Timber Tech: The Future of Forestry with Miller Timber Services

Matt Mattioda, Senior VP of CTL Systems & Chief Forester at Miller Timber Services, takes us on a journey deep into the landscape of modern forestry. Discover how advanced technology and sustainable practices are shaping the future of timber harvesting and forest management. 🌲

Learn more about this topic!

• Radiowell to Replace 10,000 Trees Lost in California Wildfire
• California is Using AI to Control Wildfires
• What Happens After a Forest Fire?
• How To Prevent Forest Fires
• How Will We Achieve Net-Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050?

Featured on Tomorrow's World Today:

Season 4 Episode 3 – Innovations in Forestry Management

Transcript

(0:00) Welcome to the Tomorrow's World Today podcast. We sit down with experts, world-changing innovators, (0:06) creators, and makers to explore how they're taking action to make tomorrow's world a better (0:11) place for technology, science, innovation, sustainability, the arts, and more. In this (0:18) episode, George Davison, who is also the host of Tomorrow's World Today on the Science Channel, (0:23) sits down with Matt Mattiota, the chief forester at Miller Timber.

He dives into the game-changing (0:29) advancements in forestry technology that are revolutionizing the industry, boosting efficiency, (0:35) enhancing safety, and making forest management more sustainable than ever. (0:40) Let's open up our conversation today, Matt. Just kind of curious about how your company got (0:47) started.

If you could run us up to speed on what your operation does, and then can you talk a (0:52) little bit about Ponsse and the founding of that organization? Sure, sure, Ken. Thanks for the (0:58) introduction. I appreciate that.

So, our company is Miller Timber Services. We're based out of (1:03) Philomath, Oregon, on the west coast. We're a full-cycle forestry services provider.

Full-cycle (1:10) meaning we work with the trees from the time they're planted as little seedlings all the way (1:15) through caring for those trees as they grow, protecting those trees from wildfire, and then (1:20) harvesting the trees when they're ready to be harvested. Interesting. How did you get started? (1:26) Can you tell us a little story about the entrepreneur that started this venture? (1:32) Sure.

Our company was founded by a gentleman by the name of Lee Miller. Lee is an entrepreneur, (1:39) and he came up with this idea of he wanted to work in the woods. He grew up in a forested (1:43) environment and wanted to have his own business.

So, he went to school at Oregon State University, (1:49) the College of Forestry, and upon graduation did the equivalent of starting a business out (1:55) of a garage. He started it with a chainsaw on a pickup truck. Good for him.

Yeah. So, (2:01) he started out there doing manual labor in the woods, cutting brush and thinning out small trees, (2:07) and it slowly, the business started to take off, and he hired his first employee, a long-time friend (2:12) of his, and the business continued to grow and grow, and now we have about 150 full-time employees (2:19) and about 250 in the middle of active fire season in the middle of summer. So, we've since moved on (2:27) from the pickup truck, and now we have two facilities, actually three facilities.

We have (2:32) one in northern Idaho, one in Oregon, and one in California we've just purchased recently. (2:36) Wonderful. And while you're doing all that work, you also are working with all sorts of (2:43) unique equipment, aren't you? We are.

These Ponsse machines are fantastic. (2:48) They're a great group of folks, and they're very innovative in their designs and the approach of (2:54) how we manage and harvest in thin forested environments. So, it might be a little hard (3:00) in this kind of a venue to describe what these machines do for you and your operators, (3:08) but could you describe it a little bit so that our audience can understand what the Ponsse machine is (3:14) doing? Sure.

So, if we were to step back in time a little bit, maybe 40 years or so, a lot of trees (3:20) were cut by hand. I'll be a gentleman, like Lee, started with a chainsaw on a pickup truck, (3:25) and they'd go out to the forest, and they were going to thin trees or harvest trees, and they'd (3:29) go out and they'd pull out their chainsaw and put on their ear protection and chaps to protect (3:35) themselves, and they'd go cut down a tree by hand, just the old-school way, just not with an axe, (3:39) but with a chainsaw. So, step forward to where we're at now, and we use these Ponsse machines, (3:44) and the Ponsse machines do the same thing.

So, instead of Lee being out there, let's say, (3:50) with a chainsaw in his hand, you'd be in the machine, and you're controlling the machine (3:53) almost like a video game, and the machine reaches out with its arm, and it has a chainsaw on the (3:59) bottom of it, essentially, grabs the tree, falls the tree, and then what it does is, just like (4:04) someone would need to cut the limbs off the tree to make a log to go to the sawmill, the machine (4:08) actually pulls the tree through this harvesting head, delimbs it, measures the length and diameter (4:13) as it's pulling the tree through, as it's feeding through the tree, and then it gets to the place (4:18) that we've predetermined with a computer where we want to make logs based on certain values, (4:22) pauses, the chainsaw bar comes out again, and bucks the tree into logs. What an innovation. (4:28) So, we are harvesting a tree, and instead of falling a tree and letting it hit the ground, (4:34) and then going by with the chainsaw and cutting every little limb off, then you'd have to pick it (4:39) up.

This sounds something like out of a Dr. Seuss book, where the device picks the tree, holds the (4:46) tree, cuts the tree, then pulls the tree through like a tube, and delimbs it, cuts it, and stacks (4:53) it. Is that a fair way for our audience to think about this? So, yes, that's a great way to look (4:59) at this, and we can do it faster, and more importantly, safer than we could by doing it by (5:04) hand. So, we're taking a lot of people out of harm's way by putting them inside a protective (5:09) cab that's designed for safety.
So, a lot of folks that work in the woods can get hurt very easily (5:16) with falling trees and walking around in the woods, but you put them inside an enclosed cab, (5:22) now you're in an environment that's safe for you. So, it's not only it's more productive, (5:27) it's also safer. That makes a lot of sense.

When we first opened up the conversation, (5:33) you were talking about managing the forest and harvesting from a seedling all the way up and (5:40) through. There's a lot of responsibility in proper management of the forest, isn't there? (5:46) There's a lot, and the decisions we make today may last 20, 30, 50 years. So, foresters have to (5:54) have a long-term view of things because our impacts last for long periods of time, and those (5:59) decisions last for long periods of time.

So, in the world that you operate in, I imagine there (6:06) are all sorts of different types of jobs that need to be filled. If somebody wanted to get (6:11) into your field, how would they do that? Great question. So, if you were to want to get into (6:16) forestry, there are several really good forestry schools in the United States that can help point (6:22) you in that direction.

Inside of those colleges and universities, there are different forestry (6:28) programs related to different aspects of forestry. So, a forest engineer, they typically lay out (6:35) road systems, lay out harvest units, things of that nature. They have a little different role (6:40) than I'm schooled as a forester.

So, my role is actually in the growing and tending of the trees (6:45) and the forestry cycle, and we call silviculture. And there may be other folks that are related to (6:50) efficient wildlife positions that work with foresters to help make decisions about what we (6:54) do out there. So, there are a variety of career paths that one can take.

Let's unwind you a little (7:00) bit if we could. You started out somehow. Can you give us how you started out in the world and kind (7:06) of take us on a little path forward? Sure.

So, I grew up in the eastern part of the Bay Area in (7:12) a town on Willet Creek, which is a suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area. Middle-class family. My dad (7:18) was a general contractor.

So, I would go out to the job sites with my dad, and he'd be building a (7:24) house or adding on the house, and I was always fascinated by wood. I just loved wood and working (7:29) with wood, and dad would bring wood home. So, my brothers and I, we'd play with wood, you know, (7:33) build a tree fort and all those kind of things in the backyard.

So, I liked wood. And then, you (7:38) know, as a family, we'd go camping. So, we'd go up to the Sierras in California, go up to the mountains, (7:42) and we'd go camping and just love being out in the woods.

And so, we're trying to figure out, (7:48) what do I want to do when I graduate high school? I was kind of thinking, you know, I don't know, (7:53) right? What do I want to do? But I really like wood and I really like camping and being out in (7:56) the woods. Well, forestry sounds good. So, I applied to a couple different forestry schools (8:02) in the United States and got accepted and decided to go to Oregon State is the one I chose to go to.
(8:07) And so, I got up there at Oregon State, went to school, and I honestly knew very little about (8:12) forestry at all. I couldn't even tell you what a Douglas fir tree was. And that's the predominant (8:17) timber species we deal with in the Northwest.

And I couldn't identify one. I just, I knew that (8:22) little. I just knew I liked trees and I knew I liked wood.

You know, I started with very little. (8:28) And from a suburban environment, I just knew I wanted to do something out there and just kind (8:33) of learned. And I had some great mentors in summers when I was going to college.

So, (8:38) they have programs there where they're hooking students up with mentors in the industry, (8:44) kind of like an internship programs for the summer. And so, a lot of students, you know, (8:48) sometimes they rotate around with different companies or different organizations every (8:51) summer. I ended up having one that I really enjoyed right out of the gate and at the career (8:55) fair.

And I worked with them all every summer when I was going through school and I was hired on (9:00) That's wonderful. And those mentors mean quite a bit to us when we're younger, don't they? (9:05) They do. I learned so much from them.

Of course, you know, I learned a lot in school. I learned (9:09) a basis for a lot of what we do. You know, the scientific background, the decisions and why we (9:15) make decisions.

But then I learned a lot of the practical came from the folks in the field that (9:20) I learned from and their experiences actually doing. So, it's been great. (9:26) That's a great way to say it, actually doing, right? That's, you know, inventing, making and, (9:33) you know, storytelling is the world in which we play in, in the world of innovation.

(9:39) But doing or making, I would consider those the same. But very, very important that you're (9:45) actually doing things with your hands or your mind to make things happen. (9:50) So, it's a little of both.
You know, there's the world of the theoretical (9:54) and the world of the practical. And you've got to figure out where that you can merge those two. (9:59) So, I learned a theoretical at school and learned a practical in the field.

(10:02) Well said. Well said. Thank you for that.

I think they're very lucky over at Ponsse that, (10:08) you know, they're working with an organization like yours. You are actually utilizing their (10:13) equipment and identifying potential new needs that you have. And then do you funnel that back (10:20) into the research and development department at Ponsse? So, they're getting real field knowledge (10:27) from people getting their hands dirty every day, doing the work, and they can then try to strive (10:34) for the next level over there.

Is that fair to say? It is fair to say. We do lots of requests (10:39) or asks from Ponsse, and we throw ideas at them like, what about this? What about that? (10:45) They kick ideas back and forth with us, like there's a firefighting water tank that we've (10:51) just been developing with them. It took two years and back and forth, and now we've got the first (10:55) one on site.

And now that we have our hands on the first one, well, that's generation one. We've (11:00) already thought of a bunch of changes for generation two. So, what caused that to happen? (11:05) So, usually there's a cause and then there's an effect, right? So, there was an observational (11:10) analysis.

What was seen in the field that caused that to happen? (11:15) Based on the number of fires that we're having, and our company's heavily involved in wildland (11:19) firefighting, we wanted to see, is there a better way, a safer way to get water out to the field to (11:24) help reduce these wildfires, to suppress them earlier with a shorter timeframe and safer, (11:32) and with maybe a little less people so we can free up resources to go help fight other parts (11:38) of the fire. Because when a wildfire occurs, they're usually over a large area and there's (11:42) a tremendous resource drain or a lot of folks are needed. So, there's limited resources.

So, (11:48) how can we stretch our resources out to be more effective with what we do and do it safer? (11:54) So, this idea of taking a forwarder, which we normally use for harvesting operations, (11:59) and integrating a water supply and a water cannon on it, and packing 2,640 gallons of water out (12:06) from away from the road into the woods, saves time. (12:10) That's wonderful. Wonderful.

Good innovation, right? (12:13) It is. It's great. It's fun.

(12:15) All right. So, shall we move on? (12:18) Yeah. (12:18) Let's see here.
All right. So, let's talk about the future a little bit. (12:22) Yeah.

(12:23) And the next, let's say, if we were to look out into the field 10 years, 30 years out, (12:29) what would you think are some of the big innovations that are coming down the pathway here? (12:34) Is it going to be all like traditional forestry or are we going to see (12:39) AI and technology going into the forest? (12:42) We are. We are and we currently are and we're going to see more of it. (12:48) You know, we're utilizing drones in forestry right now and taking photos and some of the (12:53) technologies are allowing us to identify where the trees are in the landscape and the machines (12:57) know where they are in the landscape now.

When they harvest trees, they know where the base (13:01) machine is relative on the landscape. But I think as time goes on, the machine is going to be able (13:06) to help us make decisions better about, let's say, a thinning operation where we harvest some of the (13:11) trees and leave some of the trees to grow. The machines are going to help the operators determine (13:15) which ones to stay and go to meet a prescription or what a forester designates is what they want (13:20) the forest to look like after it's done.

We're going to see some of that. There's going to be (13:24) more innovation between the machines, the two machines communicating with each other. So, (13:30) the one that cuts into trees and lays the logs out will send information to the one that's going to (13:34) go pick them up and get them to the roadside so it knows where those logs are.

There's innovation (13:40) where the end users, let's say the sawmills or the plywood plants that are utilizing these trees and (13:45) making products for society, they're going to get the information of what kinds of trees and what (13:51) the lengths and diameters and volumes are of these trees that are going to be coming to them before (13:55) they even see the trees show up at their operation. So, they can help them plan and manage, well, (14:02) do we have enough of a certain size and a certain length for a particular product or should we (14:07) switch and should we make a different size or length of product because our customers are (14:12) needing something different. So, we're going to give them, they're going to have more visibility (14:16) of the process and inventory management.

We're going to basically extend the manufacturing (14:24) facility out into the forest so they have this raw material information before they get it. (14:29) Wow, there's a lot of innovation going on. There's a ton.
You know, and as a forester, (14:33) as a manager, things that are happening already is I can pull up some information on my iPad and (14:39) I can see where the machines are working and what they're producing and where they're on the (14:43) landscape and we're going to be communicating with our landowners that way as to where they are (14:47) and planning for how soon until they're done with their project and ready to move on to the next one (14:54) or where we're at in the process.

 So, for mechanics, let's say, the ability for mechanics (14:59) to remotely log in on a computer, maybe even a state or two away and reach into that machine (15:06) and maybe make some changes to it to help the operators out or maybe the machine is going to (15:10) start sending back information like a system is starting to fail. We see a hydraulic pump starting (15:15) to fail.

We can measure. There's things we can measure to tell when a system may fail and send (15:21) preventative help out before something actually fails so our operators can stay functioning and (15:26) productive. That's wonderful.

So, connectivity. I think connectivity in the forest. You think (15:31) you're out in the middle of nowhere and a lot of places we work don't even have cell phone coverage.

(15:35) Yes. But there's going to be a connectivity connection with these machines with those (15:39) of us that are maybe not with them that particular day. My office, you know, I have a physical office, (15:45) but my office is really my pickup truck and using my iPad or a laptop, I'm connecting with a lot of (15:51) things that way.

So, my most effective time is actually out in the field and working with (15:56) our foresters and landowners and working with the folks out in the field. So, having this connectivity, (16:02) I can't be everywhere all the time. It helps me be more productive as well.

(16:06) I understand. Wow. A lot of advancement.

It seems like you're going to get more efficiencies out in (16:12) the field, a better pattern upon how you're harvesting so that you can plan the future (16:18) out a little better. Is that a fair way to say it? It is. And we're going to see advances in terms (16:23) of fuel efficiencies for equipment and maybe systems that are driving those machines.

You (16:29) know, maybe hybrid type systems, just like we're seeing with vehicles. You know, it may not be all (16:34) totally powered by an engine. There might be some electrical components in there.

And so, (16:37) maybe some batteries in the machine as well, along with maybe a smaller engine that are going to help (16:42) drive the machine. So, we're going to be able to reduce our fuel consumption and become more (16:47) efficient because there are some inherent advantages of electrical drive systems over, (16:52) you know, hydraulically driven systems. Yes.

So, I think we're going to see some innovations in (16:56) that regard as well. They're taking tech to the woods. Tech to the woods.
I like the way that (17:01) sounds. I like that. All right.

So, now you gave me a segue onto Ponsse. We hit a little bit about (17:08) that organization. Can we take for another moment and talk a little bit about, you know, we can talk (17:15) about Ponsse for a minute.
I'd love to know about who was this that started this company? And is (17:19) there a story here that might be worth sharing as from an entrepreneurial perspective? Yeah, (17:25) there is. So, entrepreneurship happens globally, right? There's entrepreneurs all over this world (17:31) and you never know where they're going to come from, but they're out there. And so, our story (17:35) for Ponsse begins in a little village called Vierma, Finland.

Vierma, Finland is a little (17:41) small rural farming community, forestry community in the middle of Finland. And there's a gentleman (17:47) by the name of Enri Vigren. And Enri, after World War II, Enri was trying to make a living for his (17:53) family in a tough environment, tough times in Finland after World War II.

And Finland's mostly (17:58) forested. So, Enri, of course, worked in the forest as a lot of folks in rural Finland do. (18:04) And harvesting trees and hauling trees out of the woods at that point in time was a difficult, (18:08) tedious task.

Finland's very cold in the winter. And so, he was trying to harvest trees and Enri (18:14) got to thinking and this innovative spirit of his, he's, how can we do this better? Because (18:19) before they're kind of using like maybe a small farm tractor and things like that to get these (18:24) logs to market. And sometimes they put them on a sled and pull them with a horse.
And they're like, (18:28) how can we do this differently? I'd like to stay a little warmer than being out in the cold all (18:34) winter long. So, Enri helped develop a couple of him and he had some friends in a shop, a little (18:41) shop in Värmland. He developed a forwarder, what we now know as a forwarder.

And this forwarder was (18:47) really innovative because it had a cab on it and a crane on top of the cab. And he could reach over (18:52) and pick up these logs and put on its back and drive them to the roadside, which was much better (18:56) than trying to drag them out with a tractor in the cold or maybe on a sled with a horse. (19:00) Right, right.

So, in this little village of Värmland, there was a dog that kind of hung (19:07) around Enri's shop. And it wasn't particularly a very good looking dog. It was kind of a (19:13) mutt, you know.

But everybody in the village said, when you go on to go hunting, you take this dog (19:18) with you because this dog may not look very good, but this dog is a tremendous hunting dog. It really (19:23) performs. And so, when they're in the shop and they're building this machine, it wasn't really (19:29) the most graceful looking machine, but it was really good at what it did.
So, they decided to (19:34) name the machine and actually the company after the dog. And the dog's name was Ponsse. So, here (19:39) we are 50 years later, and the little dog in the village that wasn't good looking but could really (19:45) hunt is now the name of a very large multinational company.

That is a great story. I've never heard (19:53) of a company being named after a ratty looking dog. I think Enri must have had a pretty good (20:00) sense of humor too.

It sure sounds like it. So, he's an innovator with a sense of humor. Yes.
(20:05) That's a wonderful combination. It is. It's good to laugh at yourself too, right? (20:12) All right.

Well, that's a great story about Ponsse. Well, I can't thank you enough for (20:19) sharing all your insight. Thank you for listening to this episode of Tomorrow's World Today podcast.

(20:25) Join us next time as we continue to explore the worlds of inspiration, creation, innovation, (20:31) and production. Discover more at tomorrowsworldtoday.com. Connect with us on (20:35) social media at TWT Explore and find us wherever podcasts are available.