About Us
Overview
TimberBuySell.com allows users to create, post, and search for information about sales of forest resources and also related transactions. Our website covers core products such as standing timber, logs, forest residue, and mill by-products in the U.S. and Canada.
Sellers' Ads
For landowners, mill owners, forest consultants, loggers, and anyone with forest resources to sell, TimberBuySell.com allows you to post your offering of standing timber, logs, mill residue and forest residue for sale. Buyers can respond to you through an email form or through a phone number you place in your listing. The email form hides your email address from the spam bots.
Buyers' Ads
For procurement officers, manufacturers, and anyone who needs forest resources, TimberBuySell.com allows you to post your request for standing timber, logs, mill residue and forest residue for sale. Sellers can respond to you through an email form or through a phone number you place in your listing. The email form hides your email address from the spam bots.
Two Levels of Ads
Whether buying or selling, you can choose either a 250-word, one-month-long Basic Ad, or a Premium Ad package. The Premium package offers a range of upgraded features, such as the ability to include up to 10,000 characters and up to 10 photos. Premium ads also come with a range of discounts based on length of run and number of individual postings. You can see details here.
Email Alerts
For a monthly fee, you can construct an Email Alert of an offering (or an inquiry) by specifying location, species of wood, and items in other categories. Then, when a seller (or buyer) posts an ad that matches your Alert, TimberBuySell.com notifies you automatically via email.
Membership
User-submitted news items and event notices are completely free to everyone who visits TimberBuySell.com. However if you register, you’ll also have access to featured news stories and articles from TBS.com. In addition, you’ll be able to browse sellers’ and buyers’ listings at no charge — and to conduct free customized searches for listings. It’s up to you to decide if and when you post a listing.
Industry News and Information
TimberBuySell.com allows users free access to constantly updated timber industry information, including events such as trade shows and conferences, timber-related grants, and an archive of news items from the Smallwood Utilization News. Registered members can post news items and events for free.
A Homegrown Online Community
TimberBuySell.com was carefully and thoughtfully constructed by people with a lifetime interest in finding the “highest and best” use for forest resources. In addition, our Board of Directors includes forestry experts from industry, government, and academia. We think the result is a truly useful source of both market information and ideas.
The TimberBuySell.com Story
Like the seeds of a Ponderosa, TimberBuySell.com was brought to life by fire. For most of the twentieth century the U.S. Forest Service suppressed every wildfire it could get to, no matter what the cause. However by the late 1980s, some officials began rethinking that strategy. They made the case that total suppression had led to overgrowth, which in turn fueled catastrophic wildfires. Part of this reassessment was a recognition of the need to thin overgrown stands of small trees in the Wildlands Urban Interface, or WUI.
At about this time agency budgets were being slashed (pardon the expression), so those thinning projects had to somehow pay for themselves. In response, a group of Forest Service employees began to seek ways of using and marketing small diameter logs. One of the leaders of this effort was Dean Graham, who worked for the Forest Products Labs in Madison Wisconsin, and who created that organization’s State & Private Forestry Technology Marketing Unit. Rosalie Cates was a kindred spirit. As the Executive Director of the Montana Community Development Corporation (MCDC) in Missoula, Montana, Rosalie recognized a kind of convergence. Montana had lots of small trees and lots of timber-oriented companies; finding new uses for smallwoods would help both forests and businesses, and at the same time achieve one of MCDC’s main goals: helping businesses in communities throughout the state. Dean and Rosalie combined forces to create the Smallwood Conference, which was first held in Missoula in 1996 and has since become a bi-annual event (most recently taking place in Richmond, VA, in 2006). Meanwhile, the Fires of 2000 brought public attention and a new urgency to the need to thin the WUI.
In 2002, Rosalie hired Craig Rawlings as the MCDC’s Smallwood Enterprise Agent. Craig’s mandate was to help state businesses develop and improve products made from the small diameter trees and forest residue — in other words, to find the “highest and best” use for them. One of Craig’s first projects was an online newsletter, the Smallwood Utilization News (SUN).
Once SUN began publication, a funny thing happened: Buyers and sellers began asking Craig to post notices. For instance, one week he would get a request from a mill owner looking for logs; the next week it might be a landowner with trees looking for buyers or contractors. The results were often immediate and striking. For instance, a state forester for the BLM in Nevada had Craig post a notice for 70,000 tons of chipped juniper. It was purchased immediately by a SUN subscriber, who in turn sold it to a real estate developer — right after getting an initial offer from a power plant! Craig began to appreciate the power of the Internet. He also began to ask himself, “Why not put these guys directly in touch with each other?” Then came a catalyzing moment. Craig was moderating a meeting on smallwoods in Darby, Montana. He gave the floor to Pat Connell, an executive at Rocky Mountain Log Homes in nearby Hamilton. Pat spoke about using an online clearinghouse for log sales in Western Canada. He explained how useful it had been and wondered aloud why there wasn’t an equivalent site for the U.S.
That settled it. Craig and Rosalie researched the web, but found nothing that offered what was really needed: an in-depth, online marketplace for North American forest resources (that is, core products such as standing timber, logs, forest residue, and mill byproducts — the raw materials for manufacturing, finishing, and energy production). Craig’s first step was to recruit an all-star panel of forestry professionals as a Board of Directors. With their guidance, he then assembled a development team. In the fall of 2006, TimberBuySell.com was born — or maybe we should say, it took root.
TimberBuySell.com and the MCDC Mission
The mission of the Montana Community Development Corporation (MCDC) is to use financing and business consulting in order to create income opportunities for all members of Montana’s communities. TimberBuySell.com fulfills this mission by improving the efficiency of the North American timber market. Since many Montana timber transactions are negotiated with parties in other states and provinces, this increased efficiency can in turn produce millions of dollars in benefits for our state’s businesses and communities.
TimberBuySell.com Staff
Craig Rawlings, Director
Craig began his forestry career managing a large sawmill in Roundup, Montana. In 1976, he co-founded a family wood products business and helped build the revenues for its patented rotary crusher to an average of two million dollars per year. In 1990, he co-founded Lifting Technologies, Inc, and helped develop two proprietary products that together yielded $2,000,000 in annual revenues. Two years later Craig co-founded Safe Shop Tools, a product development company. As President and CEO, he directed patent acquisition and engineering improvement for eight Safe Shop products, while developing both a branding campaign and an international distribution network. In late 2002, Craig joined MCDC in the newly created post of Smallwood Enterprise Agent. In 2006, Craig took on the additional roles of TimberBuySell.com’s Creator and Director.
Nora MacDougall, Internet Marketing Specialist
Nora’s career path toward geekdom began at the University of Montana when she added a minor in Computer Sciences to her major in Business Administration. She graduated with High Honors in 2001 and is currently and methodically completing her coursework for a Masters Degree in Computer Science. However since 1999 Nora has also been serving as a computer instructor at Flathead Community College, a computer instructor at Missoula’s Dickinson Lifelong Learning Center, and an Adjunct Instructor in Computer Modeling and Web Project Management at her alma mater. Nora joined MCDC as its Internet Marketing Specialist in early 2006.
This is an Equal Opportunity Program. Discrimination is prohibited by Federal Law. Complaints of discrimination may be filed with USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Bldg., 1400 Independence Ave, SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410.
