NEWS BMIEFS

Numbers, mostly depressing, dominate the news...the permit rate for future construction means no hope for a housing recovery until after June, accotding to Michael Sumichrast, chief economist, Nt'1. Assn. of Home Builders...he called the rate "shockingly low"...

Almost matching the permits' record low. were the housing starts, the 2nd lowest rate on record: 977,000 in Jan. on a seasonally adjusted annual rate; down 2% from Dec., the figs. are 4B7o of the pace of I year ago...

Contracting for new construction slipped to a 4 year low, reports F. W. Dodge; much of the decline is concentrated in the long-depressed housing market...construction spending also declined sharply in Jan., down 2.7% from the mo. earlier and 3.4% below a year before...

Many wood producers are being forced to buy stumpage for more than they can get for the lumber at present prices, the Nt'I. Forest Products Assn. has testified before Congress...NFPA pres. Colvin said that "desperate mill owners are gambling" on higher prices l-2 years from now to cover their costs...

Final'74 figs. on mobile home production showeda 34% decline Jrom the previous year; the big California mkt. declined only l5% tho...Weyerhaeuser will cut bockcapital spending in'75 from $700 million to $450 million...

llot all the news is bad by a lang shot, the feds have cut the discount rate. the prime lending rate is down to 7h%. lowest since 6173. a bill to subsidize mortgages for 400.000 new homes is moving rapidly thru the U.S.

Congress... the trend to single homes from multiples means more lumber per housing start...

General feeling at Western Wood Products Assn. meeting {see report, pp. 12-13) was upbeat and recent consumer polls by the U. of Michigan reveal less gloomy consumers and a tentative retLtrn to spending... U.S. trucking industry is reported reviving after its worst slump since the 1930s...

The Soviet trade people have been in the Pacific Northwest touring and making tentative agreements to buy/sell/barter wood products for U.S.-made logging and mill equipment; USSR says it's ready "to sell America logs, cants, sawn lurnber or dry verceer in any quantity and over any time span"...

Imported Hardwood Products .4ssn.''s Scottsdale, Az., annual elected Pat Kirwin, pres.; Tom Welsh, senior v.p. : George Eliades, exec. v.p.: and Henry Dessauer, tres.; highlights were talks on ocean shipping, future problems/ opportunities; off-shore industry trends, mobile home markets, birch doorskin dumping, duties, veneer, hardboard, plywood & lumber...

The Ponderosa Pine lloodwork Assn. was merged into the l/ational l,loadwork Mfgrs. Assn. at NWMA's 48th annual; Harry L. Grove, Potlatch, said it wasn't the end of an assn., but "the beginning of a new one, larger and more totally representative of the industry"; PPW programs continue "with little or no interruption ".

Georgia-Pacific, Dant & Russell, Ketchikan Fulp (owned by Louisiana-Pacific and FMC). Alaska Lumber & Pulp and Schnabel

Lumber and Euilding Maleriala MERCHANT trlickes has purchased 33 of Evans Products wholesale bldg. mtls. centers in 20 states for $19 million; the units in No. Ca. are reportedly now answering the phone as Sequoia Supply Inc.... Evans has also sold its underconstruction offlce bldg. in Portland to Benjamin Franklin S&L and has also lined up additional financing and loan agreements...

Lumber must rroduce their records of Aluska timber tlcalings, especially bidding, for the feds; period covered dates from 1960 to now;subpoenae for the paperwork came from a federal grand jury in Portland...

A.C. Houston Lumber Co is building a new 25,000 sq. ft. store in Silver City, N.M....Pirie Tree Lutnber has opened a new branch store/gen. offices in Escondido, Ca....l,lational Lurnber opened a tlew store April 4 in Torance, Ca...Irnst IIome Centers hasopened a new 43,800 sq. ft. unit in Pocatello, Id., in a mall shared in part with Sears...

Bonnie Sales Co.. Eureka. Ca.. is filling existing orders before closing "indefinitely" due to market conditions..-Pctpe & Talbot plans a $ 1.3 million "mini" mill expansion at their Port Gamble. Wa., m1ll..-Eckstrom Plywood, Los Angeles, recently signed on as a (.elotex distributor...

Biggers Horne Centir is adding an 8000 sq. ft. nursery dept to its Yuba City, Ca., store...l"he American Plywood Assn. has cancelled its regional meeting program for '75 due to business conditions... members of Nt'l Lumber & Bldg. Mtl. Dealers Assn. are expected to descend in force on Washington, D.C. for their 3rd annual Conference with Congre ss...

White House plans to make Thermal Efficiency Standards mandatory for all new bldgs. means (a) massive changes to the bldg. code and (b) that wood would replace metals and masonry as no. I material, but the likelihood of that happening soorz is about zero.

NO CIGAR chomper this

The Girl Who Sells Lumber

One recent foggy day, Chris Hodgson of the Georgia-Pacific building materials distribution center in Portland, Or., sold three truckloads of particleboard and two truckloads of plywood sheathing.

Now thiswould normally be nothing but a routine matter for an outside salesman in the nationwide distribution system of the company, and you wouldn't even mention it in a letter to your mother; except that Chris Hodgson is a woman.

She is one of the few outside "salespersons" in the forest products industry, traditionally a bastion of male chauvinism, bringing to mind hairychested loggers with calked boots on their feet and chain saws in their hands.

It all began when Chris graduated from Linfield College with a degree in psychology. The market at this time was soft for psychologists so Chris applied for a job at G-P's corporate headquarters in Portland. She was hired as a receptionist where her psychological training would, presumably, be put to good use. The fires of ambition turned into the damp astres of rbutine shortly and she became bored.

Soon she buttonholed Jon Kerl (manpower development manager) and asked him for ajob in sales.

Jon, who is shockproof, instantly switched his title to womanpower development manager and arranged for an interview with Rick Williams, manager of the nearest distribution center, which currently is expanding into near-

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