Timber company turns it around

Plum Creek Timber Co. offered a recession-weary Flathead Valley some encouraging news last week when company officials noted its manufacturing facilities here are beginning to stabilize after a rough couple of years.

After taking a $23 million loss on its Flathead Valley manufacturing plants in 2009, the company showed a $47 million turnaround in a year, posting $24 million in operating profit from the Evergreen and Columbia Falls plants last year.

Granted, some very painful cuts were necessary for that turnaround to happen.

Plum Creek closed both its Pablo facility and the Ksanka mill near Fortine in mid-2009, and also shuttered its Evergreen stud sawmill and remanufacturing plant.

Employment levels obviously aren’t what they once were, but Plum Creek still employs 700 people in the Flathead Valley and is a major contributor to the local economy with a $47 million annual payroll.

The company’s civic giving has not waned during the downturn. Last year Plum Creek provided $664,438 in financial support to community organizations and scholarship recipients in Montana. For that we’re immensely grateful.

It’s not surprising that Plum Creek gives a huge amount of credit for the stabilization to its employees and their ability to make operations more efficient in the face of the company’s economic challenges. Fewer workers at Plum Creek’s plants are putting out the same amount of product that larger work forces had done previously.

Our work force in Northwest Montana is one of our prized assets and is the epitome of that old adage: When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Many Flathead businesses have had to find innovative ways to stay afloat by doing more with less. The wood products industry has been particularly challenged, especially in light of a national housing market that’s still in a serious slump.

As the Governor’s Office of Economic Development importantly points out, the Montana wood products industry has moved beyond its historic role as a leader in the manufacture of traditional wood products such as lumber and plywood and is integrating into the mix new and emerging wood markets in sectors such as energy, agriculture, biochemicals and sustainable building.

Over the past three economically troubled years, Plum Creek also has sold more than 13,000 acres of its land to private buyers while another 310,000 acres were sold for conservation easements and working forests through the Montana Legacy Project. Certainly the revenue from those land sales have bolstered the company financially.

Setting aside that much land through the Legacy Project is a shining example of Plum Creek’s commitment to preservation. As the largest private landowner in the state, Plum Creek should be commended for its continued stewardship of the land, and applauded for persevering with wood-products manufacturing during one of America’s most difficult economic eras.