Pyramid Received Notable Practice on Fiber Sourcing Audit

SEELEY LAKE – Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Inc. recently received a notable practice on their conformance audit through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). This maintains their fiber sourcing certification. Pyramid is one of two SFI certified mills in the state.

Pyramid applied for its fiber sourcing certification through SFI five years ago. One of their main ponderosa pine customers Pella Windows wanted to make sure they were using certified wood and promote that on their products. Now several more customers are asking for the certified wood.

“We think it is the right thing to do,” said Rose. “We were basically doing all of these things on the ground anyway, we have been for years. That’s why we call ourselves a stewardship company. To have someone come in independently and verify that is affirming.”

To be certified in fiber sourcing means Pyramid is required to use accredited loggers, they must provide educational material to loggers and landowners and there are certain requirements in contracts and documentation to prove that they have met all the requirements.

Every year an auditor from Bureau Veritas comes for two days to make sure a part of the process checks out. This year was a conformance audit looking at everything.

Auditor Jim Cola and the Pyramid’s three foresters went to seven different logging sites and interviewed the loggers and landowners to make sure they had all the required safety gear and asked about their interactions with Pyramid.

While Cola was expecting to find things that had slipped through the cracks because Pyramid only has three foresters compared to four last year, he didn’t find it.

Cola told Rose, “It starts with the professionalism of your people, not just the foresters but Cobra Lee Ruth (SFI coordinator) and Pam Pitman (Logging Payroll Clerk), in maintaining this high degree of integrity. You are doing as much with less. The consistency that I hear from the loggers and the landowners is unbelievable. It is so refreshing, get out on the ground, see that you are doing work here on the ground that needs to be done and it’s done the right way. From top to bottom everyone you talk to is saying the same thing.”

This is the third year Pyramid has received a notable practice. Pyramid has never been written up for poor practices.