But there's not a single starched white shirt or tie in the bunch.
This technologically savvy team is working to install the latest upgrade at the Pyramid Mountain Lumber Co. mill in Seeley Lake. The computer code they're creating will help ensure the mill gets every last board foot possible from the wide variety of logs processed each day at the facility.
“That's something we didn't have before,” said Gordy Sanders, a resource manager at Pyramid. “In the past, people have taken a look at every log and made a quick decision on which angle might be best. And then we didn't have any way to hold the log firmly as it went through the saw.”
“It just wasn't optimal,” Sanders said. “With this piece of equipment, we'll be able to run much more efficiently.”
Efficiency is everything in this day and age when competition in the wood-products industry is keen. With a tight timber supply, mills are constantly looking for ways to ensure that nothing goes to waste.
“We will be able to get more lumber from each log with this new mill,” said Loren Rose, the company's controller. “Hopefully, this piece of machinery will allow us to remain competitive with all the other mills in the state.”
The upgrade is part of the Seeley Lake mill's long-range plan to diversify both the kinds of wood it processes and the lumber it produces, Rose said.
Since 2000, the mill has gone through a series of upgrades that should help position it for the future in Montana's already tight timber market. The owners have spent millions modernizing the facility, which employs 155 workers.
Pyramid Mountain faced its own set of challenges as it retooled. First and foremost, the mill doesn't own industrial timberlands, so depends on whatever logs it could acquire on the open market.
So the mill looked for niches. It found an important one in the fact that most other mills in the state shied away from ponderosa pine.
“Ponderosa pine doesn't make a very good stud,” Rose said. “It's harder to dry and it tends to have bigger knots Š but it works for what we try to do here. We're one of the few places that will process ponderosa pine. That's an advantage for us.”
Pyramid Mountain Lumber works with three different kinds of species - the white woods, Douglas fir and ponderosa pine. From those, it creates a variety of different products that run the gamut from studs to tongue-and-groove paneling.
To make it all pencil out, the mill pays special attention to fluctuations in different markets.
“It requires much more patience,” Rose said. “We have to work harder to separate out the different species of wood. Out in the lumberyard, it takes a lot more experience to get the job done right.”
“You also need more flexibility in the mill,” he said. “One week you might be cutting lodgepole and the next week it could be ponderosa pine. It does add some expense, but we also get some insulation by being able to take advantage of changing markets.”
These days, the mill is reaching out further and further to find its raw materials.
The shift in raw materials for Pyramid Mountain has been substantial over the last 15 years, Sanders said. Before then, nearly 80 percent of its timber came from federal lands. Today, somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of the timber processed at the mill comes from private forest lands.
There was a day when the mill didn't have to look much beyond 100 miles to find all the logs it needed to keep the saws turning. Those days are long gone.
“That's a huge shift,” Sanders said. “We've opened a new office in Lewistown because of that. It is 252 miles to haul logs from there. We've been forced to expand our working circle significantly.”
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