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Sinclar Group hires CEO to face market issues |
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Written by GORDON HOEKSTRA
Citizen staff
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Monday, 12 May 2008 |
The Stewart and Anderson families have hired a president and chief executive officer, a newly-created position, to oversee their interests in the Sinclar Group of companies.
The new president and CEO, Rich Huff, starts this week and will immediately be touring the group's mills in Prince George and Fort St. James.
The process of hiring a CEO started about two years ago with the families examining succession planning, but also includes the need to put someone in place to tackle emerging issues, Gordon Anderson said.
Anderson cited the current "ugly" market, and the need to examine the potential to produce energy from wood waste.
"Our wood is getting more expensive, but are we getting the best value for it? What are the carbon-tax implications?" noted Anderson, an official with Sinclar Enterprises, a sales arm of the Sinclar Group.
"There's just a whole gamut of big world issues that need to be addressed, and the best way to do that is to become more professional and get some good help in there and help us deal with that," he said.
The Sinclar Group's mill have operated independently in the past, and because of the different ownerships involved, the use of the CEO and new corporate structure will depend on partners interest.
Huff has management experience in the domestic and international forest products sector. He also has experience in the oil and gas sector.
Huff served as vice-president, panels and energy, and vice-president OSB and kraft paper with Tolko Industries Ltd.
Prior to joining Tolko in 2001, Huff served as a general manager with Carter Hold Harvey in New Zealand, and as a general manager with CSR Timber Products in Australia.
The Sinclar Group is a family-owned group comprised of four independently managed wood manufacturing facilities, two sales companies and a number of partnerships in northern B.C.
The Stewart and Anderson families wholly own Apollo Forest Products in Fort St. James, which jointly owns Tl'oh Forest Products with the Nakazdli First Nation in Fort St. James. The families also own a two-thirds stake in Winton Global and Lakeland Mills in Prince George, with Canfor holding the other one-third. Winton Global also has a subsidiary, Spruce Capital Homes.
The Sinclar Group also holds stakes in L&M Lumber and Nechako Lumber in Vanderhoof.
Like other lumber producers, the Sinclar Group has been hit hard in the past year has been hit hard by an array of negative forces: slumping lumber prices, a high Canadian dollar and a 15-per-cent export tax on softwood lumber shipments to the U.S.
A collapse in the U.S. housing market -- with starts half of what they were in 2005 -- has resulted in many sawmill shutdowns, shift reductions and reduced work weeks.
Winton Global was down for three months this winter, and many of the Sinclar Group's mills are running on reduced shifts.
In northern B.C., more than 3,500 mill and forestry workers are off the job as a result of the downturn, according to a running tabulation by The Citizen.
The latest job losses include the closure of Pope & Talbot's pulp mill in Mackenzie last week, which put about 260 workers off the job.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 12 May 2008 )
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