Ben Deumling, Zena Forest Products

About this episode

Ben Deumling discusses the history and operations of Zena Forest Products, focusing on sustainable hardwood milling and a significant project at Portland International Airport.

The next time you walk through Portland International Airport, look down. The floor beneath your feet is a piece of Oregon history, and Ben Deumling of Zena Forest Products helped put it there. In this episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, Jennifer Alger sits down with Ben to trace the remarkable story behind Zena Forest Products, a family-rooted Oregon business that has spent 25 years figuring out what to do with the hardwoods everyone else overlooked. Growing up managing a diverse, mixed-species forest in the Willamette Valley, Ben inherited a problem: Oregon had virtually no infrastructure for milling anything other than Douglas fir. So he built one. What started as a mission to use more of their own forest has grown into a vertically integrated operation milling Oregon White Oak, Big Leaf Maple, Oregon Ash, and more, taking wood all the way from the tree to a finished, installation-ready floor. Ben breaks down the unique challenges of working with Oregon White Oak, one of the densest hardwoods in North America, from writing his own drying schedules after university research fell short to building homemade kilns out of repurposed refrigerated shipping containers. The centerpiece…

People in this episode

Host: Jennifer Alger

Guest: Ben Deumling

Topics covered

• woodworking
• sustainable business
• hardwood milling
• entrepreneurship
• Oregon history
• vertical integration

Keywords

• Zena Forest Products
• Ben Deumling
• Oregon White Oak
• hardwood flooring
• sustainable forestry
• PDX Airport project
• vertical integration
• wood milling
• Copenhagen

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Zena Forest Products

Products: Zena EdgeGrain

Places: Portland International Airport, Oregon, Willamette Valley, Copenhagen, North America, Oregon

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