Hanel mill works again - Old Hanel Mill, now known as Mt. Hood Forest Products, buzzes with activity
 
 
(Note from RT: I wish I could find more news like this!)
 
November 16, 2004
 
By Raelynn Ricarte, News staff writer
 
Hood River News
 
Hood River, Oregon
 
To submit a Letter to the Editor: hrnews@eaglenewspapers.com
 
For the last two weeks, the upper Hanel Mill site has been buzzing with activity as the walls of a new planer building are slowly erected. Teams of construction workers, electricians and millwrights are also swarming over the old sawmill to complete a major equipment overhaul.
 
“We are going to be running the mill in December to debug it and make sure it’s ready to go in the spring,” said Charlie Warren, vice-president of operations.
 
He anticipates that the hiring of about 30 employees could take place by late May or early June.
 
The charged atmosphere at the new Mt. Hood Forest Products property is a sharp contrast to the eerie silence that has enveloped the historic site for the past four years. In the fall of 2000 the former owners of the upper Hanel Mill, Quality Veneer and Lumber, filed for bankruptcy and workers were sent home just after their arrival. Many of the machines that morning were switched off in the middle of cutting logs or packaging finished lumber.
 
Forklifts that stood still under a burden of logs gave the haunting appearance that their human handlers had just stepped away for a moment and would soon return.

But it would be almost one year later before the mill was auctioned off by a bankruptcy court. The facility was purchased for about $2 million by brothers Brad and Bill Wilkins, already the owners of a profitable mill and a veneer plant in Skamania County, Washington.
 
It would be another two years before technology upgrades began on the property with equipment the Wilkins had found at other closed mill sites. The final stage of that renovation is now underway with the erection of a 21,000-square-foot planer building. Warren said the finishing process had formerly been performed at the lower Hanel Mill, land that is now home to Cardinal Glass.
 
However, Warren said long ago the upper Hanel mill also had a planer facility. The resurrection of that operation will allow the mill to take raw lumber and turn it into boards that are ready to sell at retail outlets -- all in the same location. In spite of the massive work involved with major upgrades, Warren said there have been no major roadblocks.
 
“We're still on target to meet our start-up date and we don't anticipate that is going to change,” he said.

The Wilkins have been prime buyers for the county’s harvestable timber during the past two years. Many of the trees they have purchased were Douglas Fir, the species that will be processed “green” at the new mill.
 
Warren said the trees used in the operation will be between 8-20 inches and most likely logged within a 120-mile radius of the mill whenever possible.
 
Copyright 2004, Hood River News.