Rod Stirling, Ph.D., Manager, New Construction Materials, FPInnovations, Vancouver, BC
Rod Stirling is Manager of the New Construction Materials team at FPInnovations, Canada’s national forest products research institute. Rod’s scientific background is in wood preservation. He is the current President of the Canadian Wood Preservation Association, Vice Chair of the CSA Technical Committee on Wood Preservation, and Vice President of the International Research Group on Wood Protection.

New Market and Product Opportunities for Advanced Wood Products
This presentation will identify changing market conditions for advanced wood products and high-light new opportunities that are developing as a result. New and emerging product markets will be covered as well as new regional geographic markets. The future state of the advanced wood products sector in Western Canada will also be discussed.

Brian Hawrysh, CEO, BC Wood, Langley, BC
On March 1, 2007, Brian Hawrysh took the helm of BC Wood Specialties Group (BC Wood) as their CEO. BC Wood is a not-for-profit industry trade association for British Columbia’s value-added wood manufacturers. Brian has a wealth of knowledge of wood products marketing with over twenty years of experience working in the private sector of the wood products industry with a number of value-added wood products manufacturers in senior sales, marketing and management positions. Brian has dedicated more than fifteen years at various times in senior positions at BC Wood, all with the intent of helping this industry grow its marketing efforts throughout the world.

Wood Fibre Insulation in High Performance Construction
The manufacture and marketing of dry process wood fibre insulation products in Europe is established and growing. Work by FPInnovations has demonstrated that these products can be manufactured from Canadian wood species and that they are well suited for the construction of high energy performance buildings in Canada.

Robert M. Knudson, Retired, formerly Research Leader, Engineered Wood Products, FPInnovations
Bob retired in 2019 after 45 years’ R&D in the forest products industry, 25 years with MacMillan Bloedel, and the last 20 years with FPInnovations. He has worked with virtually every type of engineered wood product and holds more than 10 patents. He received a BS degree from the University of Illinois, and MS and PhD degrees from the University of California-Berkeley in Wood Science and Technology.

Canadian Quality System and Lumber Grading
Explanations of the lumber grading system – what the grading rules allow and don’t allow. Includes the differences between appearance grade wood vs. structurally graded wood. Participants will learn:

• The structure of the North American Grading systems and associations work (ALSC, CLSAB, CWC, NLGA)
• How the monitoring system works in Alberta (AFPA quality control) 
• How lumber is graded and the appropriate uses of the different grades
• Appropriate uses for pine that has been killed by the Mountain Pine Beetles will be discussed

Normand Dupuis, Director, Grade Bureau – Alberta Forest Products Association

Norm Dupuis is the Director, Grade Bureau at the Alberta Forest Products Association (AFPA). As an Educator, Consultant and Inspector for the AFPA for 27 years, Norm has been instrumental in the development of lumber grading training standards for the AFPA members. He currently sits on the following committees: National Lumber Grades Authority (NLGA) Board of Directors (the NLGA is the governing body for National Grading Rules for Canadian Lumber), NLGA Grading Committee, also member of the NLGA Standards Committee.

Wesley Wall B.Sc., P.Ag., Founder, Genics Inc, Edmonton, AB
Wes started out in the utility industry providing environmentally friendly wood preservatives which have been specified on utility systems around North America as a wood life extension technology, saving utilities as a whole Billions over the last 35 years. Genics Inc has developed a new technology trade named Mythril Mesh for the construction market which creates solutions for preventing fire penetration in application specific scenarios such as vented soffits, cold air returns, fire walls, or any space where a building could have a higher risk for fire.