Here's Hqwoii

By PUT ROBBINS Executive Director, Hawaiian Wood Products Association

TYIOOD PRODUCTS Association of W Hawaii has iust celebrated a birthday. As of April '1, we started our sixth year of wood promotion.

In these past five years we have spent nearly 200,000 lumber industry dollars on wood products' promotion. What has been accomplished ? Has this expenditure of lumber industry dollars been worthwhile to those supporting the expense?

As an organization, WPAH is set up in a fairly efficient manner. Last year for example, 69/o of our expense was for advertising and promotion, 25/o {or administralion, 6c/o for m,iscellaneous, including taxes, travel and dues.

Since WPAH has employed a stafi o{ director and secretary (early 1962) they have accomplished: nearly 1,000 specific calls; 7,800 column inches of publicity; 350 ad- vertisements; 1,100 inquiries plus the public relations and goodwill that comes {rom maintaining an office and an active place in industry and community affairs. So what? have sales increased?

As best we can figure with rather limited and sometimes conflicting statistical data, the wood products market has increased from around 90 million feet o{ lumber and plywood in 1962 to 125 million feet of lumber and plywood in 1965. In this same period residential and commercial construction has increased from $125 million to $147 million annually while total construction has jumped from $264 million to $338 million annually. Based upon these statistics it looks as if the wood products industry in Hawaii has increased sales 38/o, kept pace with construction increases and even made a nice gain.

Marketing Success

Has S'PAH had anything to do with this marketins success? Yes! United effort by the major wood suppliers through a local trade association has opened many doors. Codes have been modified to benefit wood, specificrs have becn made aware of the wide range of wood products avail' able and suitable to their needs; and the public, including building officials, architects and builders, have been exposed to wood promotion and industry image build- ing. Five years of wood promotion and some success is behind us. What lies ahead? In one man's opinion, unless our industry can begin to pull together again and continue the work of solving our customers' needs our future is black.

We need better agreement between the wood products and the wood treating industries with meaningful standards that will provide customer satisfaction.

W'e need quick action on rebirth of a national wood promotion program that will benefit all areas and all organizations willing to work with it. Now that NWPP is finished we find a big gap for literature and promotional data on the general 'ouse wood for -" thsms. A local wood promotion group cannot afford to produce the quality material of a national grotp. Thank Cod that the "Carauan" idea ol Wood' X[a,rketing, Inc., has been dropped. Hawaii as well as many other "unimportant" mar' ket areas would have sufiered. National advertising reaches farther plus it serves to make some points with the magazine and Madison Avenue people whom n'e cannot afford to overlook.

As stated in the beginning, these are one man's opinion based on the experience of one market area wood promotion group. I don't think we are so difierent that most of this wouldn't apply to you and your area. What do vou think?

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Here is a new stain you'll sell with confidence. It's the new approach to that "efiective weathered appearanoe on wood." Semi-transparent stain provides a tint of color to accent the grain and texture of natural wood. Made especially for cedar and redwood, though it works equally well on other woods, too. It-r eight colors, and one' or fivegallon containers. Attractive label sells on sight.

HEAVY-DUTY STAINS FOR SOLID GOLOR COVERAGE

Here is a companion stain that rounds out the line, opaque stain for full couerage. Proven in years of use on Shakertown's pre-finished cedar shingles and shakes. Its special formulation brushes on wood evenly and easily. there's no dripping! It's a great way for adding or changing color to previously stained surfaces also.

Complete Merchandising Program

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RADIO SPOTS

Accident Prevenlion Associotion Noses Iniury Rote is ltnProving

The California Lumbermen's Accident Prevention Assooiation has held its forty' ninth annual meeting and elected Alden Ball of the Pacific Lumber Company as president. Others elected were: Ed. Norby, Norby Lumber Co., North Fork, vice president, and Dwight C. Steele, secretary.

Elected to the board of directors were: D. R. Mitchell, chairman, Georgia Pacific; Stanley W. Hulett, Willits Redwood; Foster Morrison, Diamond National Corpora' tion; Ed O'Connor, Stockton Box Com' pany; S. T. Pipkin, General Box Distribu' tors; T. L. Taylor, American Forest Products Corp. and Alder Thurman, Union Lumber Company.

Arthur I. Winston of the California Highway Patrol was the main speaker at the March 25 session. He summed up the working of the regulatory bodies ahd stated that regulation will not work if industry will not accept it.

He further stated that under the new regulation requiring truck driver's be given physical examination, 2,000 drivers have been examined and ,14 have been rejected.

IVinston said anyone wishing a copy of the Proposed Lumber and Log Regulations should write Captain W. Eugene Beck, commander, administrative section, Depart' ment of California Highway Patrol, P. O. Box 898, Sacramento 95804.

Maurice I. Gershenson, chief of the Di' vision of Labor Statistics and Research for California" pointed out that the estimated work injury frequency rate of 46.3 is an all time low. If this trend continues it should go down to 45. in the next two months *tti.h it better than the national average.

Duiing the years 1950-57 the industry's frequency rate was reduced by 24 percent and then for the next seven years by only 412 percent. Greater progress was made in 1965 than in the entire preceding seven vears. ' Had the 1950 injury rate remained un' changed there would have occurred 32'600 additional injuries during the 15 year periodf951-1965.He congratulated the California Lumber' men's Accident Prevention Association on its all-time record frequency tate of' 29.25.

Geo. A. Sherman, the chief of the Divi' sion of Industrial Sa-fety for California, said that the Calilornia Lumbermen's Ac' cident Prevention Association has proved that ,by intelligmt and concertod drive, ac' cidents can be reduced. Other factors ef' fect this record but the reduction is clearly measured by the uniformly accepted system of statistical analYsis.

The chiefs recommendation was to spread the effort throughout the industry to help bring the total industry accident trend downward until both the total indus' try curve and CLAPA's become the same and decreasing.