CollinsWood Certified Wood Products from Well-managed Forests The Collins Pine Company operates 295,000 acres of forest producing high-quality lumber and veneer while maintaining forest ecosystems that are vibrant and diverse. The company produces black cherry, oak, ash, beech, basswood, birch and maple from it's 126,000 acre forest in western pennsylvania and softwood lumber and veneers from it's 94,000 acre forest in northeastern california. Despite harvesting more than 1.5 billion board feet of lumber from the collins almanor forest in california, the forest still holds just as much wood as it did when logging began. The forest supports sustainable jobs, too. The local sawmill, which employs around 200 hundred workers, enjoys a timber supply that is solid and dependable. in oregon, the 75,000 Collins Lakeview Forest is the most recent operation to receive certification. The 47,500 acres in Lake County is the largest block of forestland to be certified in Oregon. Since the 1940s collins has operated under a truly "sustained yield" management plan using selective harvesting. The company's forest management practices have been certified by Scientific Certification Systems, which designated it a "state-of-the-art well-managed forest." To promote markets for certified wood, collins sponsored a furniture design contest. the national award is intended to support and encourage furniture design and manufacture using environmentally-certified wood. Winners will receive cash or certified Collinswood and marketing assistance for their design and products from Collins Pine Company. TruWood Siding TruWood Siding is the first engineered siding product to receive certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). It replicates the look of Western Redcedar from the random knots to the meandering grain, to the rough and craggy feel. Sixty-five unique styles are offered, including Cedar Shake lap, Adobe, Craftsman Staggered, Round, Fishscale, Octagon, Cove and Diamond. A vew process called "vacuum sealing" provides weather protection. The process begins by heating each piece of siding to 200°F to open the surface. It's then fed into an enclosed high-pressure chamber where a sealant is literally blasted at high volume onto the surface. The process is repeated with a thermoset latex primer. Finally, it's cured at 350°F. Both sealant and primer are wrapped around all edges and onto the back border. This highly specialized process is backed by a 30-year warranty that is fully transferable to all owners.   Certified Particleboard All particleboard uses waste from milling operations to make a new product. That in itself is a step in the right direction. Collins goes a step further by using the waste from milling certified logs from their sustainably-managed forests. The product itself is just what you would expect from particleboard. It's dimensionally consistent, easy to work and holds tight to fasteners. It can be used for cabinet cases, shelves and underlayment. Collins' certified particleboard is used in a line of certified cabinets made by Neil Kelly and a major construction project at Middlebury College, Vermont. Find CollinsWood in the Oikos Database   The Collins Story The original timberlands that became the 94,000 acre Collins Almanor Forest (CAF) were acquired in 1902 but were not cut until 1941 when the company began managing the land on an uneven-age, sustained yield basis, a forest management philosophy that continues to the present. Wally Reed, the company's first forest manager and now retired said, "We developed a forest inventory system that tracks the growth of the forest through 576 one-acre plots. This enables us to remove the high-risk trees and leave the healthy ones." The results? When logging started in 1941, Collins had approximately 1.5 billion board feet of standing inventory. Today, after removing enough timber to build over 133,000 average-sized homes, the CAF still holds 1.5 billion board feet of timber. And the forest? It remains as it always has been a biodiverse, multi-layered, canopied, self-sustaining forest supporting great blue heron rookeries, black bears, rubber boas, bald eagles and naturally healthy meadows, streams, rivers, and a lake. As Seth Zuckerman, in the Sierra Club magazine writes, "this is a forest that has never known a clear cut... where foresters tell the mill how much timber it may have and where the forest itself tells the foresters." A family-owned business since 1855, the third generation, Truman W. Collins, articulated a vision of sustainable forestry in 1940, almost a half century ahead of its time. The goal was to create a truly sustainable forest which would in turn support a permanent community. As Maribeth Collins, currently Chair of the Board of The Collins Companies and wife of the late Truman W. Collins, comments, "It has been a rare privilege to follow Truman's dream and to have such dedicated forest managers and family who believed in sustainable forestry and were willing to work to see that dream come to fruition." Forest managers have been few and as Jay Francis, current head forester remarks, "lots of people talk about sustainability but we've proven it by what we have on the ground today. And it's not just the fact that we have as much fiber, but it's also because we truly have forests that support the timber resources, the wildlife, clean water, productive soils, and aesthetic values that people want." That shared vision led Collins to become the first privately-held forest products company in the United States to be comprehensively evaluated and independently certified by Scientific Certification Systems in accordance with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The Council is an independent, international, member-based organization that provides consumers with an assurance that the wood they use comes from forests managed in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. The FSC is the only forest certifying organization in the world endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund, the Wilderness Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Rainforest Alliance, and the World Resources Institute. All of Collins' forests, including the Collins Pennsylvania Forest and the Collins Lakeview Forest are FSC-certified. But Collins' commitment to the environment does not stop there. The company is now instituting the principles of The Natural Step into their manufacturing facilities as well as in their operation centers in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and California. The Natural Step is an international environmental organization dedicated to shifting people and businesses away from linear, resource-wasting, toxic-spreading methods of materials handling and manufacturing toward cyclical resource-preserving methods. Collins was the first North American forest products company to grow, manufacture, and market FSC-certified lumber, particleboard, and specialty plywoods while implementing sustainable practices throughout their operations. That commitment has earned Collins a number of honors, some of which include the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development from President Bill Clinton and the Green Cross Millennium Award from Mikhail S. Gorbachev, President of Green Cross International. The Collins Almanor Forest itself has been lauded extensively in the national press from articles in the Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor to features with Charles Kuralt on television. Collins Pine Company, in Chester, California, manages the CAF and facilities. The forest is comprised of mixed age and species including ponderosa pine, white fir, sugar pine, incense cedar, and Douglas fir. Trees from the forest produce 30 million board feet annually creating products that include: FSC-certified CollinsWood® and non-certified wood in appearance grades, dimension, industrial, export, and specialty lumber products, 1"x4" through 1"x12" and 2"x4" through 2"x12". The facilities feature electric power cogeneration using manufacturing byproducts and forest biomass as fuel stock. With these renewable resources, Collins is able to provide all of the electricity used in their operations and provide additional power generation to PG&E, which distributes up to six megawatts per hour during peak periods to homes and businesses in northern California. Also on site is a sawmill producing 77 million board feet annually, dry kilns, and a remanufacturing plant. Collins Pine Company has 235 employees with an annual payroll of $8 million plus payroll taxes and benefits. Additionally, the mill purchases about $6 million annually from suppliers in the area. "Our goal is to not only support a community from generation to generation but to support and enhance a healthy forest ecosystem that is open to recreation yet protects wildlife habitat with the same dedication as we protect our trees," summarized Jay Francis, Forest Manager.