Rick Siewert Expands Urban Wood Movement at International Woodworking Fair
The short story:
“We had fun; we learned a lot,” says Rick Siewert, vice president of Wood From the Hood. “We attended for two days and still wanted more!”
The long story:
The International Woodworking Fair (IWF) is held every even year at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. It is the industry’s second largest show in the world, allowing 16,000 professionals comparative access to innovative machinery, supplies, and services from 1,000 exhibitors. Some of the vendors had fully-running machinery in 30,000 sq. ft. spaces!
“We made great connections at the show. The Wood-Mizer and Baker booths where very exciting along with many others. Some of the equipment we saw would help us cut production hours and service our larger slab projects and sales. Hopefully some of the equipment we saw will be in our future!” says WFTH owner Cindy Siewert. “It was lots of fun talking with people wanting to build something with our urban trees!”
Rick Siewert was one of three presenters at the Urban Wood seminar entitled,” Urban Wood Utilization: Making Products and Profits from Landscape Trees.” The other two presenters were Jennifer Alger of Far West Forest Products in Sheridan, CA; and Dwayne Sperber of Wudeward Urban Forest Products in Milwaukee, WI. Moderating was Rich Christianson of the Illinois Wood Utilization Team. 70 participants learned the benefits of utilizing the valuable and available resource of urban wood.
The urban wood movement means reclaiming trees felled within the local community for use in valuable wood products for residential and commercial projects. Spread the word!
The seminar was organized by the Full Circle Urban Forest Network, which includes: Illinois Wood Utilization Team, Southeast Michigan’s Reclaimed Urban Wood Marketplace, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and Wisconsin Urban Wood.
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