Norbord: The Last Mill Standing

By Katie Carter

As national employment rates continue to plummet, many of our local industries are feeling the crunch of the recessive economy. Local lumber mills have experienced a direct hit as a result of decreasing building markets. Ainsworth Lumber permanently closed operations in Grand Rapids back in 2006 while curtailing board production in the Bemidji and Cook plants this past fall. The closings left 470 area mill employees out of work. The trickle down effect resulting from these closings spreads through the local economy impacting loggers, truckers, and downtown businesses.

The last mill standing in northern Minnesota is Norbord located in Solway. Norbord is an international company based in Toronto, Canada. Worldwide, Norbord has nearly 20 plants and mills across North America and Europe. Norbord mills produce a variety of wood products including MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard), plywood, particle board, and OSB (Oriented Strand Board) which is the only product of the Solway mill.

Norbord’s Solway mill has been in business since 1981 and employs approximately 140 people. Jack Wallingford, General Manager of the Solway plant, attributes Norbord's continued success to quality employees, efficient business practices, and environmental consciousness. Norbord hires “hard working employees who are adept at solving problems, and flexible to change.” Wallingford stated that Norbord has concentrated on being the best they can be at what they do. “We don’t try to be everything to everyone. We concentrate on our specific product and continue to improve our techniques and procedures in order to stay viable in the business.”

Currently, Norbord takes in 675,000 tons of wood each year. That amounts to approximately 25,000 truckloads. After the wood is cut, dried, and pressed, the outgoing product is equivalent to 12,000 truckloads.

Norbord is efficient. The plant processes wood to OSB while transforming each bi-product into renewable energy. No material goes to waste once it enters Norbord. By-products such as bark become fuel used for heating the plant, the mechanisms required for drying, and the overall log-to-board process. According to Wallingford, the energy produced at the plant equals that which could heat “approximately 2500 homes.” The final bi-product of the process can be viewed from Highway 2, emitted via smokestacks, in the form of clean steam, rid of volatile organics such as formaldehyde, thanks to the environmental consciousness of the company.

Norbord is conscientious about forestry management. 75% of the wood Norbord uses is aspen. Aspen is a wood of choice because of its growth pattern. Once an aspen is cut, the root system “responds with a rapid production of suckers.” Because an aspen lifespan is fairly short, 50-70 years, the tree population tends to re-establish itself fairly quickly in comparison to other tree species. If aspen trees are not cut, the thick cover they grow into will eventually impede the full-sun, which is the ideal growing environment. The result of a thick aspen population is the depletion of aspen in those areas and the rise of other, shade loving trees such as the maple and the pine. Once this occurs, the aspen population cannot renew itself.

Norbord obtains logs directly from loggers who work closely with state and national forests as well as private landowners. Business is dependent on a healthy construction economy, but is also dependent on reforestation plans in place at the state and federal levels. One economic concern Wallingford noted was that if the state of Minnesota begins cutting forest management moneys, limited timber for the wood industry could become a reality.

For now, Norbord has been successful at predicting the market and able to tweak variables in production and management processes in order to maintain funds and employees. However, the economic future is worrisome because of the downturn in housing and other construction. The hope at Norbord is that the company will continue to facilitate safe and effective business practices to remain afloat during tough times. Because logging is such an integral part of the region’s history, character, and economy, the hope across northern Minnesota is that Norbord will weather the economic storm and continue to provide high quality OSB board to wholesalers and building products stores across the Midwest.