just curious how long forum has been around?

semologger · January 12, 2008, 12:20:15 PM

who came up with the idea? it was a great idea

Paul_H · January 12, 2008, 12:25:27 PM

Quote from: Jeff on April 17, 2005, 01:19:53 PM
The forum's roots go back to one day that I still remember quite clearly. It was a week or so before Christmas in 1999.

We had a visitor to the sawmill that day. A landowners whose timber that was cut by a logger that we buy from. He was Irate, he thought he was being taken to the cleaners and the guy was not paying for what he hauled. His information had come from another logger that said "you better watch that guy". The land owner was looking for gate receipts and information to prove that more wood had been taken then paid for. I was not part of the conversation but stood silently listening.

The logger that he was questioning's credentials are impeccable. That year he had EARNED the logger of the year award from the Michigan Association of Timbermen. He was know by us and others as probably the number one recommendation to someone wishing to have their timber harvested. The Landowner was calmed down and set straight. He was asked who it was that told him to "watch this guy". He told us and we all laughed. The guy doing the warning was what we considered the number one timber pimp (thief) that we knew.

Anyways, I came home thinking that day, How does a landowner know? What is to keep him from being taken? Where could he find information?

I sat down at the computer with the premise that I had 40 acres of timber and I wanted to find someone on the internet to help me manage it. I typed in "timber buyer". Guess what I found right a way, and the ONLY thing I found? That same Timber Pimp from our area who had bad mouthed the logger that was out there doing a good job.

I thought then and there, that someone needed to find a way to put good information out there, and somehow I felt that I was the one to do it. At the time I knew no one. My world was that of a head sawyer in a commercial mill. About 4 foot by 4 foot square. I did know of a few organizations and I started calling them, telling them what I aimed to do and how I aimed to do it and that I needed resources for GOOD SOLID information that I could represent to landowners looking for information. To find a way to help educate them on how to manage their timber resources and at the same time protect them. I knew that the internet was probably where the younger people who were beginning to take over the timberlands from their fathers and grandfathers would look first. I knew that someone other then the timber pimps had to be there first.

Anyways, I guess it was a calling. The Timber Buyers Network was born. An informational site aimed at people on the internet looking for a "timber Buyer" or a "Michigan Logger". (try these search terms in any search engine, I am proud to say that I was able to find a way to "be there first".

My idea was to give the landowner the tools to educate themselves, then armed with that information, have a list of companies that had very good reputations to help them out. I also wanted to have some tools for these member companies to communicate, and help each other out. I thought a forum, where they could exchange ideas would be a good thing. So, a forum was created. It was simply a link on the www.timberbuyer.net site. So make a long story short, the forum took a different direction then I originally envisioned, but it was still good. Eventually it was clear that the Forum was much bigger then just a little Michigan thing and deserved to have an identity of its own. So, the Forestry Forum came to be.

Since that day in December 1999, and that evening when I sat down to the computer my little head sawyer world has expanded to take me down many roads.