Willits
Redwood Company, a specialty redwood sawmill, was
formed in the early 1980s by owners Chris Baldo and Bruce
Burton. Their first mill processed thinnings salvaged as
a
byproduct of forest management activities. Now the team scouts
and purchases high-quality redwood available in small volumes
from scattered private ownerships.
Chris
and Bruce (pictured above in 1988) met while students at the
University of California School of Forestry in Berkeley. After
graduation, they formed a consulting partnership specializing
in timberland management for small private ownerships in Mendocino
County. By 1980 their traveling bandmill was producing 8000
board feet per day during the wet season—from logs harvested
during the dry season.
Today
the
mainstay of their operations is a custom designed and locally
manufactured gasoline powered moving horizantal bandsaw—a
permanent rig at the Willits location. Improvements on the
original design through the years has made this moving mill
not only economical to run but well-suited to making consistently
accurate cuts for commerical production and provides the flexibility
necessary for taper sawing and cutting special order boards
of almost any length and width.
(Click
on images above for enlarged view)
In
the words of Chris Baldo, "One by one, communities throughout
the West have lost their mills, their jobs and the vital attachment
and commitment to the land that agricultural based societies
have. All this presumably because the timber base can no longer
support a large sawmill. . . We feel there are many factors
that herald the return of the small, independent sawmill,
and that rural communities such as ours can once again have
the direct and indirect benefits derived from operating forest
product firms in their midst."
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