by GORDON HOEKSTRA

It started with the construction of a second finger-joint lumber plant in Prince George in the fall of 2003.  The plant sits across the road from Brink’s first operations in the CN industrial site.  Brink uses only finger jointers manufactured originally by the Industrial Wood Working Machine Co. Inc. of Garland, Texas and refitted by Bonfield Industrial Services Inc. in Central Point, Oregon.  Brink purchases all his short-block rippers from a Prince George-based company, Deltech Industries Inc.  The remainder of the finger-joint plant was done in house by Brink’s own workforce.  The plant was completed and started production in the spring of 2004.  Before Christmas of 2003, Brink completed the buyout of Pleasant Valley Remanufacturing in Houston, 300 kilometers west of Prince George.  The wood blocks produced by Pleasant Valley (formerly owned by U.S.-based Leggett Wood) are the feed material for the finger-joint process.  Finger-joint lumber is produced by gluing short pieces of wood together in a top-strength end joint to produce mainly two-by-fours and two-by-sixes.  Even while production was being ramped up at the second finger-joint plant, Brink Forest Products was gearing up for more growth.  Brink is building a third finger-joint plant adjacent to the second one.  It will be a mirror image of the second plant to create efficiencies in wood flow.  Machinery was already being delivered for the third plant this summer, and Brink expects to start production by mid-October.  The third plant will bring his annual production capacity at his lumber remanufacturing and finger-joint plants to 130 million board feet.  Other plans on the books include ramping up production at the Pleasant Valley Plant and installing a fourth finger-joint line there.  That would bring production up to 180 million board feet.

Brink has also applied to the provincial government to utilize excess mountain pine beetle-killed timber that the Ministry of Forests hopes to put up for bid by early this fall.  The forest service has determined there will be at least 40 million cubic metres of timber, nearly 900,000 logging truckloads, that cannot be handled by the existing sawmilling capacity in north and central B.C. in the next decade.  B.C. junior forest minister Roger Harris’ hope is to foster proposals that find new uses for the beetle-killed timber.  The nearly 60 proposal ideas the province has received so far include the manufacture of oriented strand board, wood pellets, log homes, electricity and methanol.  Brink didn’t want to reveal too many details of his proposal but said he’s seeking one million cubic metres annually for a 10-year stretch.  He said the proposal would complement and enhance what they already do, and could lead to the startup of a primary sawmill.

Brink sees a real need for more lumber remanufacturing capacity in the Northern Interior, as there will be more and more low quality timber and lumber as the beetle timber decays over time.  “In a general sense, how we see it is that for the next 10 to 15 years there will be a lot of wood in different degrees of soundness that’s available for further manufacturing as result of the pine beetle epidemic,” he said.  The company, which was started in 1975, has made forays into the primary sawmilling area in the past, including during the spruce beetle epidemic in the Bowron River Valley in the 80s.  Brink is not content to stop at producing lumber products.  He is also considering the manufacture of pre-fabricated housing components and molding.  He’s aware of the recent announcement by the Port of Prince Rupert to invest $500 million, in a partnership with New Jersey-based Maher Terminals to build a world-class container terminal to tap into the growing trade between Asia and North America.  Containers are ideally suited for the transportation of pre-fabricated building components.

Brink’s $6 million to $8 million investment in the past 18 months has brought benefits to the community as well.  For example, the start up of the second finger-joint plant was significant for Prince George because it created 50 new jobs -- some of the first new jobs in solid wood manufacturing in the better part of a decade.  The primary sawmilling sector has shed hundreds of jobs in the Prince George region in the same period.  The start-up of the third finger-jointing plant will add another 50 jobs before this winter.

Brink’s aggressive expansion push will also continue to position him as a leading finger-joint lumber producer in Canada.  British Columbia has the second largest lumber remanufacturing industry, which includes finger-joint lumber, on the west coast of North America -- with sales of US $900 million.  Brink is among the leading players in that sector.  Interestingly, Brink has undertaken his expansion during a tumultuous period in the forest sector in B.C.  Lumber producers, including those that produce finger-jointed lumber, have faced a punishing 27 per cent tariff to ship to the U.S. for more than two years and a Canadian loonie that has also jumped in value in the past 18 months compared to the U.S. dollar: which hurts the bottom line of lumber producers and remanufacturers.  The B.C. Liberal government also introduced the most sweeping forest policy changes in more than a decade in an effort to create a more market-sensitive industry.  There’s also been a spate of major consolidations with Canfor buying out Slocan for $630 million, West Fraser putting a $1.26-billion deal to take over Weldwood, and most recently Tolko making a $340-million bid for Riverside.

But Brink has been undaunted by these challenges.  “I see opportunity more than ever before,” he said.  Brink stresses that a key to expanding his business has been securing access to raw materials, and creating business relationships that work for both sides.  He recently inked a five-year deal with Canfor, continuing a relationship his company has had with Canfor for the better part of a decade.  Brink has access to all Canfor’s low-grade lumber, as well as the right of first refusal on its trim blocks.  Canfor also markets all the lumber Brink produces under the Canfor wrap.  That relationship now includes the former operations of Slocan.  The new, bigger Canfor has annual capacity of about 5 billion board feet, and primaries usually produce about 15 per cent low grades, noted Brink.  “It becomes a question of where will that low grade be remanufactured.  Will it be here or elsewhere?”  Brink would like to see that happen in the Northern Interior.  “What I’m suggesting is that it’s good for the province, it’s good for the region to have it re-manned in the region,” he said.  “And in fact, I think there should be an expectation of that.”

What is finger-jointed lumber?

Finger-jointed products are manufactured by taking shorter pieces of quality kiln-dried lumber, machining a “finger” profile in each end of the short-length pieces, gluing them and squeezing them together to make a longer piece of lumber.  Although finger-jointing is used in several wood products manufacturing processes including the horizontal joints for glue-lam manufacture, the term finger-jointed lumber applies to dimension lumber only.  John Brink was a pioneer of the manufacturing process in Western Canada in the 1970s.  The major advantages of the product are its straightness and its dimensional stability, according the Canadian Wood Council.  It’s also a very uniform product, which is why finger-jointed studs are a desired commodity in home building and the manufacture of pre-fabricated housing components.  The product now fetches a premium of between 10 to 20 per cent over regular lumber, says Brink.

TEL 250.564.0412	FAX 250.564.0796	EMAIL admin@brink.bc.ca