Recent news reports indicate the Tricon Timber‘s St. Regis, Montana stud mill has been purchased by Idaho Forest Group, one of the largest lumber producers in the U.S. Idaho Forest Group is based in Coeur d’Alene and is a family-owned wood products company, founded in 1981, that grows, harvests, manufactures and distributes wood products. The deal is scheduled to become finalized on Dec. 1st.
Tricon Timber began its production at the Wyoming mill in 1985 and primarily constructs stud framing lumber at the St. Regis mill, along with wainscot materials and softwood flooring. St. Regis was the ideal location in the late 80’s, after the 1910 fire regenerated an abundance of available timber. Almost three million acres were burned during the 36-hour firestorm, in which an entire canyon between Henderson and St. Regis was on fire.
Two years ago, Tricon announced, during a tumultuous period for the American timber market, that the company would lay off nearly half of its work-force temporarily. This came at a time when log availability in Montana was challenging, and mills all around the state were having to go a considerable distance to get logs.
According to University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research Director of Forest Industry Research, Todd Morgan, Idaho Forest Group has a solid reputation for keeping mills competitive in today’s market, by reinvesting in these mills with the latest technology.
Idaho Forest Group will keep the staff that’s currently in place at Tricon, rather than bringing in their own employees. A Tricon spokesman said the contract between the two companies is a “very good thing” for the county. Employees will also have access to better benefits.
REA JET offers a wide array of coding technologies for the lumber and building materials industries, including high resolution ink jet printing, laser printing, and other robust coding solutions for what is often a rugged production environment. For lumber coding, and marking of other data, count on REA JET.