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The Wood Machining
& Tooling Research Program is a member of the Centers for Wood
Utilization Research. In a
response from an Office of Technology Assessment recommendation, the Centers
for Wood Utilization Research were established to generate the new knowledge
and technologies needed to maintain a vigorous, competitive, domestic forest
products industry based on sustainable use of our nation’s forest
resources. Three initial
Centers were located in
Michigan,
Mississippi,
and
Oregon.
Subsequent centers were
added in
Maine
and
Minnesota,
along with the Wood Machining & Tooling Research Program in North
Carolina. In 1998 the
Tennessee
Forest Products Center and the Inland Northwest Forest Products Research
Consortium was added. This consortium
consists of the Universities of
Idaho,
Montana,
and
Washington
State University. In 2000, the full
scope of the Office of Technology Assessment’s vision was realized with
the addition of the University of Alaska Southeast. Jointly
these Centers address the major problems confronting the domestic forest
products industry and have the breadth to span the sustainable utilization
and harvesting of eastern hardwoods, southern pine, western softwood, and
northeastern species, with the requisite additional focus on the development
of associated manufacturing and machining technologies. The effectiveness of
the Centers for Wood Utilization Research is evidenced both in the economic
benefits of the research and the Centers’
success in promoting more efficient utilization and stewardship of our
nation’s forest resources. The
program has been reviewed by the USDA and was found to be fully meeting the
ongoing charge of its mission. All
Center funds are allocated through a peer review process.
The
Wood Utilization Research Centers effectively leverage federal funding to
generate both state and private research contributions.
The accomplishments of these Centers demonstrate the importance of
continued research, technology development, and technology transfer in
promoting efficient wood utilization and maintaining a vigorous domestic
forest products industry that has the capacity to satisfy national needs.
Continued investment will enable the federal, private, and state
partnerships that support these centers to build on the established
research infrastructure and expertise to yield the adaptive research
necessary for sustainable utilization of our forest resources and a
healthy forest products industry for the future.
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