Reprinted from Timber Processing,
October, 2004. Volume 29, Number 8

Yankee Know How by Matt Tripp

Steeped in tradition, Massachusetts sawmill focuses on education.

Cowls Sawmill, NORTH AMHERST, Mass.

For many sawmill owners, their business is a family one, handed down from generation to generation. The oldest of these mills started out of necessity-a town was going up and people needed lumber for their homes, churches and courthouses.

For Evan and Cinda Jones, ninth generation owners of Cowls Lumber, that journey began not only with the growth of a town, but with the expansion of the British Empire into the American colonies.

Today, Cowls Lumber produces 3MMBF of red oak, white oak, white pine and hemlock post and beam timbers and lumber at its sawmill here. For timbers, Cowls can cut and plane a 16x24 in. beam up to 32 ft. in length. Lumber and boards are sized anywhere from 4-16 in. wide and up to 16 ft. long.

"Our goal is to have lumber as much a byproduct as bark and chips and sawdust are," Cinda Jones says. "Every log we cut, we'd like to have a specific order for a post or beam timber."

MILL HISTORY

The mill traces its origins to 1741, when Jonathan Cowls brought his family across the Connecticut River from Hatfield, Mass. to what is now North Amherst. While Cowls' interests were in agriculture, some of the first timberlands owned by the company were purchased then. Those tracts are still cultivated today.

By the 1850s, timber harvesting had become more profitable than farming and Cowls' lumber business began. "At the time, it was cheaper to bring the mill to the logs than it was to bring the logs to the mill," Jones says, "so the preferred method was to process with mini mills directly on site."

The turn of the century saw Cowls acquire most of its present day timberlands, further cementing its place in the forest products industry.

In 1940, Walter Cowls Jones brought the logs to the mill for the first time, opening a stationary sawmill in a slate-roofed building on a farm that had been in the family since the 1740s.

In 1980, Walter's son, Paul, opened a building supply store next door to the sawmill. Originally built to provide a retail outlet for the lumber the sawmill produced, it now supplies local builders with everything else they need. In addition to its retail operation, Cowls wholesales its lumber and also its post and beam timbers if necessary.

"It's just a great success story," says Jones. "That store has done very well and even out performs the sawmill now by far." Evan runs the store with their "Aunt Gert" Como.

FIRE!

On the night of July 18, 2002, disaster struck Cowls Lumber. During a fierce thunderstorm, lightning stuck the sawmill's transformer and sent a surge of electricity through the sawmill, sparking a raging fire.

"The building burned all night long," Jones says. "It took 87 firemen from seven different towns to put it out." Fortunately, all surrounding buildings-including the nearby store-were saved.

Jones says following the fire her family had a hard decision on whether or not to rebuild. "The mill was never a huge moneymaker-in fact, it broke even over time," she says, "but it really served our timberlands and store very well."

In the end, the ability to serve the Northeast with a niche product that neither the area Lowe's nor Home Depot could provide won out.

"It's the specialty manufacturing that sets us apart," Jones says.

When the decision was made to rebuild, the family scoured auctions across the country to find used equipment, despite being advised to buy new for warranty purposes.

"Being frugal Yankees who work hard," Jones says, "we thought if we just put a lot of extra effort into it and found reasonable prices at auctions and rebuilt it for our purposes, we'd save money and be better off."

Jones says that idea hasn't quite worked out as planned. "When things break down-and they do occasionally-we're stuck," she says. "We've had some issues with the used and rebuilt equipment."

Part of the challenge in rebuilding, in Jones' view, is with how the company insured its property. "At the time, we had actual cost insurance on our facilities and equipment," she says. "So we were reimbursed for an 1830s era shack and a bunch of old equipment. But we had to rebuild to current codes-sprinkler systems, the works. We also bought all of this equipment rebuilt to accommodate a 32 foot log in the debarker and carriage. We ended up spending three times what the insurance company gave us."

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Despite the insurance setback, a major benefit has emerged from the decision to remain in the sawmill business: an observation deck where clients, customers and townspeople can come in and learn how the company positively impacts not only the town, but also the environment.

"We're somewhat unusual in that we're located in a relatively urban area," Jones says. "Amherst is home to five colleges, so naturally there's a big focus on education and a lot of concern about the environment. We have a great story to tell about sustainable management and wood utilization."

Jones says the observation deck was installed after the company received repeated requests for tours to explain what it is Cowls actually does. "We figured this was an easy way to let people give themselves a tour and learn about the good work we do in the woods and the mill," she says.

Customers begin by reading a series of interpretive panels at the base of the deck detailing the long history of the company and how it has evolved over nine generations. These panels also explain the concept of sustainable forestry, the mill's tree farm certification program and about the kind of products Cowls manufactures.

The tour then moves up to the observation deck, giving customers a bird's eye view of the entire operation. As they look left, visitors see a loader bringing logs to the outside log deck and the debarker, which sends the logs to the sawyer, who is cutting the logs right in front of the deck. As the edger sends the timbers and lumber straight out, tour members watch a loader take them away to be end trimmed.

There are 13 panels illustrating Cowls' manufacturing process on the observation deck, allowing visitors to understand mill flow even if an employee isn't around to explain the process. Cowls also color-coded the machinery to make it that much easier to follow the pieces through the mill.

"Now all you have to look for is the 'yellow debarker' or the 'green saw' or the 'red edger' or the 'blue trimmer,'" Jones says.

TIMBERLANDS

Approximately 50% of the logs Cowls uses come off its own timberland, which the company has been managing from 10 to 260 years, depending on the tract.

Company lands are certified for sustainability through the American Forest Foundation's Tree Farm System certification program. "This allows us to assure wildlife, water and timber will be around for generations to come," Jones says. "It's pretty obvious we practice sustainable forestry, since our forests are this healthy after 260 years of continuous management."

To accomplish this mission, Jones says Cowls only selectively harvests and never clear-cuts. "We'll have hikers come through our land and they won't even notice there have been recent harvests," she says.

According to Chief Forester Shane Bajnoci, the majority of company-owned land is within 50 miles, but he will purchase logs up to 100 miles away. "We've purchased a lot from Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire and Vermont," he says. "When those numbers work, we're happy to try and make arrangement to get the quality wood we need."

Bajnoci says Cowls is particular on quality, noting that all logs the company uses must meet a particular structural grade. "Hemlock is a real challenge," he says, "in that it tends to have a lot of shake, which is a problem when you're making timbers."

All of Cowls' timberlands fall under Massachusetts Chapter 61, which is the 10-year management plan for landowners who want to keep their property in timber and not develop it. Assisting Bajnoci is forestry technician Doug Hutcheson.

One of Cowls' largest outside suppliers is Massachusetts itself. "We'll usually buy from state lands like around the Quabbin Reservoir," Jones says, "although we're always on the lookout for new sources of timber from state and private suppliers."

Logging is handled entirely by independent contractor crews, as is trucking. Traditionally, Cowls contractors have bucked treelength logs at the landing. "They still do that to some extent today," Jones says, "but because we have a longer log capacity, we ask loggers to keep logs as long as possible in order to keep our length options open."

For oak logs, minimum top diameter is 13 in. for logs 10 ft. to 32 ft., with a premium paid for the longer lengths. Hemlock specs are a 10 in. minimum top (12 in. on logs 18 ft. and longer) for logs 8 ft. to 32 ft.

OPERATIONS

Log handling in the four acre log yard is done by an International 510 and a Case 586D, with a John Deere 544G forklift available as backup.

"We try to keep a good reserve of all lengths and species," Jones says. "The longer lengths are our specialty and they're pretty hard to get, so we try to keep as many in reserve as possible."

Logs are first fed into an HMC rosserhead debarker. Once debarked, they are sent to the HMC carriage feeding a 54 in. circular saw, a system that also includes a 3 ft. top saw. Blades are Simonds, 9/32 kerf.

Headrig output is sent to a Cornell edger and then to an Irvington drop saw trimmer. Lumber handling is performed by Mellott transfer chains and Reckart roll cases.

Precision supplied a 56 in. chipper. Byproduct such as bark and wood chips is sold to a local contractor who grinds and re-colors the end product for mulch. Wood chips are also sold to area paper companies.

The planer mill features a Newman M68 planer with a Stetson-Ross timber sizer. "It will plane four sides of a timber at once, up to 16x24 in.," says Mill Manager Verne Williams.

Hardwood lumber is wholesaled green and rough, Williams says. "We move it as fast as we can cut it."

White pine is air dried to a target moisture content of 12%-14%, which, depending on the time of year, can vary in drying time. "In the spring and fall when the humidity is low," Williams says, "that's usually eight to 10 weeks. Summertime takes closer to 12 weeks. Of course during the winter, it doesn't dry much at all."

Due to blue stain issues, Cowls does not saw pine during the summer months. "In June, the weather starts getting warmer and more humid, so we put our emphasis on hemlock and oak," says Bajnoci. "This year, there seems to be a lot of interest in the hemlock timber frames. Not so much the oak."

Inventory is controlled with the Logical Systems computer system. "We use that for everything," Williams says. "Logs, lumber, log scaling, invoicing, everything."

SAFETY

Office Manager Steve Matusewicz is the point man for coordinating all safety related activities. Every six months, the company holds a mandatory safety meeting where everyone will go through recurrent training on "lock out, tag out" procedures for each piece of equipment, forklift operation and hot work permits for whenever anyone is welding.

Cowls' insurance underwriter, AIM Mutual, also comes in every year for its annual walk-through and goes over the lock out/tag out procedures and hazardous materials procedures.

"We've won several awards from NELMA (Northeastern Lumber Manufacturers Assn.) for no lost time accidents and no injuries," Matusewicz says. "In the 10 years I've been here, we haven't had a serious injury. I think we have a good program in place."

DEDICATION

A staff of 14 works in both the sawmill and planing mill. In addition to Jones, Williams, Bajnoci and Matusewicz, the supervisory staff includes sawmill foreman Lou Kozloski, sawyer Eric Baker and his cousin Brenton Baker, planer mill boss. "They all do an amazing job and a great deal of impressive work," Jones says.

Employee retention isn't a problem at Cowls, either. "We just recognized one employee, Lew Taylor, Sr., for 45 years of service," Jones says, "and several 20-year employees. Most of our employees have been here between five and 10 years."

Jones says the company encourages employees to learn two or three different positions and move up. "When people learn how to grade lumber, they get a pay raise, which opens them up to more opportunities," she says.

"Russ Cranshaw, the highest ranking person on the store side, started out stacking lumber 20 years ago in the sawmill," Jones says. "He just worked his way up through the company and is now running that division."

As a company, Cowls is dedicated to professional development. The company maintains memberships in NELMA, Northeastern Retail Lumber Assn., Northeastern Logger's Assn., and National Hardwood Lumber Assn.

It is this dedication to the local area that Jones hopes will keep the people of the Pioneer Valley, Amherst and Northampton as customers in the face of invasion by the big box chains.

"We hope people will see us as a family member or neighbor," Jones says. "They've been into our facility and seen what we do and feel they understand us."