Large modernized sawmills dominate market as small operations close
Large modernized sawmills dominate market as small operations close
Onaway— As general manager of a mid-Michigan sawmill for more than 25 years, Todd Smith has seen the state’s industry shrink, battered by foreign competition, inflation and a shortage of skilled workers.
Now there’s a new worry for him and 110 other employees at Devereaux Sawmill in Ionia County: tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump in an effort to force manufacturing of all kinds back into the United States.
“A lot of lumber gets exported to China and, even though we don’t export a lot to China, all the lumber that was going there has to go somewhere else,” Smith said. “So when trade into China gets cut back or cut off … it can flood the market. My hope is that the tariffs in the end will be more of a benefit than they are of a hardship right now.”
In the meantime, the levies add to the headwinds for Devereaux and other Michigan sawmills that turn lumber into cabinets, furniture and trim pieces as part of the state’s $26.5 billion forest products industry. According to research from Michigan State University’s Department of Forestry, the number of sawmills in Michigan declined to 237 from 257 between 2018 and 2023, while the number of small operators plunged 43% from 1990 to 2023. Overall, the state’s industry lost more than $211 million in output and 1,100 jobs between 2019 and 2023.
That consolidation has ripple effects for local economies. The report cited the closure of two Besse Forest Products Group mills in the Upper Peninsula last year that resulted in more than 100 layoffs as highlighting the fragility of rural communities dependent on mill infrastructure.
“In one area, there is investment happening in the sawmill, which created a job, and another area where the mill is closed, people lose logging as a particular rule of economics,” said Jagdish Poudel, an assistant professor of forest economics and policy at MSU.
To Smith, it’s a simple but challenging calculus: Get bigger or get gone.
“You have to grow in order to stay profitable, and the smaller places seem to be struggling and getting squeezed out, which is too bad in a way, but that’s kind of the way it is,” he said. “Farming seems to be going that way, and some of big-box stores squeeze out the little hardware (stores), and our industry is quite similar. There’s still some operators who can get it done, but if you’re not growing and getting bigger, then it’s harder to keep the doors open.”
Up north in Cheboygan County, Precision Hardwoods is among the Michigan sawmills getting bigger.
This year, the business, which employs more than 80 people, completed a $20 million expansion that includes a new 45,000-square-foot facility that uses artificial intelligence and other technology to cut lumber in seconds — allowing the company to process up to five times the amount of chopped wood for industrialized crates, boxes and pallets as before.
The project, which included the hiring of 18 more employees, was aided by a $130,000 Michigan Business Development Program performance-based grant from the Michigan Strategic Fund.
Owner Mike Sturgill said he’s seen small sawmills close, which is why his facility on M-68 just west of Onaway not only processes lumber but handles logging, too. That, he said, makes Precision less dependent on outside forces than some competitors.
“We can have control of our future and control of what we do; we’re not relying on someone else to help us,” Sturgill said. “(Whereas) they’re at the mercy of competing against everybody else for logs and trucking capacity.”
Sturgill spends his days in a control room overseeing the new AI system that quickly measures hardwood and softwoods like maple, oak, beech, birch, aspen and pine logs, decides how to cut them, and also kicks out logs that have metal inside or are too bulky to cut. It can send more than 5,000 logs per day through the machine compared to less than 750 per day with the old industrial sawmill.
“This mill operation was $20 million,” he said. “It’s a lot of investment. You have to be sure you want to do this … you got to be in it for a long time before you can recoup your investment.”
He went ahead with the expansion despite being in a market he says has been oversupplied since 2022, in expectation that the housing market will rebound. He’s optimistic that Trump’s tariffs will help, too.
“The market’s been pretty saturated and kind of slow for the last few years, but you can’t keep adding more people to the country and not use more houses, supplies,” Sturgill said. “I think the tariffs are helping us. The more we have to buy here and build here, it will help the industry in general. It’ll be some tough times to get there, some inflation, but ultimately it’ll be better.”
Like the owner, employees such as Joe Burrows, a maintenance worker who joined Precision Hardwoods in April as part of the expansion, are keenly aware of the shakeout among Michigan mills with 50 or fewer employees.
“I know there’s some small mills around here that have closed over the years,” said Burrows, who helped set up parts of the new mill and paint its floors.
Fluctuations in timber prices and increased operational costs contribute to the closures. Larger sawmills benefit from advanced machinery and automation, which enhance productivity and reduce labor costs. Small mills frequently lack access to such technologies, making it difficult to compete.
Smith, the Devereaux general manager, said other challenges include finding qualified loggers and handling customer orders that have grown more specialized over the past two decades.
“The logging profession seems to be dwindling. Finding good quality loggers that still harvest the way that we do … with a chainsaw, it is becoming kind of a dying profession,” he said. “Finding loggers has become a bit of a concern in our industry in Michigan.”
On the customer side, Smith said, “Orders have become a lot more technical. Twenty years ago, we could sell full loads of one common hard maple. Now it’s like 1,000 feet of this, 2,000 feet of that, sprinkle on a little bit of this … everybody wants just enough,” he said. “The markets are unpredictable (and) nobody has a real positive long-term outlook. It’s not like doom and gloom either, but nobody wants to get too carried away. Everybody’s operating with caution.”
mjohnson@detroitnews.com
@_myeshajohnson
