Press & Media

By Christine McGowan, Vermont Forest Industry Network When three friends at Middlebury College couldn’t find the perfect gift for their boss, they decided to make something special. Nathaniel Klein, Jacob Freedman, and Alex Gemme wanted to thank their supervisor at the Middlebury Snow Bowl for helping…

Nearly two years ago, as COVID-19 made its way into our State, we asked you, the business community, to suspend all non-essential operations. You stepped up in a big way to adopt new operational protocols, as the State worked to learn more about and respond to this new virus. No one knew how long this…

By Christine McGowan, Forest Products Program Director at Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund Brad Johnson would like to see wood products valued for the stand that’s left behind in the forest, not just the dollar value of the wood removed. “The lumber industry is sort of where the food industry was in the…

The Wood Works Council hosted its fall meet-up on September 16th with two great programs in one afternoon.  Third Branch Horse Logging in Northfield welcomed us for the first stop. Brad Johnson, joined by business partner John Plowden (partner Derek O’Toole was not present) conducted the tour.  Brad…

Now is Your Moment! Vermont has over 2000 woodworking shops. Many are small operations in a garage or basement. Several are workshops with 5-15 craftspeople working together. A handful are large manufacturing facilities (large in Vermont terms anyway) with 50-100+ craftsmen. Regardless of the size of…

A project initiated by the Northeast –Midwest State Foresters Alliance, Forest Markets & Utilization Committee researched contributions of the forest products industry in the 20 Northeast and Midwest states. The project was funded, in part, by a Landscape Scale Restoration Grant and administered by Michigan…

The newest member of the Vermont Woodworks Council is Hauskaa. Based in Burke, Hauskaa is a maker of little wooden houses for fun, form, and function. Hauskaa’s handcrafted houses can serve as candleholders, keepsakes, conversations pieces, collectibles, or part of a design-forward Nordic village as…

By Christine McGowan, Forest Products Program Director at Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund Updates to Vermont’s 100-year old tree warden statutes provide clarity, opportunity for collaboration.According to Elise Schadler, a program manager with Vermont Urban and Community Forestry, a tree warden is a modern-day…

By William Sampson Skyrocketing lumber prices have grabbed the media spotlight recently, but most of the attention has been focused on softwood lumber and homebuilding. In reality, the crisis is more widespread than just homebuilding and has reached deep into the woodworking industry across North America,…

With lumber prices hitting record prices over the past few months, many news outlets have sought information on why, and how the prices are impacting the rest of the forest industry supply chain.  INRS’s Eric Kingsley has spoken to reporters from around the country looking at this issue and has been…