In This Issue:

• Message from the CEO
• Corporate News
• Operations
• Log Harvesting
• Forestry & Engineering
• Manufacturing
• Safety Stats
• Information Systems

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By Susan Merivirta, Chief Financial OfficerCorporate News

W

e have passed the six-month mark for Year 2010, and continue to face the uncertainties of the year with caution and conservatism.

Our Log Harvesting operation is operating at about 92% of last year’s employment numbers.  Gary Collinge and Ken Matthews, along with their respective teams, spend many hours at the Boardroom table planning our harvesting plans, before one tree is felled.  It is the attention to all detail that continues to enable us to operate on the Coast when many others have exited the business.

Our Manufacturing and Remanufacturing operations are operating at about 73% of last year’s employment numbers.  John Kuch continues to focus his team on controllables – the quality of our output product and cost efficiencies.  Foster Coulson has been working with John on Lumber Sales, and we are challenging them both to match our order files with our production volumes while expanding our customer base. 

Aviation continues to offer us the most opportunities for change and growth as long as we focus on providing our customers with the best service and flexibility no matter where they are in the world. 

We have recently acknowledged that there is a significant component of Scientific Research and Experimental Development in most every project we undertake on the Aviation side to ensure that we continually meet and surpass our customers’ needs.  We are currently in the process of testing the feasibility of using the cutting edge technology systems in the Sikorsky 76, Firewatch, to feed information to selected aircraft and personnel with Night Vision capability to allow them to continue firefighting throughout the night when fires traditionally die down.  Time will tell where this ends up, but it just reminds me that Gary Collinge and Wayne Coulson, many years ago, designed the first Heli-Grapple system for use on the Sikorsky S61 and hold a US Patent that attests to this fact. 

There is a term – “Necessity is the Mother of Invention”.  This quote may need to be added to the Coulson standard of “Finding a Better Way”.