Insights into Mass Timber with Arnie Didier

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Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Construction Disruption podcast, where we uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.

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Todd Miller: Yo, yo, yo, this is your boy, Ethan and welcome to the next episode of Construction Disruption. Okay, just kidding. This is Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, and I'm glad to have you all here today. And my co-host today is Ryan Bell. That little introduction was in homage to Ethan Young, and he cracked me up a few episodes ago when he started that way. And I can't get it out of my head. And now I just used the word homage, homage, homage. You know, I kind of like words. You like words, too, don't you, Ryan?

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Ryan Bell: Yes, I do.

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Todd Miller: Kind of like playing with, yeah, it'd be hard to manage without them. You know, I was thinking the other day how much I love the word plethora. It really means a lot to me.

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Ryan Bell: Yeah, me too. I'm right there with you.

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Todd Miller: How are you doing today, Ryan?

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Ryan Bell: I'm doing well. How are you, Todd?

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Todd Miller: Doing well also. So as a reminder to our audience, speaking of words, Ryan and I and also our mystery guest soon to be introduced, each have accepted a challenge word or possibly phrase to work into our conversation today as seamlessly and naturally as possible. So we encourage the audience, try to guess what challenge word we might say. And at the end of the show we will reveal whether we were successful or not at using our challenge words. So, Ryan, are we off to the races?

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Ryan Bell: Let's do it.

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Todd Miller: Very good. Well, several episodes, and you know, gosh, we're almost at the end of two years of the show now. And actually just a clue to our audience, too. We are going to take a little hiatus sometime in early 2024. We'll still be promoting past shows, but we're going to take a little bit of time off because we're going to be over 100 episodes. Most people do podcast seasons of like 20 or 30 episodes. Yes, our Season One has been 100 plus episodes. So anyway, we're going to do a ittle hiatus. Won't be gone for long, though, and we'll be back and we'll have lots of good stuff from the archives we'll be promoting during the time that we're not making new shows. But quite a while ago, I think it was pretty early on in the show, a term came up in one of our shows that was new to us, or at least certainly new to me, and that was this term mass timber construction. And yes, we had a guest that kept talking about mass timber and I had to Google it, find out what it was. And what I found out after I started checking it out was that it's not only fascinating, but really beautiful construction. So in order to discuss mass timber and other aspects of forestry in construction, our spotlighted guest today is Arnie Didier, a founder and chief operating officer of the Forest Business Network. Arnie, I'm going to give a little more introduction on you, but did I pronounce your last name right? Is it Diddy-eh?

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Arnie Didier: It actually is Didier, but that's close enough for me.

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Todd Miller: That was close enough, okay. Well, we've got Arnie Didier with us here today, and he is based in Missoula, Montana, and he is the chief operating officer of the Forest Business Network. Now, the Forest Business Network is focused on forest products and mass timber construction industries. They own and produce the International Mass Timber Conference, the International Mass Timber Report, and they produce a weekly newsletter that reaches over 10,000 subscribers around the world. With a career spanning over 35 years, Arnie has extensive experience in finance, management, and marketing for some of the largest forest products companies in the United States, with considerable experience in supply chain management for the forest industry. Arnie also holds a B.S. degree in Forest Products Management from Southern Illinois University. Arnie, welcome to Construction Disruption. What a pleasure to have you on the show today.

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Arnie Didier: Well, thanks for having me, Todd. Nice to see you. Ryan. Glad to be here.

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Todd Miller: Well, I'm looking forward to some good conversation and learning more about mass timber because I am pretty fascinated by it ever since I started Googling pictures of it. So let's kind of start. I'll have you tell a little bit about yourself? What path has your career taken you down that caused you to found the Forest Business Network?

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Arnie Didier: Yeah, I'll give you a little fill-in. So my original interest, I grew up on a farm in Illinois, northern Illinois. Still there today, Didier Farms. I went to college for Forest Science and Forest Management, and I got a Wood Science background. And then in addition to that, I picked up a degree in Communication, but so I always wanted to kind of be in that space. It made sense to me, even though, you know, you don't think of forests in Illinois, but a lot of lumber products. So what ended up happening was, is I had an opportunity when I got out of college to go to work for Georgia-Pacific. Most people know the name Georgia-Pacific Distribution, and then they also had multiple sawmills and different products like that, which ended up becoming a new company called Blue Links and kind of in between that. But I spent the first part of my career, the first 20 years in the distribution space, and I specialized in lumber, so I sold lumber and panels and plywood, OSB It's interesting to see the evolution just in my career. I mean, OSB didn't exist. If you think about Oriented Strand Board, I bought the first carloads into Chicago in 1987, you know, and then we went from buying two or three carloads a month to 150 to 300 carloads a month. So it changed dramatically, replaced a lot of the regular plywood products in the end. And then then along came engineered lumber. You know, you think of truss joists and I joists and things like that. And in 1989, I was asked to start the Engineered Lumber Products Division for Georgia-Pacific. We bought a small joist manufacturing company out of Ocala, Florida, and then kind of went from there. We actually started importing carloads of LVL, laminated veneer lumber. And so I had kind of had my start in that and then took a total departure out of the building products material companies and went and moved to Missoula, Montana, and went to work for a nonprofit. Kind of a strange move in a sense, but it was a beautiful move to me. It was around protecting habitat wildlife and it was called the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, but it married a lot of my passions around being outside. And then that developed a lot around forest health. Being a forester, I kind of understood that side of it. So long story short, we went to that and then about 15 years ago, I met a, probably one of the most recognizable people in the forest industry who was my business partner, Craig Rawlings. Craig Rawlings is a fabulous person. He's been a mentor to hundreds and hundreds of people. His family has built most of the sawmills, the guts of the sawmills across the United States, and still does. His father invented a product called the wood hog, which is a giant like chipper that you run logs through. It's called the Rawlings Wood Hog, it's produced today still. His brother John runs that company. But I was fortunate and this is where it kind of the story of mass timber gets a little strange. But it was a guy that spoke at my Rotary Club. His name was Peter Stark, and the general people would know Peter Stark from, he's a very famous author. He's written The Young George Washington. He's written multiple books that have been top-selling books. He's had documentaries done around him. He's a real interesting guy. And he had some timberlands and he had a bunch of fir large logs on there. And there wasn't a lot of use for fir large logs in small one, small diameter. Well, my business partner, Craig Rawlings, is an expert in utilization of small-diameter timber. And they came up and they built a little sawmill to produce flooring. So, long story short, at this Rotary Club, I met Peter Stark, the author who's now a lumber guy, kind of, he's more of an author, and then Craig Rawlings. And we hit it off and we joined forces. And I, I came to him through a conference that he had hosted called the Small Log Conference, and something that a lot of people don't realize is the advent of being able to use small diameter timber for dimension lumber, for plywood, for OSB, and other products is a newer thing. It's not that old. And they've developed a lot of incredible techniques to utilize small-diameter timber. Why is that important? Because we have a very much over abundance of small-diameter timber. We have more timber in the United States today than we did in 1900. Hard to believe when you think about all the things going up, but a lot of it's small and then you hear the catastrophic fires. Unfortunately, recently we've seen some incredibly catastrophic fires in areas that nobody would have ever thought of, whether it's in Hawaii as an example, which is a little different style of fire or paradise in California, you know, dramatic. If you're in the West, you understand a lot more of that when you get covered up in smoke. But even this year, if you think about it, Chicago, New York, covered up in smoke. Who would have ever thought. So there's certainly a need for that. What does this all mean for mass timber? Mass timber is just really a term that describes a variety of engineered lumber products. It's not new. Think of glulam beams in churches and cathedrals around the world. Hundreds of years, right? And then, you know, it kind of groups it to big timbers and then engineered lumber. But the newest kind of product that's hit the mainstream in the U.S. is CLT, cross laminated timber. And that's kind of the sexy term out there. Everybody thinks of mass timber, they think of cross laminated timber. And interestingly enough, mass timber utilizes maybe 1 to 2% at the most of the fiber used. But it gets all the press across the country because it's got a newness to it and it does create some really interesting buildings. So that's kind of the start of it, but it's an evolution. And we started the company about 15 years ago called Forest Business Network, and then we hosted the first mass timber conference, the International Mass Timber Conference in Portland in 2016. So that's kind of where it went to.

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Todd Miller: Very interesting. Well, for our audience members out there who might be like I was, out there Googling mass timber, and now you're talking about cross-laminated timber, which I think actually is a lot of what I've seen photos of. And are there any Web sites out there where people can go and and see beautiful images or learn more about this type of construction that you would recommend?

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Arnie Didier: Yeah, there is. So one of our co-producers of the conference goes by the name of Woodworks. So Woodworks is a great site, and they provide free technical expertise for buildings. They have really highly-talented engineers and architects on staff. They're spread around the United States and in Canada. They're considered kind of the preeminent source for information, specifically technical information. Another one is called Think Wood. There are a little bit of a sister company to Woodworks. Think Wood does a lot of education around regular use of wood products in general, but they do have a lot of information on mass timber. But today you're going to see multiple companies that are promoting the use of mass timber in a variety of ways. It's interesting how dynamic the industry has taken off just from 2016 to today. It's really changed the course of the of the construction business, quite honestly.

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Todd Miller: One, it seems to me to some degree like, you know, Forest Business Network is sort of like the carburetor. You know, you got to mix stuff together and you guys are the ones that are kind of mixing everything together between demand and design and construction practices and suppliers to really get the message out there. And that's great. What are some of the benefits of mass timber construction? You know, both, I guess I'm curious, both for property owners and also for builders.

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Arnie Didier: So there's a lot of different ways to look at that. But, you know, some of the big terms out there that you hear ESG, right? You know, what's ESG? What's this? What's sustainability? What does that mean? You know, so you have people that kind of jump on different bandwagons of sustainability of ESG. And then certainly the climate change topic and conversation comes up. So, mass timber is all about the story. And one of the things that kind of comments, I guess, are analogies that I've used. There's a guy by the name of Russ Bog, and he's a young guy. His family's been in the lumber business for years and years. And he went out on a limb and he built a company called Bog in Timbers. And there's other ones out there like that. But this is a unique place, beautiful place. His comment that he's made and I'm just paraphrasing, but basically what he said, mass timber is an end result of the main product. And the main product is forest health. And if you think of it that way, it makes a lot more sense. A healthy forest, if you think of that, is really instrumental for us all over the world, right? Clean water, habitat, construction, building materials. The ultimate dream kind of product. And then you think of a different way to look at it, and I'll just paraphrase again. So who would think that lumber, a kind of convention, the international mass timber conference, that we would have the head of the Nature Conservancy on stage. But we did. His name was Mark Wishnie, and he ran all the forest products for that. And his comment was interesting. He goes, "Hey, we're Nature Conservancy. We actually don't argue about cutting down trees. We know it's critical for the health of the forest. What we get pissed about is if you cut the trees down and you turn it into a parking lot." And so if you think about that, there's a lot of sense to be made of that. And then you think about climate change, whatever side, you think about that. But it's certainly climate is changing, right? And carbon is a big driver of that. So if you think about lumber products. And you think about, you know, cutting trees and replacing them. That's the ultimate double dip. And what I mean by that is if you use timber in mass timber or other products, you're sequestering carbon in a building, then you're growing more, you get a double dip. It's one of the tools that we think is really important. So to kind of get back to your question, wow, it's kind of like a Taco Tuesday thing. You go to Taco Tuesday and you want to, you know, eat at the smorgasbord or whatever it is. But when you think of mass timber. It's an interesting concept and people really like looking at it and seeing it. And the end result is beautiful. There's a kind of a famous guy out there. He was actually our keynote in 2016. We don't usually have him back again, but he was the keynote in 2023. His name's Michael Green, but he came out with a YouTube TEDTalk, which goes on YouTube and whatever else in 2015 or 14. And it had a million and a half views. And basically his story was, Hey, building in wood and mass timber is going to change construction practices around the world because of the story and because of the environmental and sustainability benefits. And he said, "You never see anybody hug a concrete column, but you see people getting close to these wood columns and beams." And it's not going against the concrete industry. They think we're heads against it, but we're not. But they're seeing changes dramatically, too. And we all need to for our kids and our grandkids.

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Todd Miller: Are there any particular types of projects where mass timber really seems to have gained the strongest foothold? And I guess even beyond that, what are your projections for growth of the industry?

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Arnie Didier: So the sweet spot originally with mass timber was the 6 to 12-story building.

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Todd Miller: Okay.

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Arnie Didier: And you asked, well, what are the benefits of it? And the short answer is. You get a beautiful building as the end result that people want to work in. People want to be in and they want to tell that story. The other side of that is the speed of delivery of the product. You know, when you're essentially creating offsite materials and bringing it to the job site, your speed of delivery of that project is very quick. You don't have to wait for a cure time. You don't have to wait for all kinds of other things coming in. And a lot of it can be prefabricated. We're getting better and better at that as time goes. The other thing is the weight. It's so much less weight than other products out there. So that example came up with one of our keynotes from, I think, 2017. Andrew Wise, he's out of the UK, is an incredible individual, very persistent firm, is kind of world-renowned, very smart guy, and he's pushed the envelope. But he gave the example of buildings in the UK that were going to be four-story, but they're able to go to two additional storys using mass timber. And why is that? Because it's so much lighter, and they have to be concerned about what's underneath them. So if you're a developer and you're building a four-story building, and then you can build two stories more on top of it for the same price. That's a really good equation when it comes to the financial benefits of it. So there's there's a mix of reasons why you would use mass timber. And then it comes back to that story of forest health, you know, compared to some of the other products out there, Does it make sense? And in reality, it becomes that hybrid. But you're seeing other projects out there. You're seeing it move to modular construction. We all know modular is coming. It's been around forever, but it's really coming to the forefront. So modular, offsite construction, mass timber happens to work really well on that. And then you get pretty extreme examples and you asked about looking at pictures and looking at different projects. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there's a project called The Ascent. The Ascent was built by Boris and Tim Gokhman. We met them in 2017, and they had this idea to build a 25-story wood skyscraper. We thought they were full of shit and but they were real ballsy. They met with the right people and they made it happen. And it's getting a tremendous amount of publicity because it's a beautiful, extraordinary building that has a great story. 25 stories tall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, made out of CLT and other mass timber.

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Todd Miller: Wow. Is that an office building, I assume, or mixed-use?

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Arnie Didier: It's a mixed-use building, yeah.

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Todd Miller: Interesting.

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Arnie Didier: It's pretty much completely getting sold out because it's so attractive. The story is so powerful and the building is so beautiful. But I can't you know that Tim Gokhman is an incredibly visionary person. It took a lot to get that done. And now there's all kinds of them coming behind it. But that, for a while and I think it might still be, is one of the tallest wood buildings in the world.

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Todd Miller: You know, I'm gonna check that out. As you talked there, though, I got to thinking, it sounds like this sort of construction would be good in terms of seismic stability also. Am I correct there or is there any information there pertaining to that?

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Arnie Didier: Yeah, I'm no engineer or, you know, that kind of a deal. But we have had multiple presentations around the seismic capabilities. Yeah, they just did this enormous test like a giant shake table. And then they do, you know fire comes up a lot. I mentioned it earlier, but Woodworks has a lot of information on their site about those specifically. I would encourage any of the viewers, get on that site and you can find, you know, case studies about seismic, about fire or about kind of the technical capabilities of it. And you got to understand, it's relatively in its infancy in the US and North America. But, you know, mass timber has been regularly used in Europe for, you know, 40 years.

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Todd Miller: Is this a type of construction that all architects are trained and familiar with how to design? Or if someone wants to do something in mass timber, should they really seek out a specialist both in terms of design and construction?

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Arnie Didier: It's a good question, and I'll just kind of paraphrase from other people that I've talked to that are into that space. But to give you a real example, in 2016, when we hosted our first conference in Portland, we were hoping to get our small log conference would get 150, 250 people from a pretty tight industry. And we were hoping that when we shifted from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to Portland, we were hoping for 200 people. And then it kept going, and we knew we were on to something that people were interested in. And we had just over 500 people at that first conference. The first conference was basically a mass timber 101. This is what CLT is, this is what glulam is, this is what fasteners look like. And we had maybe 30 projects to choose from to talk about real projects. Going into 2024, we've got 2000. So it's it's extraordinary where that's come from. But, you know, you hear names. It's Susan Jones is an incredibly skilled architect, she's based out of Seattle, atelierjones, She's done, she built her own home out of mass timber. That's one project. But she's been involved in multiple projects. They're just finishing a six-story project in Seattle that the story goes incredibly economical to build, extraordinary looks and feels to it. But what Susan would tell you is in 2016, she was kind of preaching to people all the time, and they weren't quite getting it right. What's mass timber? We're trained in other products. We don't use timber anymore. We don't use this. That has dynamically changed very quickly from 2016 to 2014. We still have to talk the basics, right? But it's in the codes now. So there was a contention. You know, that's always a big hurdle to get it properly in the codes, to get acceptance. People think wood, it's going to burn down all, it's going to rot, it's going to do this. And then there's just been a lot of case studies that approved different things around that. But the short answer to that is, many architects aren't familiar with it and they search out information. But now they've got hundreds and hundreds of examples to use precedence per say. You know, they've got a 25-story and, you know, in downtown Milwaukee, they've got, you know, the three buildings which the Heinz Company is built all around the country, you know, Atlanta, Denver, move on down the line. You know, Portland's got 50 or 60 buildings. You know, the U.K. has 600 buildings. The largest one in the world is in China. I mean, it just keeps going. New Zealand, Brazil. We had a full contingency at the conference in 2023 from Africa. It's one of the biggest up-and-coming products. And Africa is using mass timber and CLT in a lot of projects now. So it's taken a life of its own in a sense. But yeah, it's a lot of fun to see, but it's really about the story.

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Todd Miller: So you mentioned this 25-story building in Milwaukee and thinking, gosh, you know, no way. I thought they were crazy. I mean, you think the heights are going to go even beyond that eventually?

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Arnie Didier: There's opportunity for that. You know, the reality behind it is you got to build projects that make sense, that pencil out, and that make sense for safety reasons and all of that. But yeah, there's a lot of things on the books that are higher than that. But, you know, the probably the biggest growth is going to come from additional residential and modular construction going forward. But the other thing is the retrofits. So, you know, we're in a housing crunch, we're in an affordable housing crunch. And if you can turn two-story buildings into four-story buildings with eight or ten or 16 more units, and you can do that economically and you can do it sustainably, there's a lot of things to that. And, you know, the game changers in mass timber came from a very unique source. So when we first started the conference, we had Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google, all coming to the conference, but we couldn't even put their names on their badges, their names, but not the company names because basically they wanted to research. So I'm a lumber guy, right, who has become a media guy, which is really strange, but it's what it is. But they didn't want to take stage time. They didn't want to do this until about 2019. And the head of research and development for the building products of the buildings for Google came on stage. Name's Michelle Kaufman, and she said, We're Google. We love mass timber. Come talk to me because we're going to build some buildings. That was a game changer. Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google. Most people don't realize it. They were renters for the most part. Now they're building their own buildings and they're choosing to use mass timber because it fits their ESG and sustainability requirements of buildings. It was a game-changer. And then who would have ever thought that the new headquarters for Wal-Mart is going to be all mass timber. It's happening right now. So it's an unusual process. But what's happened is guys like myself who like lumber and love lumber and, you know, put their kids through school selling lumber now have these advocates out there in the tech space saying, "Hey, we're building with mass timber and wood products because the story is so compelling."

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Todd Miller: Very interesting. Well, you had mentioned the use of it in retrofit and remodeling and, you know, being able to allow you to do things. It reminded me a few years ago, my wife and I did an addition to our home and the builder said, "Well, you know, to open up this wall, I'm going to have to put a glulam beam in here." And I'm a metal guy. I didn't know what this meant. But it was funny when they were, I remember the day they actually put it in, I'm like, "Oh, man, that is so beautiful." You know, here it's going to be buried up in my attic so no one could ever see it. But what a beautiful piece. And it was just a simple glulam beam. But just beautiful. So I'm curious, where does the United States stand in terms of its adoption of mass timber compared to other countries?

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Arnie Didier: Well, we were way behind in 2016 and now we're moved way past. So not that we're past them in the sense of acceptance and everything else that goes with that, But it's in the codes all the way through 2021 and into 2024. And that was a major deal to get it accepted into the codes, 18 storys and above. And for lots of things you mentioned seismic and fire and different things like that to meet those criteria. But when you look at the projections, so you hear it's really about can you produce enough product to fit the demand? And that's a balancing act. And the short answer is we were short, very short of products to do this increase in projects that's coming on stream. When you look at, you know, the development of new companies in the space, it's pretty dramatic. One thing you asked about sources on it. One of the sources we produce, this is called the International Mass Timber Report. And you can actually go online. This is the report that we produce. We started it in 2019. You can actually order hard copies if you wanted to or you can go online now, it's the masstimberreport.com. And in that report it's all about, it shows you the production capabilities. It shows your project case studies. It shows you where the projects are produced. It talks a lot about forest health and why that's important as part of the whole process. But when you look at some of the data, the data is very compelling from going from basically nothing to a billion. So, you know, I mean, it's it's pretty extraordinary when you see the growth, the real growth. And then as the wood buckets change right around the world, Southern Yellow Pine is now become a really sought-after species for cross-laminated timber glulams. And a lot of people didn't think that was going to happen. And the glulams have been around a long time, but they've really worked the CLT team process and it's working fabulously. So, you know, it's a big, big part of it.

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Todd Miller: Well, tell us about the mass timber conference that you produce. You know what goes on there? I think there's one coming up in early 2024. Tell us a little bit about how someone could learn or even register to attend.

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Arnie Didier: Yeah, so it'll be March 26th-28th in 2024. It's hosted in Portland, Oregon. People go, "Oh, why Portland?" Well, I'll give another kind of example. We had the head of Romberg Holdings and Cree Buildings as one of the keynotes a couple of years back. His name's Hubert Romberg, biggest company in Europe. And he called Portland the intellectual capital of mass timber of the world now. And here's why he said that. So Portland has the political will and the backing of forest products. That's a big start, right? And then they went out on a limb, and they've built multiple buildings. They've got a tremendous amount of expertise in that area, just in that Portland area and the state there. So we do tours on Tuesday. So we see multiple buildings, manufacturing facilities, and then we it's a networking event, but it's an education event first. So we'll have multiple panels on Wednesday and Thursday. To give an example, in 2016, we had 500 people and we're a very unique conference. Most conferences are going downhill and trade shows that are going down. It's just is what it is. Ours is growing exponentially. We've grown every year, even through COVID, we grew. So it's gone from 500. This year we had just over 3000 attendees from 39 countries, presentations from people all over the world. Not to be arrogant about it, but it's kind of the who's who in engineering, architecture, wood products, forest health in the world. It's ibecome kind of a place to be to share and network from all facets of the supply chain. So you're at that conference, you could be sitting next to a logger, sitting next to an economic developer, sitting next to a finance person, sitting next to an architect, an engineer, a construction person, or a developer. It's a real wide mix. One of our dreams come true is the lumber industry in construction is really dominated by old, fat white guys like me, right? Not anymore. You come to our conference this year, over 55% of the speakers were very talented, smart women, multiple ethnicities. It's just an incredible dynamic people. I'll never forget the old-time lumber guys, the guys that own Weyerhauser, and Idaho Forest Group and Sierra Pacific were sitting in the back of the room and going, "Oh my God, our dream's come true. There's young people. There's people of color. There's some really smart, talented people. And they're all talking about lumber products and wood products." It was their dream come true because we're no longer speaking to the choir. They're speaking to the people around sustainable wood products. Pretty important.

Speaker: 00:38:34

Todd Miller: Very interesting. Sounds very cool. So, I mean, if there's somebody out there interested in learning more or maybe they're early in their career and they're wondering, gosh, this mass timber thing sounds pretty cool, that sounds like a great place for them to attend. Any other advice for someone out there, you know, new in their career in construction who may be interested in mass timber?

Speaker: 00:38:57

Arnie Didier: Yeah. I mean, you mentioned it earlier about, you know, maybe somebody doesn't know about it. So we incorporate that. You know, the first day we have tour options, but we also have, like I use the term mass timber 101, a basic course, and then that leads you to it. We had over 300 people attend that this year. We're going to do that again and then we're going to have an advanced course. But then you can embrace yourself. That's one way in the conference. But the reality, if I was a young person. The trades are the place to be. I mean, look at the wages of the trades now, it's different, but they also have changed dramatically. It's always been really smart people in the construction industry. Now it's everything's around computer-aided design, BIM processing, all of those kind of things. But also, we're in the change world right now. The change world is you're going to see homes that are pre-manufactured coming on stream because the reality is you can build a house in four weeks instead of a year. And the labor and labor issues out there are not changing, but the construction industry is. Mass timber is a part of that. Other products, metals, roofing, metal products, along with that. That combination, that hybrid build is what's really going to change the dynamics of the construction industry. The mass timber industry has a really good story to tell and people are gravitating towards that. And you have companies that are designing divisions around mass timber. You hear of Switter Construction started Timber Labs, very big. Turner Construction, you know, big company. Hines real estate development. So the big companies are in the space as well as the small companies. But it's a changing dynamic in the construction industry. And part of that is to sell it when you're building is to be able to tell the story of sustainability. Wood products tells that story really well.

Speaker: 00:41:19

Todd Miller: Well, you've certainly given me a lot of desire to go out and learn more. This is fascinating. So kind of switching gears a little bit, you may be the first guest we've ever had on the show from Montana. Can you give us kind of an oversight of what's happening with construction in Montana right now?

Speaker: 00:41:35

Arnie Didier: Yeah, Montana is no different than a lot of places around the country now, but COVID changed just dramatically. So we're underbuilt, we have issues with affordable housing. The dynamics of pricing have changed dramatically. In the short answer, I'll give an example. Friend's living in San Francisco, his rent's 8000 a month. He can do his job in Stevensville, Montana. His house payment is 2000 a month, and he gets the same pay because he can do the same job. So the virtual workforce is changing. The dynamics of where you can live in Montana is not immune to it. You mentioned one of your folks living in Bozeman. Bozeman's home prices have gone from $200,000 average price to $700,000 in five years. It's not unlike other people. It's a dilemma. The numbers don't add up right. Because when you think of affordable housing, it's no longer affordable housing. The only way is subsidized housing, right? Not to get on a tangent, but when your home price average is 700,000 and your average wage is 60. That means that you have to triple your average wage just to afford the average home. It's no longer affordable housing. It has to be something different than that. So you're going to see dynamics that change. But construction in Montana is robust in the cities. And when I say cities, we're small. Missoula County's 120,000. Now, that's doubled in five years, but it's 120,000. It's small, relatively. But the pricing has gone up, the land use is changing. But the reality is, the urban environments are what's going to change the course of the United States. You know, everybody has the lingering of the pandemic. But the reality is, is it's got to go up and your housing's going to look different. This analogy of the 20-minute neighborhood is becoming a reality. And if you don't know what that is, the 20-minute neighborhood is within 20 minutes you can walk to anything you need doctors, grocery stores, restaurants, all of those things. And the next generations, that's what they want. And that's a changing dynamic. Mass timber can play a role in that because it's really efficient in building three, five, seven-story buildings that create, you know, part of that 20-minute neighborhood. But in Montana itself, it's changing. It doesn't hurt that we had this series called Yellowstone, which I haven't even seen an episode, but everybody looks at it and it's beautiful. I've heard somebody told me once the dream is and this was my wife and I's dream, thanks By God's grace, we had it happen. Don't you want to live where you want to go on vacation? Hmm. You know, it's like when you go eat at Taco Tuesday, you get tacos that day. But the other side of that is if you're living where you want to vacation, if you can make that happen and make a living. The new world is changing that. I can sit here in Missoula, Montana, but I was just sitting in Spain two months ago. I'm going to be sitting in New Zealand. I'm going to you know, and nobody knows where you're at, right. So the reality is really interesting how that's changing. So to answer your question, it's changing construction practices very quickly, but we're out of whack. Pricing is out of whack compared to what people can afford.

Speaker: 00:45:37

Todd Miller: Well, this has been so informative. We really are close, we need to kind of wrap up what we call the business end of things. Is there anything we haven't covered yet today that you'd like to squeeze in here, Arnie?

Speaker: 00:45:51

Arnie Didier: No, I just, have an open mind for all of it. I get excited about it. It's a fun topic for me. It doesn't get old, so. And I appreciate you guys bringing me on; touch a little few different people. If it touches a couple of people, that's a great thing.

Speaker: 00:46:07

Todd Miller: Well, this has been great, no, a great episode. So before we do close out, I have to ask you if you're willing to participate in something we call our rapid fire questions. So rapid fire consists of seven questions we will ask you. Some may be serious, some are more silly. All you have to do is give an answer to each one if you can. So I have to ask, and you have no idea what we're going to ask you, of course. But are you up to the challenge of rapid fire?

Speaker: 00:46:34

Arnie Didier: Sure, I'm in.

Speaker: 00:46:35

Todd Miller: Awesome. Well, we will alternate asking questions. Ryan, you want to ask the first one?

Speaker: 00:46:39

Ryan Bell: I would love to. Question number one: Have you purchased a product or service recently that was kind of a real disruptor or a game-changer for you, something that, you know, was kind of like, "Wow, where has this been all my life?"

Speaker: 00:46:52

Arnie Didier: Yes, it's around the GPSs on the smartphones. There's so many apps now that are extraordinary. I can be in the woods 20 miles and know exactly where I'm at.

Speaker: 00:47:03

Todd Miller: So was that a particular app, then that you got?

Speaker: 00:47:06

Arnie Didier: It's called OnX maps. It's based in Missoula, Montana.

Speaker: 00:47:09

Todd Miller: Okay, and that's OnX maps?

Speaker: 00:47:14

Arnie Didier: Yep, O-n-X maps. It's an incredible product.

Speaker: 00:47:17

Ryan Bell: Probably comes in handy out there while you're elk hunting and stuff.

Speaker: 00:47:23

Todd Miller: Very good. I will check that out. Question number two: What was the first car you ever drove?

Speaker: 00:47:29

Arnie Didier: Well, I grew up on a farm, so it was an old farm truck and I crashed it when I was 14. So that got me in a lot of hot water.

Speaker: 00:47:41

Todd Miller: Well, that's a memory.

Speaker: 00:47:44

Arnie Didier: My dad handled it better than I thought.

Speaker: 00:47:47

Ryan Bell: That's how you learn, right?

Speaker: 00:47:49

Arnie Didier: Yeah, learned a lesson there and learned how to fix trucks, because that was my responsibility.

Speaker: 00:47:55

Ryan Bell: Alright, next question. If you had to eat a crayon, what color of crayon would you choose to eat?

Speaker: 00:48:01

Arnie Didier: Green.

Speaker: 00:48:02

Ryan Bell: Green?

Speaker: 00:48:02

Arnie Didier: I'm not going to tell you why, but there's a story about green, so.

Speaker: 00:48:08

Todd Miller: Go for it. Question number four: Would you rather have to wear a wear bellbottom pants all the time or have your hair styled in a mohawk?

Speaker: 00:48:19

Arnie Didier: Oh, I'd go the mohawk you can tell my hair is goofy anyways, so. But I still got some. Got that going for me.

Speaker: 00:48:27

Ryan Bell: I'm jealous. Next question: What would you like to be remembered for at the end of your days?

Speaker: 00:48:34

Arnie Didier: Oh, it's all around my faith. You know, that I am a believer in Jesus Christ and that's just my faith and that I live those standards for my wife and my family.

Speaker: 00:48:45

Ryan Bell: Amen.

Speaker: 00:48:47

Todd Miller: Love that. Okay, next to last, what is a book you've read that has had a major impact on your life?

Speaker: 00:48:53

Arnie Didier: Well, I read it every day. It kind of goes to the last comment, the Bible. And that is really you know, you have have a little one on your desk. That's certainly the most impactful one. But there's been other books out there. You know, I get on tangents and try to pick a topic each year. And, you know, so there's a lot of really kind of good books out there that I've read recently.

Speaker: 00:49:20

Todd Miller: Well I love the shout out to the Bible. Good deal.

Speaker: 00:49:22

Ryan Bell: Greatest selling book of all time.

Speaker: 00:49:24

Todd Miller: There you go.

Speaker: 00:49:25

Arnie Didier: Yeah.

Speaker: 00:49:26

Todd Miller: We had someone a couple episodes ago mention a book called Freedom's Forge, which I went ahead and bought. I haven't started it. It's sitting on my end table in my family room. Okay, what is this last question?

Speaker: 00:49:42

Ryan Bell: Last question.

Speaker: 00:49:43

Todd Miller: Did I go out of order here?

Speaker: 00:49:44

Ryan Bell: No.

Speaker: 00:49:45

Todd Miller: Okay.

Speaker: 00:49:46

Ryan Bell: You're good.

Speaker: 00:49:46

Todd Miller: This is yours?

Speaker: 00:49:47

Ryan Bell: Yes, it is. Final question: What was your favorite toy as a child?

Speaker: 00:49:54

Arnie Didier: Kind of a tossup between, I wouldn't call them toys, but a BB gun and a mini bike. And when you grow up on a farm, a BB gun and a mini bike, that combination is pretty deadly in a lot of different ways.

Speaker: 00:50:09

Ryan Bell: Hundred percent, yep.

Speaker: 00:50:12

Todd Miller: Oh, Arnie, thank you. This has been great. For folks who may want to get in contact with you directly or learn more about the Mass Timber Conference or anything else you're up to. What are some ways they can do that?

Speaker: 00:50:25

Arnie Didier: Yeah, the website is the International Mass Timber Conference. That's an easy way to get there. My information's on there. And then our company, we have a newsletter that goes out. It's under Forest Business Network. So my email is arnie@forestbusinessnetwork.com. It's a long name, but it's pretty easy to remember, but always happy to chat and get back and connect to people. That's what we do for a living. It's kind of strange, but that's what we do.

Speaker: 00:50:56

Todd Miller: Well, that's great. And of course I found you on LinkedIn and you responded very quickly, so thank you. We'll put that contact information in the show notes as well. So we were all successful with our challenge words. In fact, Arnie was an overachiever. He got his in there twice. Your challenge word, Arnie, was?

Speaker: 00:51:19

Arnie Didier: Taco Tuesday.

Speaker: 00:51:21

Todd Miller: And you did it twice.

Speaker: 00:51:24

Ryan Bell: Overachiever.

Speaker: 00:51:26

Todd Miller: I had carburetor. I kind of squeezed it in there. And, Ryan, you had?

Speaker: 00:51:31

Ryan Bell: Elk hunting.

Speaker: 00:51:32

Todd Miller: Yeah, which you got in there as well.

Speaker: 00:51:34

Ryan Bell: Yeah. I was not sure how I was going to squeeze it in there, but I did.

Speaker: 00:51:38

Todd Miller: There were a couple times I almost squeezed it in for you. I thought, "Well, that would just be rude." So I didn't.

Speaker: 00:51:44

Arnie Didier: Yeah.

Speaker: 00:51:45

Todd Miller: Well, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure. Enjoyed having you on the show.

Speaker: 00:51:49

Arnie Didier: Yeah. Thanks, Todd. Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate it and good luck with everybody. Be safe.

Speaker: 00:51:54

Todd Miller: Well, and thank you to our audience for tuning in to this episode of Construction Disruption with Arnie Didier of the Forest Business Network. We encourage you, please watch for future episodes of our podcast. We always have great guests. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Until the next time we're together, keep on challenging the status quo. Keep on looking for better ways of doing things, shaking things up, disrupting the world out there, and don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter. Make them smile, encourage them, two simple yet powerful things you can do to change the world one interaction at a time. In the meanwhile, God bless and take care. This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode of Instruction Disruption.

Speaker: 00:52:42

Intro/Outro: This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, a manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building products.