Floored: a Missouri businessman produces green flooring from a surprising source

Construction & Demolition Recycling, July-August, 2007 by Jack Petree

Steve Owens has been marketing cattle for two decades. A partner in one of the nations largest cattle auction businesses, Joplin Regional Stockyards (JRS), Steve says he never thought he would see his business become a leading regional recycling firm using its own recovered C&D resource as a base for the manufacture of high-end flooring and associated products. A new location and the need to reduce costs changed all that. Today, Steve recounts, JRS is not only one of the largest cattle auction houses in the nation, it also uses environmentally sensitive production equipment to manufacture unique products milled from wood recovered from the demolition of the company's old holding pens near Springfield, Mo.

UNIQUE PARTNERSHIP

Founded in 1987, JRS has sold millions of cattle through its original Joplin Stockyard and a 14-acre facility in Springfield, Mo., added to the operation in 2000. As the city of Springfield grew, urban encroachment was making the operation increasingly less compatible with its environs even as increases in property value were making the property desirable for other uses. According to Steve, a decision was made to move the livestock operation to a more appropriate location near Carthage, Mo.

The move accomplished, the old facility was put on the market. An unexpected glitch showed up when the perceived cost of demolition and disposal of structures on the Springfield acreage dampened the interest of some buyers; purchasers were reluctant to deal with the cost of clearing the site of buildings, some dating from the 1920s.

Putting his mind to work on a solution, Steve says he began to think about recycling. "We thought there had to be something better available to us than simply wasting the material," he says regarding the estimated 1.5 million board feet of lumber that would eventually come from the structures.

Investigation of potential markets for the lumber led to negotiations and the securing of a contract to produce natural faced oak flooring for installation in new retail stores being built by Bass Pro Shops, a rapidly growing chain of sporting goods shops known, Steve says, for a dedication to conservation in their own approach to business. "Bass Pro desires a unique look and wanted to use reclaimed wood wherever possible," he explains.

"My whole perspective on the demolition project changed when I realized reclamation could be both financially viable and a much better environmental alternative than simply disposing of the wood," Steve continues. "In a win-win situation, we agreed to remove the structures at the Springfield property as part of the sale agreement in early 2007. Then we proceeded to figure out how to begin producing the flooring."

MAKING IT WORK

Steve knew he personally had neither the time nor the expertise needed to make the new approach work. Turning to his network of friends and associates, he found Steve Cooper. Cooper s background in residential construction, custom cabinetmaking and as a former factory representative for a woodworking equipment manufacturer made him well qualified to oversee the flooring production.

The next task, Steve says, involved he and Cooper working together to identify and obtain the equipment needed to convert salvaged stockyard lumber into beautiful flooring. Eventually the two men decided on a re-saw, a ripsaw and a multi-sided moulder. On the recommendation of a friend, the two men visited AWMV, a manufacturer of wood processing machinery located in Indianapolis.

AWMV is the industrial subsidiary of Wood-Mizer, a leader in thin kerf portable band sawmilling. Thin kerf sawmilling (kerf is the thickness of the cut made when wood is milled) reduces greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere because more lumber and less waste is created on each pass through the sawmill. Building on Wood-Mizer's reputation for reliable operation and superb service, AWMV was established to serve the industrial side of the wood products industry with production processing equipment.

Cooper says that the AWMV single head re-saw utilizes the same thin-kerf technology as Wood-Mizer's band saws and therefore "selecting it was the obvious choice." Thin kerf milling is important in his operation, Cooper continues, because, "Most of the raw lumber is only a little larger than 1 1/2 inches thick and we are cutting it down to 13/16 in one pass." An AWMV single bladed ripsaw and a six-spindled moulder was also chosen by Owen and Cooper to meet their needs.

In Springfield, materials from the stockyard are disassembled by a demolition crew who clean and de-metal the boards before transporting them to a storage and processing area. About 2,500 board feet of tongue and groove oak flooring stock is produced each day:

At the plant, boards are sized for thickness with the thin-kerf band saw while retaining one "natural" face for the flooring surface. By removing a kerf as thin as 1/8 inch, JRS is able to produce two 13/16 flooring blanks out of some of the thicker boards.

Next, the boards are passed through the AWMV SL260 single blade ripsaw where they are trimmed to a 5 1/4-inch width. Blanks are then sent to the six-spindle moulder which shapes the tongue, the groove, surfaces and relief cuts the bottom of the board, all in one pass. The finished 3/4-inch flooring with a natural face on each board is then packaged in 500 foot units for shipping.