Matt Scholl has quite a varied experience in the forest products industry. He started training in the Northeast and went to school at Penn State. His first stop was hardwood lumber grading before spending time in the Black Forest in Germany and attending Freiburg University in Germany. After that, he moved to the West Coast and ran planer mills, sawmills, and quality control in Coos Bay, Oregon.
Scholl eventually made his way down South, where he worked as a corporate quality leader for a large corporation and had several sawmills under his responsibility. After that, he went to the treating side and got a good education in treating Southern Pine before joining the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau, where he currently serves as vice president.
We know SPIB is very important, and most people in the industry understand what SPIB does. For those end users and others who may not know as much about lumber, please give me the 60-second SPIB elevator pitch.
First, I’d like to say that SFPA and SPIB have the same roots. We were born out of the same consent decree, where we divided inspection services and marketing. SPIB is one of the five accredited American Lumber Standards Committee rules-writing agencies, and we’re responsible for the Southern Pine species.
SPIB is tasked with writing the rules and upholding a voluntary product standard – PS 20. So, we manage the Southern Pine grading rules and the resource monitoring program.
We also are very involved in enforcing American Wood Protection Association (AWPA) standards for the treated lumber industry.
Visually and mechanically graded and treated lumber are our predominant focuses. We also have some wood packaging material services, as well.
Without getting too into the technicalities of grading, because that could take a whole series over a year, explain to that person who’s going to Lowe’s or Home Depot or their local hardware supplier: Where does SPIB fit into their backyard project?
I never understood the actual value of a brand until I came to SPIB. Our brand recognition is significant; it’s really where our value lies. We have a long history since 1915 of playing a role in and writing standards and helping facilitate the creation of very safe products for the end user, whether from a strength or efficacy side.
When you see the SPIB brand in the big box store, at the independent distributor, or perhaps overseas, you can have confidence that the product meets applicable standards.
You’ve worked with hardwoods, softwoods, and all different species. What is it about Southern Pine? Why did you end up sticking with Southern Pine?
SPIB has been a good fit for my experiences working in many different wood baskets, working on the treated side, and being involved in quality with a wood science background.
I was very fortunate and blessed to have interacted with the right people. I was drawn down to the South for a job opportunity. I’ve had great mentors along the way, and through that mentorship and sense of family, I felt like I was home here. I met a wife in the South, and three boys cemented me here.
Creating my own family and being part of a more prominent Southern Pine family has paved the way for me and my happiness both in my career and personally.
We’re seeing Southern Pine move into markets that haven’t historically worked with this species, especially out West and internationally. What do you want people, from industry professionals to end users, to know about using Southern Pine lumber?
The talking points are in the product’s characteristics. You have much versatility and much strength. It’s one of the strongest building materials per unit volume. It’s got good permeability for your treated needs, so it’s easy to penetrate Southern Pine, given its anatomical structures to get the chemical into the wood.
One of the things I find very attractive is the contrasting colors from the light creamy color you see in the sapwood to the darker, more pronounced color you see in the latewood.
We have some advertisements from the 1920s and 1930s in our office, mentioning the “Wood of Use” and the “Wood of Service.” You pretty much explained why they were using those tag lines.
Where do you see the industry could improve?
SPIB focused on talent development. We need to develop our talent continually. Our organization and the industry are only as strong as our field, office, and lab talent.
We recently created a new training format, “A Week of Quality Together,” a collection of our kiln, grading, and quality control courses in one week. You can take those individually, but it provides an opportunity to get someone away from the mill just once instead of several times.
We’re also developing talent internally, opening opportunities for SPIB staff to continue refining and growing their skills.
In addition to talent development, we are working to innovate how we package our technology and data to help us be efficient, aid our subscribers in making operating and business decisions, and help define how mills perform in terms of quality.
You’ve been in this industry for a while, so there should not be surprises, but they probably occur. What still surprises you about forest products and the Southern Pine lumber industry?
As a leader of a third-party inspection agency, I have the advantage of seeing various facilities and their technology implementations. It’s not only the technology you see off the shelf but also the innovative ways people and mills approach problems.
Every time I go to a mill, there’s always something new I haven’t seen before. And I’ve seen Amish mills in Pennsylvania that were running off one Cummins diesel engine.
Where do you see the Southern Pine lumber industry in 10 years? What’s it going to look like?
Given the curtailments happening in the market’s lull, we have a lot of cold steel, but there’s also a bunch of pent-up demand. You can see our neighbors to the north making investments in the South.
I think the future is bright. We will continue doing what we do best and reinvesting in our services. There’s a long runway, especially with the demand in the marketplace and the assets we have available, to meet that demand.
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 premier wood species domestically and internationally!