Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Report On IP Given To CCIC

Using a tag-team effort, Kurt Krepplin and Don Morehead explained what's going on at International Paper Co. in Gurdon.

Talking to the Clark County Industrial Council recently, Kreplin, the human resource director, said IP celebrated its centennial last year and is the 27th largest company in the nation, and 30th worldwide.

IP, he said, does $29 billion annually in gross sales and has more than 300 locations in the U.S., and more than 500 worldwide, making it a truly international company.

The company, Kreplin continued, employs some 90,000 people worldwide as well, and is one of the 30 companies making up Dow Jones Industrials.

IP's headquarters are in New York and Tennessee, he said, and is the largest landowner in the nation, with the exception of the U.S. government.

The company, Kreplin added, has four divisions printing paper, wood products, containers and transportation with 30 locations in Arkansas alone employing more than 3,300 people.

"We want to be good community citizens," Kreplin said. "Last year employees donated $3.5 million to the United Way."

He said IP also has grants for schools through the Edcore program.

Morehead, after getting tagged in, said the Gurdon plant is one of three plywood producing plants in the company.

This, he said, is the company's 20th year in Gurdon. When IP first purchased the plant from Arkla Gas, the plant was state-of-the-art at the time.

During the last 20 years, he continued, there have been a lot of changes.

However, with the passage of time, what was once modern became passe' and had to be upgraded for the company to remain competitive.

This has led to some major changes at the Gurdon location, he said.

The Gurdon plant, according to Morehead, is primarily a plywood manufacturing facility, making three types of panels, though particle board isn't something IP makes at Gurdon, the shavings to make it are sold by the plant to other companies.

The Gurdon plant does make a standard plywood, and OSB, or larger stranded pressed board, along with veneer plywood.

Morehead told of the process used to make plywood, saying the trees, once the bark is removed, are literally peeled like a roll of paper towels.

Once this is done, the wood is cut into four foot by eight foot sections for further processing.

The plant makes 18,000 panels per day, Morehead said, and generates $130 million in sales annually.

The biggest cost for IP, he said, is buying trees in a 100 mile radius. Some $55 million is spent to other companies for logging, with $18 million going for salaries and another $18 million to vendors.

Gurdon's IP plant, he said, makes value-added products. On the lumber side, about 95 percent of all product is two-inch domestic lumber made into two-by-six boards primarily. However, Morehead said, the company also makes two-by-fours and two-by-twelves in lengths up to 20-feet long.

The plant, he said, is geared to handle an entire tract of timber and use everything.

Some 60 loads of logs come to the plant daily, with the facility consuming a truck load every six minutes to make five products: lumber, plywood, paper, chips and poles.

The Gurdon plant, he said, isn't large when compared to the average in the industry, but does run enough wood to build an entire house an hour. This, Morehead told the CCIC members, isn't fast enough.

To increase speed, IP spent $28 million in the last three years at Gurdon to keep it up to speed, with most of the money being spent on upgrades to the plywood plant.

Now, he said, the company is looking to spend another $12 million to expand the lumber side of the facility.

At this time, he continued, IP is working to get equipment so curved trees can be peeled like the straight trees.

Morehead said saws exist that follow the curve of a tree, and the product stays flat after being cut.

This, he said, will allow IP to make better use of smaller trees, which can be bought at a lower price, while keeping the product level up to par.

Currently, there are 46 lumber plants in the U.S. using this type of equipment.

With all the expansion going on, Morehead said, the company isn't looking to add any new jobs. This is being done to help keep the 600 working at Gurdon there another 15 to 20 years.

The expansion, he said, is primarily technological.

According to Morehead, there are some people who don't think IP pays taxes.

They couldn't be more wrong, he said, as IP paid $341,000 to Clark County recently for property tax. "We're not tax exempt," Morehead said. "We do pay taxes."

CCIC President Brown Hardman had some harsh news for the members. He said surrounding areas are funding their economic development offices better than Clark County is, and this needs to change.

The CCIC, he said, operates off a budget of about $50,000 a year, which isn't enough. "It's less than half of what we used to have. We need to make some decisions on long-range planning and the members need to think about long term permanent financing."

Hardman pointed out neighboring Nevada County has a budget of $300,000 a year for its EDO, saying the CCIC can't keep going in the direction it's going.

Several counties, he said, have sales taxes to fund their economic development offices.