Hood Industries Inc.: Modernizing The Industry, One Sawmill At A Time
“We have always had the philosophy that we are manufacturers. And we want our suppliers, and customers alike, to know that they are a part of our team, and without them we wouldn’t be able to do what we do best.” – Jay Galloway, president, Hood Industries Inc.
Pictured is Jay Galloway, president of Hood Industries, headquartered in Hattiesburg, MS.
Hood Industries Inc., headquartered in Hattiesburg, MS, is a multi-generational family business that has been in the forest products industry since the 1950s. Hood Industries was established in 1983, when they bought the Beaumont Plywood Corporation in Beaumont, MS.
“When Mr. Hood, Jr., followed in his father’s, Mr. Hood, Sr., footsteps, and bought the Beaumont Plywood Corporation, my father, John Galloway, came on board as the first president of Hood Industries,” said Jay Galloway, president of Hood Industries.
Today, Hood Industries operates two plywood operations, in Beaumont, MS, and Wiggins, MS, as well as three sawmills in Waynesboro, MS, Silver Creek, MS, and Bogalusa, LA. All of the company’s manufacturing facilities are SFI certified and their distribution division, which has 24 facilities, are all FSC certified.
The Bogalusa log yard, pictured here.
After the acquisition of the Silver Creek and Bogalusa sawmills in 2015, Galloway and Hood, Jr. recognized the need to modernize the company’s manufacturing facilities across the board. “We want to continue to grow in this business, be sustainable and set ourselves up for long-term strategic growth. So, we set out to develop a modernization plan and timeline to bring all of our facilities up to a higher standard and production level,” stated Galloway. “We initially wanted to start with the Bogalusa sawmill, as we saw unique opportunities with this location. Unfortunately, we were delayed, as the Beaumont facility was hit by a F-3 tornado and was moved to the top of the priority list.”
Once the modernization of Bogalusa was underway, they installed all new batch kilns with transfer cars on the infeed and outfeed. They installed a Gilbert planer with Piche mechanical work. They replaced the sawmill with an RPM gangsaw, as well as a new Piche trimmer, sorter and stacker line. “The whole modernization project was completed within the first quarter of 2023, and then nine days later, a massive fire on a Sunday night destroyed a third of the sawmill,” Galloway said. “Thankfully the only new piece of machinery that was damaged in the fire was the RPM gangsaw. There was, of course, still damage to the primary break down, as well as some wiring.”
The Bogalusa sawmill produces 206 million board feet a year.
While the Bogalusa sawmill had just come online before it was offline again, this showed Hood Industries the opportunity for further expansion. They brought Comact in to redesign their primary break down and sent the gangsaw to RPM to be completely stripped and rebuilt. When the Bogalusa sawmill was first bought it was producing 130 million board feet a year. Now it is on pace to produce 206 million board feet of Southern Yellow Pine a year.
The Bogalusa sawmill sits on 80 acres of land and is also equipped with a Comact optimized linear log processor, as well as a Nicholson Debarker, a Carbotech THOR thumper system and Autolog auto-grader with Logitex controls and a Piche sorter line and infeed line that has 65 bins. They also operate a Gilbert planer and four KDS Windsor dry kilns that hold 122,000 board feet each, one with a McDonough burner.
The Bogalusa facility produces 2×4 through 2×8’s up to 20-foot lengths and in grades Nos. 1 and 2 Prime. They recently introduced MSR into their product portfolio to service truss manufacturers. “We are strictly a two-inch sawmill here,” said Tony Rasberry, plant manager at the Bogalusa sawmill. “We do have the capabilities to run 4×4’s at the planer mill to supplement planer production, as needed.”
Shown here is a dry kiln batch of Southern Yellow Pine at the Bogalusa sawmill.
Bogalusa also has a shipping station that allows all of their trucks to load under one roof before moving on to their tarping station. This was added to increase carrier safety.
Hood Industries employs around 1,400 people. “We can’t do what we do without the people on our team,” said Galloway. “That’s why we follow what we call the ‘Hood Way’, which summarized is people, process and performance, and you must keep them in that order.” Not only does Hood Industries recognize that their employees are the cornerstone to their success, but to do this, their employees have to have the right tools and processes in order to do their jobs safely and productively.
“Our entire industry is needing to attract newer, younger talent, and I think that we are developing the technology that will make these jobs a little bit more attractive and unique,” stated Galloway. “We are always listening to people, and where the jobs aren’t the most attractive, we are trying to automate those through robotics and machine learning.”
Hood Industries Bogalusa sawmill has four KDS dry kilns.
Hood Industries is also committed to ensuring that their employees are provided with the knowledge and expertise that they need to do their job well and build a career at Hood Industries and in the forest products industry. “If you want to learn, we are going to provide you with the opportunity. We are putting training rooms into all of our facilities so that we can bring in equipment for our employees to learn and test on,” mentioned Galloway. “We also will cross train between facilities, because more often than not if an issue has come up at one plant, it will at another, so it is nice for our people to have these conversations and get firsthand knowledge from their peers.”
When the Beaumont plant was hit by the tornado, it not only impacted Hood’s customers and the products that they weren’t able to receive, but it impacted Hood’s suppliers – the loggers. “We have always had the philosophy that we are manufacturers. So, we will support the professionals that are loggers and what they do best. By doing this, we have built strong ties with those that log heavy for us,” noted Galloway. “And we want our suppliers, and customers alike, to know that they are a part of our team, and without them we wouldn’t be able to do what we do best.”
Bogalusa finished inventory.
Hood Industries’ Silver Creek facility is a 2×4 through 2×8 dimensional facility as well as 4×4 small timbers. “We recently put significant capital investment into Silver Creek in 2024 to modernized both the sawmill and planer operations as well as a truck tarping station,” said Rich Mills, vice president of manufacturing and sales at Hood Industries. “This will bring the mill’s capacity from 120 million board feet annually to over 200 million.”
Silver Creek’s product mix is heavily oriented towards prime products, with grades ranging from No.1 and 2, No. 2 Prime and PET, with a majority of the products manufactured there destined for home centers.
Shown here is the Bogalusa rail spur.
Bogalusa also has a shipping station that allows all their trucks to load under one roof before moving on to their tarping station.
Hood Industries’ Waynesboro mill offers the most diverse mix of Southern Yellow Pine products with thicknesses ranging from 2×4’s through 2×12’s and up to 24-foot lengths and produces 165 mmbf annually. “The Waynesboro mill has a customer base that it has served for 50-plus years, and so we want to continue to service that base with the product range that they have grown accustomed to,” noted Mills.
Hood Industries is a member of the Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association, Southern Forest Products Association, Sustainable Foresty Initiative, Mississippi Foresty Association, the Louisiana Foresty Association and a founding member of the Mississippi Lumber Manufacturers Association.
For more information, visit hoodindustries.com.
