This is Forest to Frame, where we explore how restoring forests creates beautiful spaces. A podcast dedicated to conversations with industry leaders shaping the future of the forest industry. And now, here's your host, Russ Vaagen. Hey everybody, Russ here again for the Force Frame podcast. I think a lot about what topics we should talk about here. One of the things that happens whenever you're in business or in an industry or whatever you're working on, you take for granted that people understand what it is you're talking about, the nomenclature and what's going on. And I'm very involved and our company is very involved with a partnership program with a group called Woodworks. And Woodworks is a group of architects and engineers really focused on bringing together other people in the A&E community to teach them about mass timber, to teach them about light stick framing for projects that may go a different direction with material. So they might be standard steel and concrete. They might be some other building methodology. So they help advocate to get those people to design the buildings properly. So they look good. So they are, sound when it comes to engineering, and also help them through the code process so they can actually get the building done, help them understand the costs, and then help them introduce, help introduce these folks to companies like Vaagen Timbers and others in our industry. So we kind of take for granted how all these things are funded and how they come together. Woodworks specifically is, in part, funded by the Softwood Lumber Board. And a lot of people talk about, and we have on this show, talked about the tariffs and the trade wars or whatever you want to call it that are going on. The fact is that the lumber trade between Canada and the US specifically has been going on for a long time. Over a decade ago, there was a softwood lumber agreement that was reached and a bunch of things happened because of it. We have duties that apply to lumber that's imported to the US and that money collected it's been through that agreement, we created the softwood lumber board in North America, which includes Canadian firms and US firms. And what we agreed to do as part of that is do a bunch of things to create a better market for lumber in general and wood in general. So that raises the tide for everyone. And the Softwood Lumber Board has a number of different organizations that it has been a part of and helped promote and create. And so there's a few different avenues that they have put these funds in to help promote the use of wood and The way that's been done is the main producers of lumber. So this goes back to the softwood lumber and the two by fours, two by sixes and other products that come back and forth across the border. The duties that are collected there and that It helped create the softwood lumber board, which then created a number of other things well, in addition to the duties that were collected. We have created in our industry, a industry checkoff program so you may have noticed it with other different. industries over the years. One of the famous ones was the got milk ads. So that was the dairy farmers of America got together, pulled their money and started marketing themselves so that more people would drink milk. There's also been, you know, beef, it's what's for dinner, there's other ones. So there's been some successful programs. And so what ends up happening is an industry gets together and becomes, there's enough players to mandate that everybody agrees to chip in a certain amount of their sales going forward. Well, with our industry checkoff program, Any sawmill in North America that is producing 15 million board feet or more, so a sizable facility, or shipping 15 million feet or more into the US, I might be wrong, I might be on any product coming into the US, but that would be subject to the checkoff program. What does that mean? Well, we talk about lumber as in per 1,000 board feet when it's traded. When you go to the lumber store, it's like per board, but because there's so many millions of board feet being shipped around, there's 15,000 board feet on a in a typical house framing package, there's 30,000 board feet on a typical lumber truck. There's over 100,000 board feet on every rail car load of lumber going down the track. If you see a rail car and you just think to yourself, just simple math, there's 100,000 board feet, see 10 rail cars, it's a million board feet. So we always talk in per 1,000 board foot numbers. So if the lumber market is trading at about where it is right now, the lumber prices are trading between four and $500 per 1,000 board feet. The lumber checkoff program is, I believe it's 41 cents per 1,000 board feet. So it's, if the price is, 450, trying 41 cents, it's less than 1% that we're paying for it. The price goes up, the price stays the same, it's not an up and down average. So those dollars are collected from all the different companies. It is important to note that the Canadian companies that ship their lumber to the US, that's subject to the checkoff program. Anything they sell within Canada or export elsewhere isn't. So, Right now, we're going through a boat to continue the checkoff program. It's my hope that we do that being somebody in the mass timber field, we wanna see more mass timber being put out there, we wanna see the promotion of mass timber, we wanna see woodworks, we wanna see the American Wood Council, Think Wood, and all of the groups that are part of this checkoff program, continue to promote wood, show that we need to improve the codes to accept more wood and more structures where the engineering allows for it. We also need to promote and teach engineers and architects what kinds of buildings can be built effectively and help promote that because we think that the renewable resource of wood is very important, and you've heard me on here talk about forest restoration. We need more markets for wood, so it can allow us to afford to do more forest restoration out there on the landscape. So the higher the value of wood, the more wood we're going to be using, it's going to drive that whole market development. And people love these mass wood buildings and even stick framing. It's simple to do. It's fast. So I wanted to just take a moment to highlight the wood checkoff program that we have. If you're working for a sawmill or in leadership at a sawmill that's part of this, and you get a chance to vote for it, I mean, I think it's a no-brainer. We get a lot of development, business development out of this. We're getting more and more buildings out of wood, and there's a great return on this investment. You can go to the Softwood Lumber Board's website and there's a how it works portion of their website that shows you how the checkoff program works, if you have questions, and there's a whole team over there that can help answer questions related to the checkoff. If you're one of the few in here that are looking at potentially doing some work on this and voting on it, and you have questions, you're thinking, man, the lumber market is not very good. Maybe we should just not pay for this. It's a really small price to pay. And there are companies like ours that are using your products and consuming lumber and using it in different buildings. And that's what we need going forward. And I believe right now, in the second half of 2025, we're just now seeing a construction market that's picking up some steam. We're seeing projects come off the sidelines and go into the into the construction part of the deal, getting funded. This is an exciting time. And even though it's been a challenge the last year and a half or two years in the construction world, I think we're poised for some growth. We've still got lots of demand out there. We need to be promoting wood and making sure that wood's getting out there. in the marketplace, getting the consideration that it deserves and figuring out how we can build these buildings of the future with mass timber, with stick framing, with all types of wood that's renewably sourced. And it just, it builds community, builds the economy. And I think it's a good thing all the way around. And I had a meeting with somebody recently and I was talking about, you know, how the, historically, the wood industry had been kind of seen as a bipartisan issue, right? It was like business cutting down the forest, and, you know, it's all for, you know, profit. Well, the fact is, it's become a very bipartisan issue, because we've got a renewable resource that's also one where we're restoring forests. Then we're taking the byproduct of that effort and we're putting it into these buildings. We're creating net zero buildings that are highly efficient and we're doing it from a natural product. They look great, they smell great. Recently had a client say, hey, we're building another building with you guys. One of the things that we have is he keeps hearing it over and over again from his female engineering staff and a lot of the younger staff that one of the things they love about working in a mass timber building is how nice it smells. And it's very biophilic. And so that's, it's interesting. I mean, we don't have that, all that data yet as far as like tracking everything, but We can build these amazing buildings, and we can do it with this renewable product that's very sustainable. It's building jobs and communities and rural economies while also delivering the buildings that we need in our urban markets. And overall, it's a really great thing. So if you're doing it because you love the look and feel of wood, or your company is really focused on a net zero, low carbon footprint, wood's great for all those things. And so it's really not something that's a partisan issue in a very partisan time. And so I'd like to see us invest in that uh do more of it and it'll give us the impetus we need to restore these forests that really need our attention and you know unfortunately um we made it through a lot of the summer without a terrible amount of smoke here in northeast Washington but the last week or so we've been hit with some local fires because of dry lightning it wasn't human caused it was caused by lightning and we've got a lot of smoke in the valley and you know thankfully The summer's coming to a close, we're getting cooler temperatures, and we'll get those fires out. But it's just, we can do better. We can thin our forests. When lightning strikes happen and fires start, we can just be burning the underbrush and doing positive for the environment instead of these catastrophic wildfires that kill the trees that people really love. And we all should want to have sustained out on our landscape. Utilizing timber, utilizing mass timber and wood is always a good thing. So I encourage you to go to the Softwood Lumber Board's website and look off the checkup program. Go to Woodwork's website or the WIN site, the W-I-N, the Woodwork's I think it's a Woodworks Innovation Network or Wood Innovation Network that they put together, highlights all these mass timber projects. It's just a great resource. If you don't know what types of buildings or where these things could be done, you see not only the types buildings, but you see the companies that are involved. So if you need an engineering firm, an architecture firm in your region, you can likely see a project that they worked on. And then all the manufacturers that make the products that go into those, they're all listed there, too. So including Boggin Timbers. So, hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast and this video. And I look forward to connecting with you. If you have any questions, reach out to me and I'd be happy to answer those. But if you get an opportunity to vote, vote for the Checkoff program. Let's continue to support the use of wood through our industry and really appreciate the folks over at the Softwood Lumber Board. the folks over at Woodworks and all the affiliated groups that work so hard to make sure that wood's getting the notoriety it deserves and getting into the market that it deserves. So thank you all for doing that. And we'll see you next time Bye. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and tell a