Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/685770
P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E N A T I O N A L W O O D E N P A L L E T & C O N T A I N E R A S S O C I A T I O N NWPCA STAFF President/CEO Brent J. McClendon, CAE, brent@palletcentral.com @NWPCA Vice President, Advocacy and External Affairs Patrick S. Atagi, patagi@palletcentral.com @NWPCA_Policy PDS and Membership Services Manager Susan Cheney, scheney@palletcentral.com Communication and Education Director Annette Ferri, aferri@palletcentral.com @PalletCentral Director of Science and Technology Integration Brad Gething, PhD, bgething@palletcentral.com @NWPCATech Director of The Pallet Design System™ John A. McLeod III, jmcleod@palletcentral.com Vice President of Operations and Events Isabel ("Mimi") Sullivan, msullivan@palletcentral.com PDS Software Engineer Curtis Wilkes, cwilkes@palletcentral.com Advertising: To advertise in PalletCentral, contact Annette Ferri at 703-519-6104 or aferri@palletcentral.com Address changes and subscriptions: To update your mailing address or to subscribe to PalletCentral, call 703-519-6104 or email info@palletcentral.com. Reprints and back issues: To order article reprints or request reprint permission, please e-mail info@palletcentral.com. Order back issues by calling 703-519-6104. PALLETCENTRAL, Volume 16, Number 3. © Copyright 2016 by NWPCA. All rights reserved. The views expressed in all articles, editorials and advertisements appearing in PalletCentral are solely those of the author and advertiser, respectively, and do not necessarily represent the views of NWPCA. NWPCA palletcentral.com PalletCentral • May-June 2016 9 On the Road NWPCA staff makes every effort to multiply the effectiveness of their business meetings when on travel by visiting its members. This allows us to dive deeper into issues, one-on- one, with the businesses who are on the front lines dealing with regulatory, marketing and financial issues. We learn much during these visits that help us tell your story in Washington, DC and with federal and state policy makers who affect your business every day. NWPCA's Vice President of Advocacy and External Affairs, Patrick Atagi, most recently met with Jeff Carr and Jeff Stoddard of Northwest Hardwoods in Eugene, Oregon, and Dustin Keys and David Weinstein of United Pacific Forest Products of Tigard, Oregon. The trip to Oregon was 'three-fold', starting with a meeting of the State Government Affairs Council (SGAC), then visits with Oregon contacts that helped us defeat the cardboard pallet legislation, and the aforementioned member visits. Atagi noted, "It was great seeing how a sawmill operation works in the Pacific Northwest; which is very different than in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern United States." As part of NWPCA's expanded outreach and collaboration with university packaging programs, NWPCA's Director of Science & Technology Integration, Dr. Brad Gething, visited with packaging students from Wisconsin Stout and co-hosted a presentation with NWPCA member, Bob Wenner, Pallet Service Corporation (PSC). Brad gave an overview of the wood pallet industry and discussed the importance of pallet design, while Bob provided an industry perspective on the application of pallet design with The Pallet Design System™ (PDS). Both presentations were complementary, highlighting the importance of communication between the manufacturer and packaging engineer. Students gained a greater understanding of the unit load design and its role in the supply chain. Following the presentation, students worked in a computer lab where they used PDS to design their own pallet based on one schematic used at PSC. The concluding Q&A open forum was surrounded with many questions on the environmental merits of wood compared to other materials for manufacturing pallets. Gething also met with experts dealing with environmental product declarations (EPDs) at the USDA Forest Products Lab in Madison, Wisconsin. The main purpose was information gathering in order to properly develop the EPDs on wood pallets, a new area of application at the Lab. PC