Tricon Timber looks towards future

ST. REGIS - Tricon has been producing timber in Mineral County since the early 1990s, and would love to continue that strong community tradition. 

However, Tricon isn’t sure it can without the help of The U.S. Forest Service. 

The Forest Service has been under scrutiny for some time in Mineral County, even more so recently after a visit by Regional Forester Faye Krueger earlier this month at the Mineral County Commissioners meeting.

For Tricon and all other mill workers from around Mineral County, the goal is to see the use of quality timber from nearby Lolo National Forest. 

The argument is that pulling timber from Lolo would create a trickle-down effect.

In the event the Forest Service would rev-up production on stalled projects around the county, local forests would be cleaner, there would be less brush on the ground, which would in turn prevent forest fires. 

But what Tricon really wants is to make use of the unused timber before it can no longer be used, because of decay or the possibility of additional forest fires which would deplete the supply.

And more importantly keep jobs here in Mineral County. 

As the county’s biggest employer, Tricon is concerned for its employees, and the general state of the county’s economy. They fear that the longer absence of harvesting timber from Lolo will further slow down the Forest Service project load, coupled with the fact that the company will have to continue spending extra time and dollars pulling timber from elsewhere in the state and nearby Wyoming.

“We are buying logs from Wyoming and eastern Montana and bringing them in by rail,” said Josef Kuchera, financial controller for Tricon Timber.

Kuchera said buying logs from elsewhere isn’t just hurting the economy, but it puts stress on an employee and their family. Tricon has their own crews travel and cut timber for the company.

“We are over there buying burnt or dead timber of low quality,” Kuchera said. “The timber here in Mineral County is worth more.”

However, Tricon is still producing at high numbers, and have not had to layoff any of their 175 employees.

In fact, the company recently installed a fourth kiln which is used to dry the wood during one of the final stages of production. Drying can take up to long as 60 hours for some of the wood, Kuchera said.

Recently, Tricon started exporting product to China, and added a new decorative bark product. 

However, even though things are strong over at the plant, the company is still wary about the future economy around town.

Tricon refuses to move plant operations east where most of the product is coming from in order to retain jobs in the county. The company’s biggest worry right now is how to keep getting logs in. 

“The goal for this year is to use 136 million board feet of timber,” Kuchera said. “Last year we actually used 113 million.”

The crew at Tricon is always willing to show anyone from the community inside the plant, and in fact encourages it so that people are educated on just what the biggest employer in the county does.