Gilbert, based in Roberval, Quebec, is just about five hours north of Montreal, but its impact and contributions to the Southern Pine lumber industry have been felt throughout the Southeast, largely because of Heidi Danbrook.
The sales manager started with the planer equipment manufacturer in 2001 when the company’s founder and owner, Sylvain Gilbert, wanted to develop the market outside of Quebec, where they had a total of about five machines.
That’s when Sylvain hired Danbrook to help do presentations, manuals, training, and sales in English. Fast forward to 2024, when Gilbert now has about 200 global installations.
Tell me a little about Gilbert.
The company, founded in 1986, is privately owned by founder and owner, Sylvain Gilbert, whose son and daughter, Frank, general manager, and Audrey, general secretary, are taking over.
We have four divisions with about 140 employees in total. We build felling heads for feller bunchers to cut the trees, and our construction division builds excavator-mounted pile drivers to drive sheet piles into the earth and snow groomers to groom snowmobile trails, which is not as popular in the southern U.S.
But our main division is the planer mill division. We focus on the planer itself from the infeed to the outfeed. We also do retrofits on existing planers, where we’ve removed, for example, hydraulics on existing planers and put our electric drives on other planers.
One of the things I wanted to ask you is being a woman, being a leader in this industry, what does that mean for you?
I’ve always loved my job. I’ve always been very respected by all my customers. So, being a woman has never changed anything compared to being a man in the industry. The most important thing is to know your equipment.
I got the best training here, so when I started doing the presentations in English, I knew the equipment, and I was able to present all the technical aspects of the equipment well. I know what kind of situations they have in their mills, what they’re looking for, what they need.
My strength is really building a relationship with my customers and gaining their confidence. I’ve been doing this for 24 years now, and I still talk to people I’ve met 20 years ago.
It’s 2024, and that’s a big topic, so it’s great to hear that as long as you know your equipment and industry and can build relationships, you’re going to do great work, right?
What is it about forest products, and specifically the Southern Pine lumber industry, you enjoy? Why do you like working in this space?
I really like the mills in the South because of the market being so good, but also the species is nice. Once you’ve planed it, once you’ve focused on having a nice surface, a nice finish with the number of knives, and the RPM that we put on the heads, it’s a really beautiful species.
We have many customers that run a high-quality Southern Pine decking product that is, according to me, the nicest board you can have.
We like to think that, too!
Yeah, we don’t have that kind of species in Canada. Here, it’s a little drier, it’s not as dense.
You just stole my next question before I had a chance to ask it. What do you want people to know about Southern Pine lumber?
I don’t sell the lumber. I sell the equipment to make the lumber look good. But it’s a quality product because of the strength of the board. We help them make a nice finish and produce a nice product.
That’s one of the great things about SFPA. We represent lumber manufacturers, but really when you talk about it, we represent the whole supply chain in the Southern Pine lumber industry.
You mentioned earlier about how Gilbert is a very family-rooted business. You employ more than 100 employees. So, it’s more than just that planer equipment, right? You’re supporting whole communities?
Yes. Every year we have events like MLMA and SLMA, which are very family-oriented. They have their summer conferences in Mississippi and the Southeast. Those are the customers I approach the most, the private-owned mills.
We have a lot of good communication with them during these events. We create friendships even with their wives and children. That’s something special in the Southeast I don’t see elsewhere.
I’m not asking for trade secrets or anything that would be proprietary, but what are you hearing about how the industry is doing? What are some of the hot-button items?
We’re always focused on making our equipment easier to use, making it as simple as possible to work on. Many of the mills have a big turnover. Some people come in, we train them, then they leave. We’re not always there every time a new crew comes in to train them, so we’re focusing on making the equipment as simple as possible so everyone can use it.
We’re working on automatic functions, too, so even if you don’t have a planer expert onsite, many of the functions can run themselves in automatic mode. I think the mills are looking forward to having a machine running more by itself with easier maintenance because it’s hard to find skilled workers in 2024 – and keep them.
That AI and automation. I know our industry is a leader in that, but it just continues to impact everything we’re doing in the forest products industry. And as you said, it’s only going to get better and more efficient.
Talking about what’s coming, pull out your crystal ball. Where do you see the forest products and the Southern Pine lumber industry in about 10 years?
I hope we’ll be still running many sawmills and planer mills. That is my wish, and I have good hope. In the 25 years that I’ve been here, we’ve had high peaks. We’ve had harder years like in 2008 and 2009, then it went back up, so I am very hopeful for 10 years, 20 years from now.
I believe mills will continue investing, maybe not in these big mega mills anymore, but they’ll be investing in really making what they’ve got work right and invest in maintenance, invest in new components in the existing mills.
I’m also very hopeful people will continue to build homes and more apartment homes, and we’ll always need wood for construction.
Wood is catching on. We know sustainability is a huge factor, and what’s a more sustainable option than lumber? So, Heidi, we will follow up with you in 10 years to see how your predictions turn out.
The Southern Forest Products Association’s A Cut Above series highlights and introduces to the Southern Pine lumber community and the greater world the amazing people who are part of our community and help keep Southern Pine among the premiere wood species domestically and internationally!