Forest Resources Assn. meeting on May 7-9 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, to focus on rebuilding logging and trucking capacity, discussing legislation that will affect forestry industry

Aimee Bellah

ROCKVILLE, Maryland , March 12, 2014 (press release) – FRA members will convene May 7-9 at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hilton, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for the Association’s 80th Annual Meeting. “One important focus of our meeting will be to explore and evaluate the challenge we face in rebuilding logging and trucking capacity,” stated FRA Chairman Tom Norris, noting that the Meeting program will reinforce the important steps FRA has already taken in “building the connection between operational realities on the ground and decisions coming out of Washington that can help or harm us.”

A robust program of open Committee sessions will focus on the theme, “It Starts with Us: From the Woods to the Capitol,” spotlighting members’ “rubber-meets-road” capabilities to improve both operations and political advocacy.

Some highlights:

• STIHL Inc.’s Vice President of Finance, Bjoern Fischer, will address the Association on the challenges today’s political and operating environments both pose to forest-dependent businesses.
• Lyme Timber’s Jim Hourdequin on Logging Capacity – A Land Manager’s View.
• AFF’s Chris Erwin on Building Landowner/Mill Relations through Micro-Marketing and Social Networking Tools.
• Chris Isaacson of Alabama Forestry Association on Developing Workers for Alabama’s Logging Industry.
• Department of Defense’s Ronald Young on Hero2Hired: Connecting Armed Forces Veterans to Employers.
• Dale Lemmons of Interstate Wood Products on CSA / HOS Rules and Their Impacts on Trucking.
• Panel on Trucking Capacity Challenges.
• PLUS presentations on automated scale systems, log truck safety, and current tax reform proposals.
• INVITED: State legislator’s perspective on national supply chain issues.
• OPTIONAL: Post-meeting tour of Virginia Beach harbor’s export facilities (space limited).
• Wood Supply Research Institute Annual Meeting (May 7—separate registration required).
• FRA Southeastern Region Policy Committee at the same location (May 7).

For best rates, please register by April 22.

For additional detail and to register on-line, please visit www.regonline.com/fraannualmeeting, or contact FRA’s National Office at 202-296-3937 (smason@forestresources.org).

The Forest Resources Association Inc. is a nonprofit trade association concerned with the safe, efficient, and sustainable harvest of forest products and their transport from woods to mill. FRA represents wood consumers, landowners, independent logging contractors, and wood dealers, as well as businesses providing products and services to the forest resource-based industries.

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