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Note: This issue is no longer available for purchase. "Engineered Wood: Improving on Nature"
The significance of the engineered wood story has been largely overlooked by a daily press that can't seem to wean itself from the exaggerated claims of environmentalists who insist technology - not the collapse of the federal timber sale program - is to blame for the loss of thousands timber industry jobs.
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Technological advancements are often blamed for job losses in the once labor intensive sawmilling industry. But such advancements, and the concisely engineered products they've spawned, (structural wood panels, glued laminated timbers, structural composite lumber and prefabricated wood I-joists) have created at least as many jobs as earlier labor saving technologies eliminated. Moreover, these technologies - which utilize small diameter trees harvested mainly from private land - make old growth conservation an achievable goal.