In Brazil, a female-friendly sawmill operation

Advantage Trim & Lumber Company’s VP, Betty Pelc, has announced the purchase of a new sawmill in Brazil, located a few miles up the river from the company’s existing kiln-drying and processing plant.

The company’s new sawmill will be named Lumber Queens, Pelc said.

“I chose the name to highlight and honor the rapidly rising role of women in our company and the industry,” Pelc said. “For centuries, the industry has been dominated by men, and for the most part they have done a fine job, but I think women have some long-overlooked ideas for production, distribution, treatment of workers, and ecology that surely will change the way things get done.”

The facility will be overseen by the company’s South American division director Viviane Peixoto, and exports will be handled by the company’s US-based import/export manager Vanessa Carrano.

The rough-sawing facility will employ 40 local workers in addition to the 120 employees at the company’s existing kiln-drying and finish mill. Advantage will also hire additional support staff in their US corporate office for handling the new sales and administration duties.

The company is working to obtain FSC certification for its new sawmill. This will complement the existing certification for all of Advantage’s other facilities.

The new sawmill will provide rough blanks for processing at the company’s kiln-drying facility, where it produces exotic decking, deck tiles, hardwood flooring, beams, live-edge slabs, turning blanks, industrial lumber, cabinet-grade hardwoods, and other FSC certified wood products. All of the material processed at the facility is responsibly harvested from well-managed forests, the company said.