The National Hardwood Lumber Association is 125 years old as of April 8, 2023. That is a great accomplishment because of what it proves. It proves that NHLA is needed. It proves that NHLA has value. It proves that NHLA improves your business.
How does NHLA improve your business? First and foremost, NHLA is the steward of the Hardwood lumber grading Rules – Rules that have existed for 125 years. Rules that are reevaluated and changed every four years by the members of NHLA. Rules that are printed in six different languages. Rules that ensure you know what you are selling and ensure that your customers know what they are buying. Keeping the government out of your grading Rules improves your business value.
The second way NHLA improves your business is through the Inspector Training School and the Inspection Services Department. If you have Hardwood lumber grading Rules, you need to ensure that people know them and that they are being followed. Over the last 20 years, NHLA Inspector Training School has trained almost 1,000 new inspectors. The Inspector Training School is also celebrating a milestone this year with its 75th Anniversary. While we struggle as an industry with a labor shortage, the School is critical to teaching the trades that inspect your grades and improves your business value.
There is a tie for third place between the NHLA Kiln Drying (KD) Certification and the Yield Recovery/Quality Control Services. The KD Certification achieves the same goals as the APHIS Phytosanitary Certificate for exports at a lower cost to your business. This program is underutilized and needs more members to participate for it to grow even more.
The Yield Recovery and Quality Control Quality Services that NHLA offers mills improve operational efficiency. This program comes with high marks for success and even benefits members who already have a quality program in place. Production is the one area where even small improvements can have a big impact and prove the value of NHLA knowledge is worth it.
Outside of lumber services, NHLA improves your business with its support of Educational Services, especially promotion and advocacy efforts by the Real American Hardwood Coalition and the Hardwood Federation. These efforts are critical to growing your markets and keeping regulatory and legislative impacts minimal. NHLA is the biggest association contributing to these efforts and participates with them to ensure your voice is heard, so your business grows and adapts to the changing landscape. Working together, we can do more than working alone; that improves your business too.
Building on the promotion collaboration is the importance of networking with allied associations and together as an industry at the NHLA Annual Convention and Exhibition Showcase. These interactions are critical to influencing all aspects of the Hardwood industry and creating social and business relationships with customers and suppliers that improve your business.
Finally, NHLA is going to prove this year and for another 125 years that WE can help grow and stabilize the Hardwood industry. If your livelihood and legacy are to build a Hardwood business that lasts, then NHLA should think 125 years ahead too. Because, in futuristic movies – they don’t harvest the trees or use wood 125 years from now. What a misleading fact of life. Forests are always changing, and we need to prove to the world that Hardwoods are for life and legacy beyond years and into centuries.
There is so much more that NHLA does that is not seen by you, yet you benefit from the NHLA being in business. To that end… Why Knot Prove that the NHLA Improves Your Value.
