virginia has a large wood industry spirit.”
Vosges representatives have been talking with West Virginia representatives for about two years. The relationship is a good fit because the areas share many similarities, such as size, a relatively small population and industries, said Jean-Pierre Schwartz of the Washington Trade and Investment Group, an investment banking and consulting group that has ties to the Vosges region.
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s Discover the REAL West Virginia Foundation, the West Virginia Development Office, U.S Department of Agriculture Forest Services and the Hardwood Alliance Zone are sponsoring the wood products mission.
Trip participants learned that West Virginia has nearly 8 million acres of privately owned land, 1,200 licensed loggers who harvest 250,000 acres a year and 161 commercial sawmills that employ 3,500 workers, said Edward Murriner, assistant state forester with the West Virginia Division of Forestry.
Wood products manufacturing is the third largest manufacturing industry in the state, behind chemical and primary metal manufacturing.
Last year, West Virginia exported $117 million worth of wood, not including logs, according to information from the Hardwood Alliance Zone in Elkins. Canada was the biggest buyer, followed by China and Hong Kong.
West Virginia’s wood that stays in the United States, and wood imported from other countries mostly goes to building homes. But the country’s decreasing wood availability and insatiable demand for home building can’t keep up with the wood supply, said Al Schuler, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Sciences Laboratory.
The country will import two billion board feet of wood this year from Europe. Schuler expects that amount to double in the next five years. Eight years ago, the U.S. didn’t import any wood from Europe, Schuler said.
America’s wood need could mean business opportunities for the French companies. The trip participants represented primary and secondary wood possessors ranging from sawmills to wood frame homebuilders.
