| Wood Products Businesses Build Skills With Help of
Cooperative Extension and UK Wood Center | |
|
“We have the personnel and expertise to work with established companies, new start-ups, or family-owned businesses who want to vertically integrate.” Carroll
Fackler, UK Wood Utilization Center superintendent
| By Haven Miller
MAYSVILLE, Ky. (August 6, 2003) – When Dan Reeder
started Northern Kentucky Red Cedar in 1991 the business was a small
lumber mill for locally-grown aromatic red cedar. The business began
to grow, and as Reeder added more employees and machinery he felt
the need for some outside support. “We basically started from the log woods and kind
of wanted to move on into the next part of it which is secondary
processing,” he said. “We
bought a couple of pieces of equipment and really didn’t know what
to do to make the investment start working for us.” John Cotton with the Kentucky Department of
Agriculture told Reeder he should contact Bobby Ammerman, an
Extension associate with the University of Kentucky College of
Agriculture’s department of forestry.
In conjunction with UK’s Wood Utilization Center near
Jackson, Ammerman offers training to companies that process or
manufacture secondary wood products. “I gave him some opinions and advice on
equipment, and then with the training programs we have at the Wood
Center we trained Dan and some of his employees to help them get
started,” said Ammerman. After the training Reeder bought a new wood moulder
and expanded further. He
now has 10 employees producing aromatic red cedar squares and
hangers for drawers and closets.
He’s shipping to several countries, including Germany and
Canada. “This is a unique enterprise,” said Ammerman.
“Dan is taking these trees that Reeder and his company are among several Kentucky
wood businesses that are capitalizing on the training and other
services offered free or at minimal cost by UK’s Wood Utilization
Center. “We work with businesses that are just an idea
all the way up to businesses of three- or four-hundred employees,
“ said Carroll Fackler, wood utilization center superintendent.
“We have the personnel and expertise to work with established
companies, new start-ups, or family-owned businesses who want to
vertically integrate.” The wood center’s location in Breathitt County
has made it convenient for clients in the central and eastern parts
of the state. “We only had a three-hour drive to Jackson,
compared to a 12-hour drive to the next closest place we could take
similar training, so it saved us money in terms of being close to
home and having a minimum amount of down time,” said Kevin Pierce,
moulder operator with Quality Woodworks of Somerset, Ky.
Pierce said the small class size and ability to get questions
fully answered made the training ideal for his company’s needs. For information on training opportunities at UK’s
Wood Utilization Center – including the August 21 workshop on
operating a surfacer with a spiral helix cutter head – contact
Carroll Fackler, 606-666-2438, ext. 235, or Bobby Ammerman at ext.
256. Sources: Carroll Fackler, 606-666-2438, ext. 235; Bobby Ammerman, 606-666-2438, ext. 256. Return to Main News page. |