Collaborative Forest Restoration Program Grant Proposal

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program Grant Proposal, for Douglas Fir Floors douglas fir wood floors flooring plank moulding molding Circular Sawn Strip Wood Flooring Old Wood Forrest Old Wood products.

1.  SOLUTIONS FOR THE SMALL DIAMETER TIMBER CRISIS:
2.  CFRP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
3.  OLD WOOD LLC  CFRP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CAPACITY BUILDING IN
FLOORING FROM SMALL DIAMETER TIMBER
4.  CFRP Multi-Party Monitoring Plan

1. SOLUTIONS FOR THE SMALL DIAMETER TIMBER CRISIS:

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Do we have a crisis? Fire etc. the big one is to come and really big.

Good and Bad: 

Good: No industry left means we have a chance to re-make it in a new mold. 
Good: A lot of sorting out going on. Scrag mills, moulders, pellet mills, mulching on a big scale.
Good: Some new technology but not much. 
Some new emphasis on energy production. This has the capacity to be the salvation of our industry vis a vis small diameter material.

Bad: Old line harverstors, forest workers are changing jobs or have retired.
Bad: Transportation is gone what little existed.
Bad: Timber as an industry in NM in just plain not on the map with bankers and government. 
Bad: Oil and Gas and Gambling have taken over!

Bad and Good: Infrastructure is shot, kaput gone.

We can rebuild it…. Or can we? 
No money, no way to get started.

BACK TO THE TOP

2.  CFRP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CFRP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CAPACITY BUILDING IN FLOORING FROM SMALL DIAMETER TIMBER

Old Wood LLC in Las Vegas NM will dramatically expand the use of small diameter timber in their successful flooring line via increased processing speed, drying capacity and the addtion of modern pre-finishing. The goal is to add value to small diameter timber which in turn will create a chain reaction of jobs, reduced per acre costs of thinning in our watershed and elsewhere all while building a responsible industry which can play a long term role in comrehensive and viable forestry management.
Micro ‘scrag’ processing, increaased kiln capacity and augmented Process will enable the use of large amounts of smaller diameter timber for floor manufacturing which for now is economically impossible. 
Five to ten permanent additional jobs are expected to be created and training will occur in collaboration with the NM Job Training Incentive Program. 
Over a half million feet per year utilized from treatments and harvests in our backyard and around our region will bring value to harvesters and stakeholders in the Gallinas Watershed, Santa Clara Pueblo, Walker Flats, Taos and farther abroad. Any sale in our region would benefit from significantly higher prices paid for small diameter materials. 
Monitoring will include the National Wood Flooring Association, the Forest Restoration Institute and the Forest Guild. 
Increased use of and value added to small diameter material will have a beneficial impact on all aspects of responsible forward-thinking treatments in our forest community.

Partners: Santa Clara Pueblo, La Jicarita Enterprises, Dennnis Trujillo Logging, Barela Timber Management, Olguins Sawmill, Gallinas Watershed, Walker Flats, 
City of Las Vegas (Bibb Industrial Park, Gallinas Watershed), San Miguel County,
NM JTIP program, Laine Snow Youth Program, Youth Build Program, Community Transitional Housing Program, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Program, National-Wood Flooring Association, Forest Restoration Institute, NMHU Forestry Dept. We welcome any and all harvesters/operators who desire to reduce the cost per acre of thinning on Federal lands by finding a valuable outlet for trees in the 7-12” diameter class. 

Note to Partners listed: This is a tentative list. Some partnerships are pending and may not be included in our final listing. If you wish to be removed, please let us know.

BACK TO THE TOP

3.  CFRP Project Narrative 07

OLD WOOD LLC
CFRP EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CAPACITY BUILDING IN FLOORING FROM SMALL DIAMETER TIMBER

Old Wood LLC in Las Vegas NM will dramatically expand the use of small diameter timber in their successful flooring line via increased processing speed, drying capacity and the addition of modern pre-finishing. The goal is to add value to small diameter timber which in turn will create a chain reaction of jobs, reduced per acre costs of thinning in our watershed and elsewhere all while building a responsible industry which can play a long term role in comprehensive and viable forestry management.
Micro ‘scrag’ processing, increased kiln capacity and augmented Process will enable the use of large amounts of smaller diameter timber for floor manufacturing which for now is economically impossible. 
Five to ten permanent additional jobs are expected to be created and training will occur in collaboration with the NM Job Training Incentive Program. 
Over a half million feet per year utilized from treatments and harvesters in our backyard and around our region will bring value to harvesters and stakeholders in the Gallinas Watershed, Santa Clara Pueblo, Walker Flats, Capulin, Red Mesa USFS projects and farther abroad. Any sale in our region would benefit from significantly higher prices paid for small diameter materials. 
Monitoring will include the National Wood Flooring Association, the Forest Restoration Institute and the Forest Guild. 
Increased use of and value added to small diameter material will have a beneficial impact on all aspects of responsible forward-thinking treatments in the Gallinas Watershed and elsewhere on public and tribal sales.

Partners: Jemez Pueblo, Dennis Trujillo Logging, Barela Timber Management, Olguins Sawmill, USFS Gallinas Watershed and Walker Flats management units, 
City of Las Vegas (Bibb Industrial Park, Gallinas Watershed), San Miguel County,
NM JTIP program, Las Vegas Courts Youth Program, the Las Vegas Youth Build Program, Community Transitional Housing Program, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Program, Forest Restoration Institute, NMHU School of Forestry, ViDA- Village Development of America. Any and all harvesters/operators who desire to reduce the cost per acre of thinning on Federal lands by finding a valuable outlet for trees in the 7-12” diameter class. 

CAPACITY BUILDING IN FLOORING FROM SMALL DIAMETER TIMBER

* The Need:
Forest management sales of all sorts and the Gallinas Watershed in the Santa Fe National Forest in particular suffer from an intrinsic deficiency which is a lack of viable market for fiber produced from the sale. Old Wood LLC began producing flooring from material harvested from the Viveash Fire in 2001 and has developed a successful market for Douglas Fir and Pine flooring produced from salvage type material. The flooring market is extensive and has the ability to absorb large amounts of material from this and other sales. Improvements in small diameter timber utilization in speed and final processing will allow money to be added to the equation which in turn will benefit the land manager, harvesters and our community at large. This higher pay scale will help reduce overall cost per acre on this and many other jobs. Reduced costs will allow better treatment options which will in turn help in all aspects of forest and stand management such as return of fire, multi-age, varied size, old growth retained, re-seeding, and the like. 
The community-at-large benefits in a depressed area when a respected local enterprise is able to create sustainable, well paying and significant jobs which are directly linked to a local harvest. A diverse group of stakeholders including tribes, educational institutions, neighborhood developers, harvesters and others will participate in all functional, monitoring and community development aspects. The augmentation of flooring production from small diameter timber has the potential for widespread application in the West and will have immediate and visible impact on our local economy and on the Gallinas effort in particular.

*The History:
Many projects have attempted to bring value to small diameter timber which need not be mentioned here but few have the potential for a high level of value added along with significant volumes. A medium sized flooring/planing mill has impacts up and down both sides of the ‘model’. Flooring adds sufficient value to smaller Douglas Fir, White Fir,(Abies Concolor ) and Pine. It becomes a viable product with the potential for great returns to land management. Value in the woods equals improved operations. Value in manufacturing equals higher paying jobs. All this equals beneficial impacts to the environment, society as a whole and our community in particular via management of our watershed.
After the Viveash Fire, on the Viveash Ranch near Pecos NM ,the small flooring operation at the Old Wood LLC family sawmill significantly enabled our transition and continued existence as well as being the reason for our move to Las Vegas, NM.
Post fire clean-up on the ranch was and continues to be paid for by revenues generated from our operation. 
It remains our belief that increasing speed and quality in small diameter timber utilized in flooring and other applications can be the literal salvation of our forests. The watersheds of Northern NM have required large infusions of Federal funding and the existence of programs such as CFRP and the FPL Woody Bio-mass grants prove the necessity of projects such as this one which brings bottom line viability to the woods, our community and our employees thereby bringing closer the day when the connection between good forestry and the federal purse strings are severed.
Old Wood LLC has a business plan and model which continue to evolve in industry leading ways including a #1 Google, MSN and Yahoo ranked website: www.douglasfirfloors.com This ranking is not paid for but is what is termed a Natural Search Criteria Selection which honors us by imputing top commercial status but perhaps more importantly a significant educational component which is required to reach #1.
Our public presence and community activities include David Old’s speaking at various conferences such as this years CFRP meeting and a presentation which will be given in April of ’07 in Denver at the National Wood Flooring Association’s convention. Another more grass roots effort at energizing good forestry will be a planned presentation at a Sustainable Neighborhoods conference in Santa Fe also in April of ’07. Old Wood’s Las Vegas plant frequently hosts students from Highlands University, Luna Votech and we have numerous part-time employees who are full time students in Forestry and Business at Highlands. Our work force includes a high percentage of parolees, single mothers and others who might not find other safe, sustainable positions in our area. We hope to continue this trend with jobs created by this grant.
The market for floors produced from watershed and other at-risk forests, in cooperation with our many partners has the potential to create a significant market which will in turn reap large rewards for our forest managers, industries and the communities which rely on them. We believe that this project can and will evolve into a trend setting market segment with really excellent benefits accruing to our region and beyond. 
The history is solid and the future is extremely positive!

*Project Coordinators:
Old Wood LLC and David J. Old. An established flooring manufacturer and marketing enterprise whose desire to see small diameter trees effectively utilized and local forests well managed has led to a long term commitment to this effort. Proprietary design and process are creating an industry-segment leading effort. Integration of at risk forest harvested product will bring new market dynamics which will in turn help to energize our forest and community efforts at doing a great job in the woods.
Our extensive list of collaborators will participate at various levels and in many ways.
Jemez Pueblo and Olguins Sawmill: We currently purchase significant amounts of canted material produced from Olguins FPL granted Scragmill. This relationship will continue. We intend to develop a similar relationship with Jemez Pueblo. Jan Jay Moolenijzer is our contact with Jemez and Dan Barrone is at Olguins.
Dennis Duran, Ralph Barela, Pat Griego and others are expected to provide material from the Gallinas Watershed thinning job. At time of writing, the actual harvester(s) are not known but we fully intend to participate and our intention is to be high-bidder on material as it becomes available. The respective owners and operators are our contacts.
The Forest Restoration Institute has cooperated in concept development, grant writing guidance and product ideas and development as well as funding for NM FIA and Las Vegas Wood Cluster meetings and development which have helped lead us down the road we are currently on. Dr. Ken Smith

NMHU School of Forestry: Assistance with our Wood Cluster efforts in the past have also helped steer our course and students who have helped to formulate and guide this effort in day to day business and the development of this grant request and the programs course. The School has agreed to sit on our Monitoring and Steering Board for the program should we receive this grant and will be invited to perform a similar function as we proceed with or without the grant. The same is true for the Forest Restoration Institute. Dr. David Hacker is our contact at NMHU.
The Forest Guild: They will help monitor and oversee our project vis a vis our attempt to quantify the positive and beneficial contribution a healthy industry can make to on-the-ground forestry. As funded participants they will seek to help us assign actual value amounts and volumes useable on future federal sales and elsewhere. We believe this will greatly assist the USFS in planning for the future. Naomi Engelman is our contact.
USFS Santa Fe National Forest: The Gallinas watershed thinning job will take place over the coming years and we look forward to an integral and cooperative working relationship with our District Ranger and his Staff as we build working relations with the actual thinning contractors, community activists and others involved in this effort.
Some material has been derived from the Walker Flats sale and more is hoped for 
Olguins Sammill is processing cants for us from the Capulin and Red Mesa projects. Ranger Joe Reddan is our primary contact.
City of Las Vegas: Without the cooperation of the City of Las Vegas and the Economic Development Committee, Old Wood would not exist in it’s present form!
The City has continued to collaborate and have extended an in-kind use of land adjacent to Old Wood’s facility in the Bibb Industrial Park for material storage and future expansion. Fire wood will be made available, free of charge to the citizens of Las Vegas as has always been our practice but we hope to expand the program with the City’s help.
Mr. Henry Sanchez, Mayor, John Avila City Manager and Elmer Martinez Public Works Director are our contacts and counselors.
San Miguel County: Again, without their assistance we would not be where we are and the County’s direction, knowledgeable guidance and future collaboration will be critical to our success in this effort. Mr. Les Montoya , the County Manager is our contact.
San Miguel County Detention Center: David Old is on the board of a program aimed at re-integration of prisoners to the work force. This is a developing effort but we hope to be able to train inmates in the art of pre-finishing floors which is essentially high level finishing work. Warden Patrick Snedecker is our contact here.
NM JTIP Job Training Incentive Program has funded us for job training in the past and with funding from CFRP we intend to hire additional high paying positions in collaboration with the JTIP board and staff. Cindy Evans is our contact here.
NM MEP Manufacturing Extension Partnership has trained many of our staff and continues to cooperate closely in the development of practices, procedures and actual manufacturing process and will continue to do so as we move towards making floors from small diameter trees a reality. Ron Burke is our contact.
Beyond Suburbia/Village Development of America LLC: We have recently agreed to collaborate via time and in-kind donations to assist in this effort which is a wonderful attempt to re-build communities around sustainable neighborhoods with social and economic integration. We feel the Wildland Urban Interface and it’s wood production is a match made in heaven for this effort. They will be cooperating with us as we try to reach the socially and environmentally conscious builders of our area and around the country with the message that healthy forests need well executed forestry, which cannot happen without buy-in from the building and planning community. Wood is for building.
Mr. Brian Skeele is our contact here.
The Las Vegas Water Board: This citizens activist group will oversee actual data and with their particular interest in the Gallinas Watershed they bring a strong oversight component to our group which includes scientific and social aspects. Another strong function will be that of community education which will occur via Mr. Splendoria’s regular radio broadcast on KNMX in Las Vegas. Mr. Frank Splendoria is our contact.

Objectives: 
Our objective is to create a value added manufacturing center capable of processing large amounts of small diameter timber from the Gallinas Watershed and subsequent public sales. By making this into flooring and other high value products we believe we can add value to our community, our forest and our enterprise.
We desire to be a ‘poster child’ operation to which the CFRP, USFS and others can point to as having spent the money wisely and producing measurable, finite results. 
Old Wood LLC will be available anytime for demonstrations, speaking, training and counseling with others interested in these applications.
We are requesting funding for:
*Three new dry kilns totaling approximately 45,000 board feet of 1x material. 
*Wood waste fired /multi-fuel furnace(s) to heat the kilns.
*Micro-scrag sawmill to allow us to rapidly cant approximately 8,000 BF per day from small diameter trees for processing with our existing four head re-saw.
*Pre-finishing line for high speed sanding, staining and sealing of custom flooring.
*Connective machinery such as roll-case, conveyor, cut-up saw(s) and automated banding machinery for packaging flooring.

Our goal is to achieve speed and process which must take place in order for us to be able to successfully incorporate and utilize small diameter trees in the 8-14” DBH range into our flooring line. We currently average an output of 20,000 feet per month with peaks of as much as 50,000 in one month utilizing material with a minimum top diameter of 10”.
To be able to move our Line of Marginality (see appendix A) to the left to include smaller trees as small as 6” tops, we must effect a significant leap in speed and production capacity which this grant will allow. 
We believe the increased speed and capacity from this expansion will allow us to profitably utilize trees as small as 6” tops on a 12’ log. Average yields from trees as small as 8” tops should be self supporting while some smaller trees would be ‘carried’ by the larger material. 
We have already demonstrated and SOLD many thousands of feet of flooring from suppressed growth timber and in fact in many cases it has yielded superior quality flooring!
We plan to utilize, measure, quantify and value a minimum of five, five thousand board foot units of small diameter trees. With batches combining varying amounts of small to medium trees we will derive actual costs, production yields and dollar amounts for flooring derived from suppressed growth trees from the Gallinas Watershed, west of Las Vegas NM in San Miguel County, as well as some material from the Walker Flats job in Mora County, the Capulin and Red Mesa projects. 
Monitoring will take place via quarterly updates to all monitoring partners as well as an annual meeting at our facility. A final report will be compiled with the intention of providing actual volumetric, dollar value per unit as well as commentary on difficulties encountered in our project.
Partners who benefit directly will include USFS and Tribal land managers who we believe will greatly benefit in this and future sales in knowing that significantly higher prices were paid for material from their sale. In the case of the Gallinas Watershed this impact will be demonstrated in succeeding years as our process comes on line and bidders for acreage to be treated realize there is cash value in many thousands of feet of material which might otherwise be slashed, fire-wooded or otherwise totally under-utilized.
Harvesters will simply be able to offer more service for less to the USFS as they are able to realize profit from materials harvested rather than simple ‘haul off’ or lop down disposal.
The City of Las Vegas including the Mayor and City Managers Office look forward with pride to being involved in this facet of the harvest of their own watershed. We have talked about this cooperation for years now and both parties look forward to real results.
Jobs will be created with longevity and higher than average pay scale. These will include kiln operator(s), yard operator, scrag mill operator and additional flooring process personnel. We estimate three jobs in year one, two more in year two and by year three an additional 6-10 jobs will have been created. These jobs will not be boom or bust but rather have longevity and pay above our communities average. The NM Job Training Incentive Program will be involved in assisted training of some of these positions. In the case of a scrag mill operator, they would be paying as much as 60% of the operators wages for up to six months of training in a supervised regime. Similar conditions would exist for Kiln Operator and some other advanced positions.
Our monitoring partners including both NMHU Forestry and the Forest Restoration Institute along with the Forest Guild, who will follow our data which will include tracking of five, 5000 square foot units of 9” average material, 5000 sf units with 11’ average material and the weighted incorporation of smaller diameter material once the scrag mill comes on line.We will arrive at a representative sampling unit of measure and complete volumes sufficient to produce viable, reproduceable and empirical evidence.
In the interim and going forward we will be purchasing canted material from Olguins Sawmill as well as Barela Timber which will come from Public sales in the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests.
Local Capacity will be built at the Harvesting level as local operators realize higher profits and yields and are subsequently financially able to improve their operations which will again in turn yield still better results. 
Hauling will need to improve but we believe the market will respond rapidly to increased demand resulting in a cottage industry style growth of cooperative operators.
A Benign Cycle of job creation and training will commence in our own watershed and will benefit San Miguel and Mora Counties as well as elsewhere.
The significant improvement in pay scale for small diameter trees will allow forest managers to greatly lower per acre treatment costs which in turn will allow for more aggressive/better accomplished work plans resulting in reduction of future high intensity fires and allowing the re-introduction of fire where appropriate.
Community involvement via educational institutions, local government, media outreach via radio and newspaper, along with local job training personnel creates a very strong industry/community package. The cooperation and inclusion of water and community activists will allow us to build bridges among the many parties involved in today's complex societal milieu and which will produce valid and useable data for future projects which in turn should help create a copiable model for value added utilization of smaller trees around the West.
We will make and sell many thousands of feet of excellent flooring for homes, resorts, offices and folks in general across the USA. This is good publicity and good business for all concerned and we welcome outside involvement with open arms.

Work Plan, Product and Outcomes:
Year One: Dry kiln construction at our location in the Bibb Industrial Park, Las Vegas. 
Site prep will be done as in-kind by Old Wood and will include a 100’ long block retaining wall to berm the kilns into the hillside for additional insulation. 
Old Wood personnel will fabricate and erect two dry kilns within two months of grant inception. Two all new kilns will be fabricated on conventional lines using the Old Wood Mk 4 Modular kiln system which allows for quick set-up and break down using our patent pending stressed skin panels. These will be high temp (150 degree plus), high flow, condenserized, direct exchange and or hydronic type kilns. Temperature controls will be Web Server Based/ Linux controlled operating on a proprietarily developed system working with Mr. John McClelland a retired Dell Computer technician.
Our new scrap/sawdust fired furnace will be installed in this time frame as well.
This will be multi-fuel but primarily will operate on shop waste. This will be an instant on, gassifying, system with very low smoke and extremely low emissions which will meet all EPA requirements. We intend to be good neighbors! 
Connections for future kiln expansion will be ‘stubbed out’.
Our existing OW Mk III kiln units of 5000 foot capacity each will be re-located outside in the fourth quarter of year on or the first quarter of year two. They will be erected once the new units are up and running to allow for functionality during the transition. This will take approximately one week due to the modular design. 
Kiln capacity will be 26,000 feet per charge and two to three charges will be possible per month for 50-75,000 foot per month possible. Kiln construction should be complete within four months. Kiln construction will employ four persons and two new positions will open with the kilns on-line for operator and assistant.
Within six months of grant inception, our cut up line will treble in size with the addition of two new high speed cut-up saw or ‘jump-saw’. This is a simple addition but will require minimal wiring to our excellent industrial three phase system which allows for rapid change overs.
This should be completed and the line producing at a much higher rate within the first half of year one..
Two automated strapping machines will match the added production from the chop out line and again is a very simple addition completed in one day.
Old Wood LLC will be providing purpose built tables and sorting areas.
Once the kilns have moved outside from their present indoor location we will regain 2000 feet of useable space which will be utilized in Year Two for pre-finishing.
Quarterly updates will go out to our monitoring partners. The Water Board and Old Wood LLC will sponsor at least one radio program and one newspaper ad.
We plan to have our in-shop meeting of all our collaborators near the end of year one hopefully to coincide with the CFRP meeting which we will of course be attending. Mileage costs for our partners will be provided for the yearly meeting.
Flooring plant operations will continue uninterrupted and the simple outcome is that our backlog will be eliminated or reduced on completion of these kilns. The chop-out line will have the same effect. Orders will be taken for new Small Tree tm floors!
Small trees will be coming into our yard as soon as the Gallinas Sale comes on-line which will begin to be sorted and processed. Metrics will commence as soon as we have small tree supplies on hand in at least 5000 sf quantities. We will demonstrate before and after costs/time to produce and final value.

YEAR TWO: A Micro Scrag mill will be set up in the first quarter. 
Pre-finishing line will be initiated simultaneously to be developed within the following year. A multi-step, low VOC process will be utilized for all our floors using a proprietary organic oil blend with Citrus solvents.
Monitoring will continue as in Year One with quarterly reports and an annual meeting.

YEAR THREE: We build the future of small tree floors as we manufacture and integrate our pre-finished line of floors made and marketed exlusively from Small Trees. Our proprietary method and system should well create a true mass market for small diameter tree flooring.

Monitoring will conclude after final meeting in year three with publication of results for all parties use to follow by end of Year Three. 

MONITORING, STEERING AND OVERSIGHT GROUP
We have invited and received participation from:
The Forest Guild.                                          Contact: Naomi Engleman
Forest Restoration Institute NMHU                Contact: Dr. Ken Smith
School of Forestry NMHU                            Contact: Dr. David Hacker
NM EDD Job Training Incentive Program      Contact: Cindy Evans
San Miguel Corrections                                  Contact: Warden Patrick Snedecker
Village Development of America                     Contact: Brian Skeele

The participation of these groups will include but not be limited to monitoring of all data produced from the increased use and quality added to small diameter timber as well as scientific and social aspects of our program. 
Significant aspects to be quantified, qualified and reviewed will include:
*Actual yields from volume utilization of small diameter timber in flooring.
This will be based on five 5,000 BF units, with total volumes to run over 50,000 per year of the project or more. Comparison between a given ‘Purchase Metric’ i.e. board foot, lineal foot, weight etc. will be compared to actual square foot production of flooring. This will assist in developing rational pay-scales for smaller wood which currently are not available for this application. This result will be directly related to what can be paid ‘in the woods’ for material which will directly impact cost per acre of the Gallinas and future thinning projects. 
* We will assign an actual dollar value to the effect of this effort on actual forest work such as thinning, level of brush and duff reduction possible on a given plot and so on. “X amount of $’s were added back into the effort.”
A ‘ballpark’ market value number assigned to smaller ‘sticks’ will be of great use to forest managers in our region. 
Old Wood’s intention is to show in real terms that the infusion of value to small diameter timber can reduce costs and improve results in useable terms in real-world forest management.

Labor and Social impacts. We believe that a strong connection exists between viable, above average pay scale for timber and jobs in our industry and the forest itself.
We hope to be able to present this information in a format which will be of assistance to future industry (forest and in-plant) development. The “Gallinas flooring numbers show that…..” would be a good result.
Additionally, we have been in discussion for some time with the San Miguel Corrections Facility regarding training and work for inmates at that facility in the area of floor pre-finishing and processing. We look forward to being able to implement an action plan which will include numerous soon-to-be-released inmates in training and paid work which will allow remuneration to society and re-integration to society with the strong potential for significant employment upon their release. 
Community development and it’s current, future and possible connections to the forest will be overseen by Village Development of America.
Old Wood and it’s employees will enthusiastically welcome visitors, program managers and interested parties to our facility in Las Vegas as we always have.
It is our sincere desire to move Western forestry forward through and by our participation in this CFRP program.

Thank you for your consideration and time.
I sincerely appreciate all your efforts and hope and believe we can effect a bright new future for our woods and the folks who live in them.

David J. Old
(888) 545-9663
djold@earthlink.net
www.douglasfirfloors.com
425 Bibb Industrial 
Las Vegas NM 87701

BACK TO THE TOP

4.  CFRP Multi-Party Monitoring Plan

OLD WOOD LLC: CFRP PROPOSAL 2007. 
SPEED AND VALUE ADDED PRODUCTION OF FLOORING FROM SMALL DIAMETER TIMBER

MONITORING, STEERING AND OVERSIGHT GROUP
We have invited and received participation from:
The Forest Guild............................................Contact: Naomi Engleman
Forest Restoration Institute NMHU ...............Contact: Dr. Ken Smith
School of Forestry NMHU............................Contact: Dr. David Hacker
NM EDD Job Training Incentive Program......Contact: Cindy Evans
San Miguel Corrections................................. Contact: Warden Patrick Snedecker

The participation of these groups will include but not be limited to monitoring of all data produced from the increased use and quality added to small diameter timber as well as scientific and social aspects of our program. 
Significant aspects to be quantified, qualified and reviewed will include:
*Actual yields from volume utilization of small diameter timber in flooring.
This will be based on 5,000 BF units, with total volumes to run over 50,000 per year of the project or more. Comparison between a given ‘Purchase Metric’ i.e. board foot, lineal foot, weight etc. will be compared to actual square foot production of flooring. This will assist in developing rational pay-scales for smaller wood which currently are not available for this application. This result will be directly related to what can be paid ‘in the woods’ for material which will directly impact cost per acre of the Gallinas and other thinning projects. 
We hope to quantify and qualify in concrete terms the effect of the impact of this effort on actual forest work such as thinning, level of brush and duff reduction possible on a given plot and so on. 
A ‘ballpark’ market value number assigned to smaller ‘sticks’ will be of great use to forest managers in our region. 
Old Wood’s intention is to show in real terms that the infusion of value to small diameter timber can reduce costs and improve results in useable and understandable terms in real-world forest management.

Labor and Social impacts. We believe that a strong connection exists between viable, above average pay scale for timber and jobs in our industry and the forest itself.
We hope to be able to present this information in a useable format which will be of assistance to future industry (forest and in-plant) development. 
This will be overseen in brief by the forest related entities and more specifically by the JTIP program who also have oversight via their Board supervised review of our job training candidates. (See body of Grant for detail.)
Additionally, we have been in discussion for some time with the San Miguel Corrections Facility regarding training and work for inmates at that facility in the area of floor pre-finishing and processing. We look forward to being able to implement an action plan which will include numerous soon-to-be-released inmates in training and paid work which will allow remuneration to society and re-integration to society with the strong potential for significant employment upon their release. 
We look for oversight, assistance and monitoring from the San Miguel Corrections Dept. in any such efforts.

Sincerely,

David J. Old
(888) 545-9663 
djold@earthlink.net 
www.douglasfirfloors.com
425 DeBibb Industrial 
Las Vegas NM 87701

BACK TO THE TOP