How To Start and Run a Secondary Wood Products Business 

By Eleanor Smith and Jim Masters

   If the answer to any of these questions is yes, the Wood Products Business Development Kit will help you and your community. Major restructuring of the U.S. wood products industry over the past two decades, along with a sharp reduction in allowable harvest levels in national forests, have brought significant economic changes to rural regions traditionally dependent on timber. Although the industry's reorganization and the shift in resource management policy have meant many fewer jobs in timber harvesting and processing, the changes have also created new opportunities for enterprising rural communities.

    In the Pacific Northwest, in particular, many of these opportunities are being aggressively pursued. In response to the dramatic decline of sawmill and logging jobs, the Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative (NEAI) was launched in 1993 by the Clinton Administration to assist in the transition to a more diversified economy.  As a result of the NEAI, opportunities for new types of economic development (particularly small business development) were identified and resources provided to enable local actors to pursue the most promising options.  Among the most popular of the new initiatives are those seeking to capitalize on the enormous unrealized potential in the secondary wood products marketplace and in the growing market for alternative forest products.

    The Wood Products Business Development Kit is designed for use by rural economic and community developers seeking to understand the challenges and opportunities in the highly diverse secondary wood products industry.  It begins with an overview of the complex and volatile wood products industry, followed by a discussion of how this relates to small business strategies targeting opportunity areas in the forest products industry.   There are eight reports in the Kit, and a synopsis of each of them is included in the introduction.  The reports range from discussions of development strategies focus on wood and alternative forest products to rural incubator feasibility and small "wood" business planning.  A bibliography of the references used in the overview is also provided.  Readers who want further information on selected subjects can use the references listed at the end of several of the reports.

    This will "jump-start" and greatly reduce the amount of time it takes your agency to help people explore and pursue options in secondary wood product business development.   This is a "must have" set of resources for every community and economic development organization.  You could take three months of research and assemble all this material yourself, or you can use the results of Eleanor Smith's expertise and buy the whole package from us!

Price:  $145.  Click here to order.