Episode 69 - Elevating Wood Standards and Sustainability with Jon Heyesen of Arbor Wood
Episode #69 | Jon Heyesen | Elevating Wood Standards and Sustainability
In this episode, host Mark Williams and Jon Heyesen from Arbor Wood discuss the benefits and rising popularity of thermally modified wood in sustainable building. They explore the industry's challenges and how a passionate, informed younger generation is driving demand for greener materials, especially in trendy applications like saunas.
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About Jon Heyesen
Jon Heyesen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Arbor Wood Co., a Minnesota-based manufacturer of thermally modified wood siding, decking, and dimensional lumber. Through Arbor Wood Co., Heyesen is on a mission to encourage good design while also promoting environmental stewardship and has quickly established his company as a category leader and one of the largest producers of thermally modified wood in the US.
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Mark D. Williams
To end the podcast, we had John from Arbor wood on from Duluth, Minnesota and it was a real treat to have him on. His passion just pours out when you chat with him. And as you will listen here shortly, I think having a company and having a story that is so centered around your passion, but it's also a leading edge in the market is something that's very captivating. So without further ado, we've got John with Arbor wood and hope you enjoy the episode. Welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined with John hasten from Arbor wood. I pronounced that right.
Unknown Speaker 0:30
That's right. That's right.
Mark D. Williams<br> 0:31
All right. All right, local Minnesota. And so you're from Duluth, Minnesota, I'm
Unknown Speaker 0:34
born and raised.
Mark D. Williams<br> 0:35
I write local Minnesota even drove down after you zoom option, you're like now we do enough of that for you. We
Speaker 1 0:40
got to come to the big city once in a while. Let's go. It's already summer down here.
Mark D. Williams<br> 0:44
I know, I ran into your thermally modified wood, both at the International builder show and I've been aware of for the last couple of years. I tried to spec it recently on a home and I just thought to be really fun to hear your story, you know, in person. So let's talk a little bit about Arbor woods. Let's talk about you. And we have a few other companies. Yeah. And we'll just kind of dive into your origin story.
Speaker 1 1:02
Yeah, sounds great. Mark. So yeah, Arbor Woodco. We're a Minnesota based manufacturer of thermally modified wood. I'll get into thermally modified wood in a bit. But we're kind of on the vanguard of a movement, that sweeping really at a global level kind of has origins in Europe. But my origin story really starts with building materials at large. So we do run two businesses up in Duluth, Minnesota, Arbor Woodco. Of course, being one of them. The other company is called an textural, interesting name. It's really an amalgamation of intelligent and architectural. And I think within that gives a little bit of visibility into kind of the tenants of what we do at in texture, which is really curating innovative building materials, raising awareness so that builders, architects, DIY errs makers, have access to materials that perform well that are aesthetically very beautiful, and then all have kind of a sustainability narrative woven through them which
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:54
we'll move before we get into the difference between the two companies. How'd you get here?
Speaker 1 1:58
Yeah, so I'm, I'm a tech geek, I came up in the tech industry, I've been a kind of a computer nerd since I was a little kid, and had a fascination with technology, how things work, which leads to how things are made and how things are broken and how things can be fixed again, and have also had a passion for design, architecture, things that are visually pleasing. And I came up in the tech industry, I helped scale a few tech companies and, and had an opportunity to jump into the architectural building materials industry. And that's in textural and that's been almost a decade ago and was was hired to really help scale the business we have since purchased the business and part of the scaling story with in textural is Arbor wood. Interesting.
Mark D. Williams<br> 2:48
How were you here locally in Minnesota the whole time or did you usually what people think tech or at least me it's you went to California?
Speaker 1 2:56
I was no I've been here the whole time. It was in the Twin Cities for a bit but but Duluth Yep, Twin Cities always Minnesota
Mark D. Williams<br> 3:02
walk us through. I mean, that's kind of cool. Let's start there. I guess the you know, you were brought on to scale a company not only to scale it, you bought it. Right? It's a pretty, it's pretty awesome story. There's gotta be some juicy details there watching a quick, short intro to how that happened.
Speaker 1 3:15
Well, the the origin of origin stories actually starts in skateboarding. And so there were a few brothers Bloomington bass brothers actually. And a childhood friend who started a company called True ride was the premier skate park design build company in North America. They built it to be the kind of the premier skate park design build company in North America. And along the way, they started to explore and champion the use of innovative materials in the construction of their skate parks. A product called Rich light. It's manufactured in Tacoma, Washington, recycled paper phenolic resin, highly durable, behaves like stone but as machinable and manipulatable like wood, and makes a fantastic surface for the skate round proper. And, well, when you're building skate parks, and you're making radius cuts, you have a lot of fall down and you want to try to use the whole buffalo as they say. And so. So part of how the triad guys made use of those off cuts was actually by cutting squares and rectangles and over in Minnesota. So let's see if we can clean a fish on oh boy, it works pretty well for cleaning a fish. Maybe there's an idea here. And so that sort of was parlayed into a company called epicurean cutting surfaces which became a very large successful cutting board empire based in in northern Minnesota have since been sold off to Victorinox Swiss Army. And then on the sides of the ramps proper was high density polyethylene and again trying to maintain that sustainability narrative. They started to source HDPE panels that had recycled content in there. A lot of cool vibrant colors, same sort of story. There are off cuts. What are we going to do with them? Well, we're in Minnesota Let's, let's cut some skinny strips and make an adirondack chair. And boy, this stuff's really durable. And it looks really beautiful. That turned into a company many people know called Wall designs, which is kind of mid century modern, inspired, beautiful, highly durable outdoor furniture. Well, turns out both of those materials had emerging end application architects, designers, contractors, were starting to use these materials for exterior cladding, for bar tops, drink rails, and that's where in texture was born as a distributor of primarily and initially, those two materials.
Mark D. Williams<br> 5:36
What I'm amazed at already is just an I love, I think anyone who's an entrepreneur, and you know, probably likes innovation, I just love hearing this, where you start with one thing, and before you know it, if spawned five or six or seven, or who knows how many companies, right because they keep on innovating to solve a primary goal. I always think of the famous story of duct tape. Right? I think duct tape was a byproduct of, you know, NASA trying to solve something else. And, you know, I'll keep duct tape.
Speaker 1 6:03
Yeah. These are happy accidents. Right? It was no grand plan here. Right? It was open mindedness, creativity, innovation, execution. And of course, in any business success story. It's just right time, right place in a dash of good luck.
Mark D. Williams<br> 6:18
Interesting. Oh, that's really cool. So now, how involved are you between the two companies between Arbor wood and I'm going to butcher it with an inter architectural
Speaker 1 6:26
in textural in textual? Yeah, yeah. So you know, on the masthead and president of in textural Arbor wood has been such a rocket ship that as CEO of Arbor wood, it really demands a lot of my attention. We've got really good people Dan is one of those good people that are helping in textural continue to grow and we've built out the product line within in textural Arbor wood is kind of the breadwinner for in textural as a regional reseller of Arbor woods so I'm in a sense able to kill two birds with one stone by the stronger I can make Arbor wood it just therefore makes and textural very strong as well. But in textural has been in texture was established in 2009. So you know, great time to start a company because it's only it's only, you know, uphill from there downhill, depending on your vantage point. But it's only growth from there. You start in the you know, the worst economic condition that I've certainly had in my lifetime. And it's been growth year over year. We've never gone backwards ever since. What What year did our roadster Arbor Woods started in? 2012? Okay, yeah, yeah. And Arbor Woods started in 2012 as a brand within in textural. And so here's where the origin story of Arbor would really begin. So in textural few years of business under our belts, and nice little product portfolio being built. And we had established a relationship with we maintain, which we maintained to this day very important relationship with the Natural Resources Research Institute and RRI. It's an extension of the University of Minnesota happens to be based in Duluth, Minnesota. And so the charter of the NRI is to really support industry and economic development around Minnesota's natural resources. Obviously, freshwater is at the top of the list. There's mineral, there's timberland. And so we had a relationship with the NRI doing mechanical properties and product testing with some of these other materials. The wood research division within the NRI at some of the brightest minds really on a global scale, driving innovation around wood and wood in the built environment. And so a gentleman named Pat Donohue, recently retired, was connected with an emerging technology called thermal modification. And thermal modification was was really commercialized by the Finns. I mean, it's it's a Nordic tradition, but it was it was commercialized by the Finns, and an extension of the Finnish government called the VTT in 1994. And so Pat Donohue small world, has happened to be at the vanguard, and really helping Finland, standardize, and ultimately commercialize thermally modified woods. So we have this relationship with our intellectual hats on with the NRI and, and the NRI approached us and said, Hey, guys, are you familiar with thermally? Modified wood seems like this could be a really natural fit for in textural just based on the types of materials and why you're sourcing these types of materials. And so that was 2012. And that's where Arbor wood or wood began,
Mark D. Williams<br> 9:25
and they probably looked around to seeing that, hey, in Minnesota, they're supporting Minnesota industry there. We've got a lot of trees here. That's right in Minnesota, and obviously, our claim would be pretty similar to Northern Scandinavia. Anyway, that's very interesting. Why, I mean, let's talk a little bit about thermally modified wood, you know, I think, you know, it's really sexy and it seems kind of new. But I mean, this predate This is old, old technology in some ways and where I'm going with this, as you know, only because I'm kind of in love with it, like shoot you bond. You know, I did a little sauna a couple years ago, and during the COVID and I was like, I mean, I know this was back in Japan. Yeah, I mean, this is like, I don't even know how many, you know, centuries ago. And my understanding was they burn the wood to get rid of termites to to alter it. But I didn't realize this was kind of cool that it was also to keep enemy arrows flame arrows from burning their homes. That's right. And so I joked with a client that I was trying to get to do, shoot you bonus like my one last sales pitch, like, hey, you need to do shoot you bone on your house. And one last benefit is if your kid has a bone arrow with a flaming arrow on it, your house won't burn down. Yeah, turns out that was not compelling enough for him to spend the money on it. But I still like the sales line. Yes. With that kind of intro like we're when did we, as a modern society start really getting excited about thermally? Modified wood? And what are some of the old old history patterns? So because you said the vanguard of 94 Here in Finland, where they commercialized it, yeah, what up into that point sort of kept it from being commercialized.
Speaker 1 10:49
In the United States, it seems like we're always 10 or 15 years behind some of the, the sustainability initiatives that are champions, say, in Europe, I mean, we see it with just building methodology. And, and, and even you know, climate control technologies, and all of those things, it's there seems to be a 10 year kind of lag in in adoption here. And I think that just has to do with, maybe it has to do with with the wood lobby, the pressure treated lobby, maybe it has to do with just, you know, builders who aren't familiar with things, and they just know what's tried and true, and their reputations are on the line. And so somebody has to be the proverbial guinea pig to try something new, that hasn't been tried and true, that maybe doesn't have standardization in North America. And so it's just, it's just slowing adoption. And quite frankly, we're still there. Thermally modified wood is now a mature industry in Europe and really, the rest of the world. And the United States is kind of the last frontier it is the golden goose. I mean, it is the most desired market on the planet. And so we're seeing a lot of the European manufacturers really working to make landfall here. And so, you know, we're, we're dealing with that on a competitive basis every day and at some point that might lead to exploring different types of partnerships, maybe an exit at some point, I don't know we're not really thinking about that yet. But but you're right Mark, I mean, the the, the idea of converting the chemical properties of wood via heat or flame is centuries old, in the Asian cultures are the are the the ones that most people think of as Shusui bond and the charring kind of the conversion of food sources to no longer be food sources for rot and fungal activity. Termites, as you mentioned, you've also really converted that outer layer to carbon and so it's less combustible, like the like the flaming arrows story. So yeah, this is not a new concept. It's just It took until it took somebody to try to place a value add to an underutilized natural resources, which was the fins and you know, the soft woods that they have in abundance and in those Nordic countries. And that's kind of how thermal modification entered the marketplace. But we're still very much in the education phase, it is amazing that while from my seat, it seems like all I hear is thermo thermo thermo and everybody is thermo and people are, are starting to explore moving away from composites or moving away from engineered surfaces, because now thermally modified wood is here. But yet on more of a macro, or a consumer level. People don't know about up to you.
Mark D. Williams<br> 13:21
Yeah, that's funny you say that I was, as you were speaking to why, you know, the United States is 10 to 15 years behind. I you know, I suspect it's two things. One, the biggest one is education, which you just touched on. I think also there's a big cultural element as well. And it's not necessarily a pro or con, it's just an observation. I've spoken about it on this podcast as well is that, you know, I think at scale, nobody builds homes faster. And customizable than, you know, the United States. I mean, we are the masters of stick framing, that doesn't make us the best home builders, it makes us the fastest at what we're talking about. And someone had else spoken about, like, you know, post World War Two, you know, there's the baby boom, massive amount of homes that needed to be built. And it's funny because I do remodeling. And most of the, you know, most homes and like the 50s and 60s and 70s aren't really that great, no offense to that era, just they just need a lot of homes and they need them fast. And I feel like there's still a tail to that even to this day. You know, people say how fast can I build a home it's changing as people get more and more educated. And as climate change, climate change becomes more and more prevalent to people's decision making abilities that now you know, can we educate our clientele and say, Hey, you can build a smaller home that can be more richly detailed and have more of a story to it. But there's still a large percentage of our population that is not interested in that story. Right. And I think part of it is age I look at you know, me specifically build it being a custom home builder. A lot of my clientele is 55 and older. And I've gone through a lot of, you know, building science classes and education and I'm no not an expert by any means, but enough to be dangerous, and to pitch ideas to my clients and more often And then not they say no. And even if I educate them, they often come back to this preposition. I call it green back green, he's like, is there a financial incentive to do this, and if it's not there for them, this is complete stereotype. But it's been my experience. So it's true. They're not interested, where I feel like I feel like the younger generation, especially those coming up, because for if you are 20 years old, or if you I would say, if you're 35, or younger, all you've heard about is carbon footprint, you know, renewable energy, all these cool initiatives, I suspect that that class of buyer and home home buyer, at some point is going to be way more in tune, and is going to demand that. And so I feel like do you feel like you're kind of on a teeter totter of both education? And you're we're trying to educate and produce this product for the people that can afford it. But they're not really there yet it? To me, it seems like it's the generation coming. Is that accurate? I
Speaker 1 15:52
think that's absolutely accurate. And I would extend that even to the demographic in the composition of the modern architectural firm, where you're seeing the younger generation move into positions of leadership. And so they're starting to think and inform and design around these concepts around embodied carbon and climate change. The building community and the design build folks are thinking about this. And yeah, I think the the consumer, the younger generation of consumer, yeah, it's all they've known and all they've been all they've grown up with, and they've heard all the scary stories about what's happening with the planet. And so they're making decisions based on on value and philosophy and not so much based on checkbook and you know, at some point, you need to have the checkbook, because this stuff is expensive. And so, you know, one of my jobs and one of our really our objectives with Arbor Woodco is to not make this a wealthy person's material to find ways to make high performance, beautiful building materials that are gentle on the planet available to people that want them. And that's one of the things that excites me about the technology itself is it's very species agnostic, it doesn't require hardwoods It doesn't require tropical expensive woods, you know, you can use underutilized you can use Southern Yellow Pine, you can use Doug fir, you can use species that grow in abundance. So, you know, that really is the charge I think you're not going to drive meaningful change, unless you can make it available to all those people that care about it.
Mark D. Williams<br> 17:22
That's really helpful. I think, you know, one of my preconceived preconceived questions even coming in, I think you've sort of answered and it's why is everywhere I go, like the trade shows and marketing materials. When I when I see thermally modified wood, it's like it's all coming from Europe. But I'm like, Well, if we have lots of trees, specifically in Minnesota, like why is there not more companies like yourself, that are producing a you obviously are, but it just, I mean, if it maybe I'm wrong on this, but like when I go to a show or a trade show? Is it fair to say it's six to one, where it's a European based company pitching me thermally modified wood versus US companies that have the right ratio? Yes. I mean, I understand that that's where it started. How can they be competitive, you got to you have to do all the same late their labor can't be that much less expensive as if anything is probably more, right. The wood has got to be the same. You have to ship it over here and distributed. How on the world? Could they even compete? Plus, I'm sure there's tariffs. So how in the world would locally produce let's say, in this case, it's Minnesota, but Minnesota, United States, how in the world could the European counterparts even compete on thermally modified wood,
Speaker 1 18:28
they're competing today on economies of scale, because a lot of these folks have been in business for 20 or 30 years, they've got the process down, they have the critical mass of volume and just simple economies of scale allows allows them to keep price point low. But you're right, that both on a cost basis and on a carbon footprint basis, when they're shipping a container across the ocean. And in a lot of cases, they're sourcing North American fiber, bringing it over to Europe to be processed and then bringing it back into this market for resale. I mean, that's crazy, you can shoot a lot of holes in that right. And so we are priced disruptive, we are priced disruptive, even though we're small and we're growing. And whether we're in the first or second chapter of our story. We're very intentional about being price disruptive, and we're not interested in a Race to Zero necessarily. But again, this goes back to making this available to as many people as possible. And vertical integration is a big part of that. And why aren't there more here? Well, the barrier to entry is pretty high. And if you want to do it, right, and we're really trying to do it, right, and vertical integration is a part of doing it. Right. It takes a lot of capital to do that. And we're fortunate that we have great private equity partners that have trusted us with a lot of money to pull this off.
Mark D. Williams<br> 19:39
I mean, I think it's just a cool story. Let's talk a little bit about I mean, what actually what thermally modified I mean, if I just take a stab at it, I mean, obviously you taking heat, you're applying it to would like walk us through the details. So tell me who you buy the wood from? Is it any different than any other sort of lumber procurement? I know I was just looking on your website and some Have the YouTube stuff that you published where you know, even some of the soft woods, you know, whether it's you know, the pine or wherever you're getting united states that you're actually even being thoughtful of how how and where you're sourcing the material, so that it aligns with your values, which I think is really cool. But then walk us through like once you receive the material, how you process it, how you store it, and then we'll eventually talk about marketing and selling it. So
Speaker 1 20:23
we work with pretty traditional sawmills and we source kiln dried timber in rough stock format, it's the same place that any other Lumberyard would as well. Exactly, exactly, and we pull fairly tight specs that is somewhat in favor and in support of the modification process. It's primarily about aesthetics. We kind of subscribed to a garbage in garbage out mentality that if you put garbage wood in with a lot of knots with a lot of pitch in the wood, yeah, you can modify it but it's not going to look great when it comes out of the kiln so it so it starts with sourcing really good wood. And yeah, we're working with mills that are sourcing FSC fiber SFI fiber, we're even working with the Urban Wood folks. does
Mark D. Williams<br> 21:00
that even mean? I don't know what those fiber? Yeah, yeah. So
Speaker 1 21:03
the FSC is the one most folks are familiar with us, the Forest Stewardship Stewardship Council. You'll see that on the back of a napkin, you'll see it on a straw. You'll see those Yeah, those initials even on two by fours and things. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So basically, it's a set of criteria for sustainable forest management, how the forests are managed. And then it's it's, it's maintaining improving chain of custody, from the time a tree is felled, until a processor turns it into a finished widget and it enters the market. And so that chain of custody can be tracked all the way back to when it was still a standing tree. A
Mark D. Williams<br> 21:36
local company like yourself being in Duluth, Minnesota, what percentage of your wood would be harvested in Minnesota?
Speaker 1 21:44
Interesting question. Great question. So we are working on some proofs of concept on Minnesota species. Norway pine red pine is one that we're working on. One of the crown jewels in our project portfolio is the beautiful bale Museum of Natural History on the St. Paul campus at the University of Minnesota. That was all Minnesota Grown Eastern White Pine that was sourced from within two hours of the job site. Very cool. Yeah. And so we're working on sourcing those sorts of species, testing them, running them through the whole battery of tests that we subject our products through to make sure that they're really fit to market. Right now our product line is built around types of wood that have more precedent, North American white ash, Southern Yellow Pine, red oak are kind of the three main ones. They're all sourced domestically, I would go so far as to say they're all sourced kind of in the middle part of the country from Michigan down to the southeast. But that's primarily where
Mark D. Williams<br> 22:36
we're at. So then my next question was going to be how much of it comes from Canada?
Unknown Speaker 22:40
Nothing that we right now,
Mark D. Williams<br> 22:42
I asked, the reason I bring this up is I've asked lumber yards as well, right, you know, that big buying group where they buy their lumber from? It's just interesting, because I know, just because we have a lot of timber here in Minnesota specifically, you know, if they're harvesting on large scales that might be coming from different places, and it sounds like you're actively working on how to make it even closer. It's just, it didn't know the answer.
Speaker 1 23:03
That's right. That's right. And I think for us, I mean, that's a little bit of eating your own dog food, we talk about sustainability. And sustainability is more than just the performance characteristics or even the modification attributes of the product itself, but all the way to just sourcing and how we operate as a company. And so so
Mark D. Williams<br> 23:18
once you receive, you know, the material, you're bringing it through kilns, like walk us through, like you mentioned, you need a lot of capital on the front end, is it in the equipment? Like what is it that is required to thermally modified wood
Speaker 1 23:30
at the heart of our manufacturing facility is our modification kilns. And so these are specialized kilns. These are different than drying kilns that a lot of lumber folks might be familiar with. They sometimes look kind of the same, but but the, the inner workings are a little bit different. The science behind all of this is called hydrolysis. And so it's a high heat process in an oxygen deprived environment. I mean, it's we're talking 200 210 degrees Celsius taught enough where the wood would otherwise combust. So we're pulling out the fuel source being oxygen, so the wood doesn't start on fire. What happens at that those high high temperatures is a very specific degradation of the hemicellulose. And it's the hydroxyl groups specifically, that are impacted. And with that, we are forever changing the woods relationship with water. So at its core, thermal modification is about changing Woods relationship with moisture. And when you do that, you improve biological durability, you improve dimensional stability. You're also cooking out the naturally occurring sugars that are a food source for mold, rot and decay. Termites it's even less attractive to woodpeckers. I mean, depending on what part of the country we're having sales conversations in people are asking about termites or they're asking about woodpeckers. It's like, well, it isn't why we're thermally modifying but it's it's an attribute of it. So it's the conversion of those sugars. It's the removal of all the stored water, the removal of the bound water, and then the breaking of the ability for wood to hold new moisture. And so the way the way it actually works is like Like your wicking fabric that you might use for skiing or running, water will actually wick through the material. So it is not it is not water repellent per se, but water moves through the mass and exits and doesn't hold that moisture. And so you have a board that is it's physically very light. And we hear that from the builder community where they really appreciate this beautiful ash two by 12 that they throw over their shoulders. And man, it's actually kind of light and easier to to hoist up the scaffolding or up the ladder. Or when you're using it's in an overhead skinning and overhead door application. It's less stress on the operating
Mark D. Williams<br> 25:32
I suppose I'd be akin to like the human body I think is about 70% water. Yeah. And so like obviously, if you're, you know, walking in the desert, you're a little dry, you're going to probably lose some water weight. I assume you're by that's the water weight of the wood. Yes, that is that is removed. That's right. Interesting. That's right. Why, um, well, I'll finish this line of questioning before we go to the to the marketing side of it, which is where my brain always ends up going. So the wood comes out. It's been thermally modified. I assume at this point, it's just a matter of storing it and shipping it. Are you guys doing stuff? Orders specific? Are you stocking large quantities of material to just distribute? Or what I'm always kind of interested in, you know, as a custom homebuilder. I do, you know, three to five projects a year, everything's one off, obviously. So I'm not storing anything in this. I'm always intrigued by manufacturing, because it feels like this other life that I'll never be a part of. I'm like, Ooh, that sounds really sexy and cool, which I'm sure everyone who does whatever they do, they're always like, Oh, the other industries, the cool. Anyway, walk me through the manufacturing, like what excites you about it? In terms of? I mean, well, I'll let you speak in your own words. Yeah.
Speaker 1 26:33
So we are we made a conscious decision when we really doubled down on Arbor wood. And this is, within the past three years where we've really mash the gas pedal received outside investment, built a state of the art manufacturing plant made an acquisition of another US based processor to double our production capabilities. We made a conscious decision that in order to scale we were going to sell through a distribution network. And so that is a series of single step and two step distributors for people who aren't familiar with those terms, a two step distributor would be a company like a bluelinx, where you're feeding big distributors that feed wholesalers in lumber yards, you're kind of you get access to 100 lumber yards in one shot, because you're feeding the distributor that feeds them. And so we're really thinking in terms of truckload volume, feeding distributors. And having you know, you're kind of one plus one equals four, because you have now, teams of salespeople, teams of product experts, regional fulfillment, again, talking about sustainability, it's not ideal if I'm shipping a truck on a job lot out to California, I'd rather have a distributor holding product locally in California, and we do. So we do produce at scale, and we think about truckload volumes, the idea has been to produce enough to stay ahead of all the POS coming in, we've never gotten there, we're always playing catch up. It's a good problem, but
Mark D. Williams<br> 28:01
it's with the leg B.
Speaker 1 28:04
You know, right now, we're a month, five weeks, we've had 10 to 12 week lead time, you know, in the building material industry, that's not that bad. Some people have had to wait a year for Windows or six months or six months for Windows. But we really do want to always be producing be producing our standard big moving skews so that we have inventory on the ground. We'll get there.
Mark D. Williams<br> 28:25
I mean, that's a good problem to have if the demand is outpacing the supply to a certain degree, right? Yeah, you go too far you start ticking off your clients. But it also speaks to the, you know, to the demand of the actual product and the messaging. That's right.
Speaker 1 28:37
That's right. Yeah, I mean, you know, just as an entrepreneur, one of the things that has been really fun about this journey, is it's, it's one of those moments in life, and they don't come along very often, where you get to be part of an industry that is emerging and unfolding in front of you real time. I mean, this is not like.com necessarily, are the folks who you know, created Facebook necessarily, but it's, it's on a smaller scale. It's kind of like that thermally modified wood, and really just modified wood or high performance natural building materials are kind of having their moment right now.
Mark D. Williams<br> 29:12
Do you think so being myself born and bred in Minnesota and granted I'm biased because I'm the son of a builder. So I've always I like wood windows, I like wood trim, I'm kind of a wood snob just because I grew up around it. I just love it. I'm not a big fan of synthetic materials. When I could have wood it's not that I'm biased against synthetic I'm only biased against it if I could choose wooden right or wrong, because there are things that you know, that we do need to synthesize that are better than what but in this case, what is the most common objection? And or the most common thing that draws people to wood and I'll use let's say cladding, for instance, like siding. You know, obviously our market specifically and this is based on price point you have, let's call James Hardy or fiber cement boards to be you know, You know, agnostic on the brand you have, you know, OSB based products like an LP siding or something like that you have, of course, our natural products like cedar shake, you know, things like that. What is your benefit been your experience of not only the builders and architects and clients that are attracted to your product versus the other synthetic products,
Speaker 1 30:22
I think the attraction has always been there. When you look at the engineered products, the fiber cement, when you look at the composites, what is the texture, it's what embossed so and composite decking and not to throw shade at those products because they absolutely have their, their place and their application and their, you know, tremendous brands and tremendous success stories trucks is a tremendous success story. But it was trying to give the look and feel of wood. So that was the attraction. Without the what has been perceived as the the reason people haven't used wood, and that is maintenance, upkeep, durability. And with thermally modified wood. And there are other ways that people are modifying wood, again, coming out of Europe, not just using heat and steam that are now giving sort of new light a new conversation. Well, now you can have that natural wood look and actually really use wood and have it hold up for 30 years. That's
Mark D. Williams<br> 31:19
a great answer. Because you're right, as soon as you said it immediately click because you're right. Being a homebuilder that advises my clientele on making business decisions based on value, I should say money decisions based on the value of what they perceive, they often will not knowing a client often doesn't know why they gravitate towards cedar shakes, you know, whether it's the roof or the siding, and they often and this is the kind of maybe a younger generation, you know, we talked about the Pro that they want more sustainability, but they also are far less likely to do maintenance on their own homes as a general stereotype. And so it's interesting that I have oftentimes people come to me and say, you know, I want to build a home that I never have to take care of. I'm like, that doesn't exist. I mean, I mean, if you own a home, there is a level of maintenance that is required as part of that. It doesn't mean it's bad. It's just you need to it's us, it's us educating our clients. And going back full circle here is I love the idea that those products you just mentioned, are trying to imitate the vision in the look of a real world product, there must be something innately. I'm not gonna say in humans, but that's where I'm going with this is like we are drawn towards natural Oregon organic, the way it makes us feel when we touch it and look at it. It's like our eyes can tell us what's different, even if our mind can't interpret what it is because I'll show a picture to a client, I'll know hey, that's, you know, cedar shake on East Coast, Cape Cod house looks amazing. And they're like, I love this house. And like you have excellent taste that house is $4 million, versus this house is over 700,000 Like, and they can't tell you why. But they can tell you what they like. Anyway, that's when I hear you tell that story. That's kind of what I
Speaker 1 32:56
will the industry has a label for that now. And it's biophilic design. And so biophilic design, and if you break apart bio, and Firelake is this proposition that, that humans have an innate desire to be connected to the natural environment. And so that extends all the way through to how we live, how we build our buildings, and therefore how we build our communities. And so you're seeing whether it's that living feature wall where you have plants going up and down vertically on a feature wall, right, or using real wood products using even stone, it's all about connection to that natural environment. I think it's really wired deep within us. And so you're exactly right. And that's where these technologies are starting to catch fire, because now you can tap into that notion that biophilic design sort of natural tendency of us as humans, but also satisfy durability and performance. And you know, and here's where I also have to be, be careful. And we're we're very intentional as a company when it comes to our marketing messaging and our education that these natural methodologies for modifying would make like supercharged wood, but it is still wood at the end of the day. It is still a national material, there still has to be an embracing of inevitable patina and weathering of the material. It doesn't fall apart, but it takes on this organic living, ever evolving characteristic. And a lot of people are seeking that. And you're seeing designers really leaning into that as they're coming back to wood. As they're coming out drawing away from composites. They're using wood, in landscape furniture, in outdoor facade in commercial boardwalks and walkway type structures. They're going all in on that and they're actually there's some really cool products that we're starting to test coming out of Europe that protect the wood, but accelerate the visual weathering of it so you can like pre weather the wood so that when you install it day one, it looks weathered, but it's still gonna last for 30 years.
Mark D. Williams<br> 34:54
That's just marketing. I mean, that's ultimately what that is. That's right. It's like we want this wood to look patina. We don't even want to Look, no, we want to act new. We don't want to take care of a boy, we want to look like it's been here. For him.
Speaker 1 35:04
It's like the $400 jeans that have all the holes and rips in them, right? You pay more for actually less material. So awesome.
Mark D. Williams<br> 35:09
That's a great analogy, actually. Oh, man, one of the things that I loved on your website that you had, which was micro level changes with macro level results, that talk to us a little bit about I think we see so much in society about companies and you do it way more than lip service, obviously, you know, you can it's clear that you know, your see your product and what you're trying to shape. So well, which is really commendable. And really admirable to even as a company trying to find what your voice is or how you want to, you know, niche down and make it your own. But, you know, your commitment to sustainability, but also running a profitable business, because you employ how many people at Arbor woods? Yeah, we're
Unknown Speaker 35:45
knocking on 40 People now. I
Mark D. Williams<br> 35:46
mean, that's a big company and you Where are you going to scale? It's going to be a lot brighter than that? How is it that you're able to sort of take that messaging and kind of put rocket fuel on it? And and keep it going? Is education the number one thing like? How do we get more people to sort of understand because I think if you and you are one person, but like this message, I mean, I understand the podcasts, YouTube, all these different things, but what has been your experience is the best way to get somebody who is let's say, on the fence, and to really kind of buy into and understand the value statement that this is because there's a we make a ton of value statements on a home. And people's attention span is a lot shorter than this podcast. Yeah, right. This is an hour going pretty deep in on this particular topic. Most people I mean, myself included, a salesman calls me or anyone calls me. I mean, you have like, what, six to 10 seconds to kind of make a judgement like, do I want to actually look or listen more on this product? How do you get how do you get deeper with people?
Speaker 1 36:43
Yeah, well, all of our messaging at its foundation has had an education tilt to it. So So fundamentally, it's about education. And sometimes you get into the science, and you always have to kind of find the right voice. But to your point about short attention spans and quite frankly, we're fortunate because just the the medium that we are dabbling in and the industry that we're in is visually very beautiful. And we're fortunate that our material ends up on very beautiful buildings, I was touring some in the in the Twin Cities metro today even. And so it's it's easy for me to put some pretty pictures on the website, or on the social media feed that capture people. And if you can get their attention for 10 seconds, and you can drop a few attributes about how this material performs looks beautiful, gentle on the planet, and you start to tug on the emotional heartstrings. You know, then you've kind of got them on the line, and you take it from there. Okay, yeah. But it really starts with education. And I'll go so far as to say, in the United States, we weren't the first people doing thermally modified wood by any means. And it's been 15 years long, perhaps movement in North America. And for the first decade, the early adopters, without any semblance of community or standardization, it was the Wild Wild West, and there was a lot of bad product out there. And there's kind of a saying in our industry that anybody can cook wood and turn it brown. But that doesn't mean it's been thermally modified, right? That was the best line. And so there was some bad product out there that that sullied customer perception, and I think circling back to that question about, you know, why is it taken longer for adoption here in the United States, that's part of the problem is a lack of, of cohesion and partnership within the industry, a lack of standardization and support at the, you know, sort of from the top down in the way our building codes are written all of
Mark D. Williams<br> 38:37
that, where's the community at now? And what do you think the next 10 years looks like?
Speaker 1 38:41
Well, we're trying to change that we applied for and were awarded a very substantial grant from the US Department of Agriculture to create the standard for thermally modified wood use specifically Arbor Woods specific. Oh, wow, that's Yep. And so we've assembled a team. With the academic world, we're working with folks at Oregon State University, Michigan Tech University, of course, our colleagues at NRRI are going to be a part of this. Also, some private sector, wood preservation folks are part of our team. But we are running point on a three year project to write the standard for thermally modified wood, this is completely a high tide raises all ships thing, this is not this will not be our intellectual property. It's nothing that we're going to monetize. It's simply helping to elevate, bring validity to this market to help everybody out. And we're really excited about that. And we think that's very important work. We've, we've worked hard we worked hard to to win this money. We're working very hard on the on the grant project itself. We have found our way in a leadership capacity on two governing technical committees with with some of the wood lobby like the a WPA, for example, who will actually be the body to write the standard and incorporate that. So for us, this is deeper than just an entrepreneurial move to try To make some money or have a cool story, I mean, we truly are trying to change an industry, trying to change how we think about our buildings and our communities. I have to
Mark D. Williams<br> 40:07
imagine, you know, I've heard we had the owners of peloton actually was episode one, almost two years ago now. And Ed Engel, Breck said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. And what I'm hearing through all of this is that the culture, I have to imagine the people that come to work for you or want to work for you, I imagine attracts people that are extremely passionate. Is that accurate? That's
Speaker 1 40:30
accurate. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's humbling. And it's also challenging, because my LinkedIn, daily, certainly weekly, is blown up with people reaching out wanting to be in our orbit, whether it's they're looking for a job, or whatever it is. And that's really cool. It's very, very gratifying wish I could hire them all. But to me that one of the most motivation, motivational aspects of what I'm doing as CEO is, it's, it's, it's Andrew, our sales director who works remotely. And when I see him on a team's call, and he's built all types of Arbor woods, swag, and signage, and little sculptures and logos behind him. He's he's doing that because he loves what he does. And he loves the company that he works for. And that's way bigger than that. I mean, he's a part of what that is. And it's just as an entrepreneur, as a CEO, as a founder like that, to me is the most satisfying thing. That's what I get up every morning for is to, to provide good jobs for people that feel inspiration, you know, feel inspired, feel passionate about what they're doing. I've worked jobs that I just I've lost that fire. And so I want to create an environment where people don't ever feel that,
Mark D. Williams<br> 41:38
I think, you know, it's, I don't know, if you have children, I bet three, and I often think when they're old enough, and I've talked about a lot on the podcast, but just, you know, passion, like I honestly don't care what they do for a career. I just want people to be passionate about what they do. I one of my past clients, one of my favorite clients, it really interesting thinker. And he he could quoted me one time, he said, if you're constantly thinking about retirement, perhaps you've chosen the wrong career. And that's been rattling around rent free my brain for a while. Just about, you know, how do you how do you not only, let's say people often say, how do you get passionate? I don't know the answer that because I'm passionate about a lot of things. But I think find whatever it is you're passionate about, and then find a way to work on. And I think a lot of times, you know, people are passionate about something. And just because you're passionate about it doesn't make it a business entity. Right. And so I think you sometimes that's where I think having people around you to give you perspective, but at the end of the day, like a lot of things that are created aren't just, it's a lot of well, and a lot of love and a lot of passion. And somehow, like you said, on the way to discovery, one thing, you know, a new business was formed and it kind of keeps on evolving. And then now you get someone like yourself who can, you know, shape it and let people like your marketing director really have a place to blossom. I mean, it's super admirable. I think that's why we all love entrepreneurship, because you see this thing on opening up, you know, like, I never would have seen that happening and inspires you again, it's like your inspiration inspires them. And now what they've done, comes back and sort of feeds your engine. Is that
Speaker 1 43:05
right? Absolutely, absolutely. It's and it shouldn't be bigger than the individual who may be catalyzed the thing. And that's when you've really succeeded, I think and passionate look, passion is contagious. When I'm passionate, and I'm, I'm I enjoy talking about what we do. And people pick up on that and they want to be a part of it. And it builds good culture, and you find good people and you retain those people. And you develop sales and you grow sales, because people are inspired by people that are passionate about something.
Mark D. Williams<br> 43:38
There's got to be a good story with you know, you're talking about thermally modified wood, you've got to build a sauna. And I know there's a lot of good sauna companies up in Duluth but build a sauna out of all Arbor wood and thermally modify yourself. Yeah, you know, like you're a new human being captain america twice
Speaker 1 43:53
baked potato. Exactly. Yeah, you know, we've done that and that's that's actually really interesting. Emerging vertical forest sound of culture is having a moment as well and the whole cold plunge in that that wellness thing. I think the pandemic really kind of ignited that but we sell into the sound of space. We've got some some great manufacturers down here in the metro, really fantastic manufacturer up in Duluth, cedar and stone that uses a lot of Arbor wood. It's visually beautiful, it just it just fits our Nordic thing. But we've actually found from a performance perspective, interestingly enough, not just exterior cladding on the envelope of the structure, but actually in the hot room. We were fortunate enough to be specified on an incredible project in Vail, Colorado. In fact, I think it was the highest sell price of an existing home in Vail it was a $50 million home and they put another 30 or something ridiculous but part of what they did in the in the sort of renovation of this home is build a beautiful spa, interior Sona. The whole inside of the hot room is all our thermally modified ash and what we've been told and I believe this is the the reduced moisture content the lower heat, mass and heat absorption is that it's actually cooler to the touch than some traditional woods are. So even on a performance basis thermally modified wood does mean
Mark D. Williams<br> 45:08
you're 100%. Right? We'll even talk about this offline. We've just announced it maybe a week or two ago, and it's on our website, we're actually doing a sauna and cold plunge retreat here with a curious builder locally at Lake Minnewaska, which is where we're recording is five minutes away. And they have a guide called Asana, Poppy, but you have all these sauna setup and you know, just a way to bring I just love everything about the, you know, the sonic culture. And actually, we have a few sauna makers coming on the podcast at some point. That's great. So it'd be we'll have to talk a little bit more about specking arbour wood in their songs. Sure, sure. From where do you see where do you see the industry going? What is the next 10 years look like? What's the next 20 years look like?
Speaker 1 45:46
I think you'll continue to see adoption of of these natural building materials natural naturally modified wood thermally modified wood being probably the largest subset of that. What we're seeing right now is a movement expanding beyond the traditional envelope. So we're seeing furniture manufacturers, we're working with very large blue chip furniture manufacturers that have large outdoor collections historically using teak or tropical hardwoods like ePay, or machi, che or kumerow. And they're now becoming hipped to this thermally modified wood thing. And so we're seeing it in furniture, we're seeing it in musical instruments were modified wood is being used for guitar necks and bridges due to its stability, and its machinability its aesthetics, its beauty. Beautiful. I mean, it has kind of a richer color because of the conversion of the sugars. I've even had conversations with botique stand up paddleboard and, and boutique ski and snowboard manufacturers that want to use it because it's light and it's stable. So I think that we're just at the tip of the iceberg, actually,
Mark D. Williams<br> 46:48
yeah, there's, remember I've mostly downhill ski, but I remember I snowboard a little bit and I think there isn't there a snowboard company called Arbor ster is they have a wood, snowboard, Arbor wood with arbor.
Speaker 1 46:58
They don't have an arbor way or road. But I do think they use wood cores. We
Mark D. Williams<br> 47:02
might have to do some collaboration there. That's snowboard. You know, one of the things I was gonna ask you is, you know, what other industries? Do you kind of not? I mean, Aspire could be a good word when I was thinking about you and your company, specifically, I think of some companies have done an amazing job with the whole sustainability piece, you know, in our culture, not necessarily building but I was thinking about Patagonia coat epoxy, just I'm an outdoor enthusiast. I love those. And they really live and breed their message. And the people that follow them equally love it. Where do you look for inspiration about how to create your business and sort of the mentality and keeping true to that passion outside of let's say the building community.
Speaker 1 47:44
Patagonia is one that we talk about a lot, Patagonia. Redwing is a company that we admire, we really want to lean into US based manufacturing. We're proud to be an American company. We're proud to use American fiber and create jobs here in the United States. And we also care about the planet. And so for us, it's deeper and more fundamental than just the material itself. And I think Patagonia is a great example of that. It's, it's where we source our wood. I mean, one of the really fun programs that we're early on with is a is our carbon smart wood program. So we've actually partnered with a company based out kind of an East Coast, who has taken the Urban Wood model, which is which is largely a regional program where people are sourcing wood felled through disaster decay, urban development, a lot of times that wood is chipped and ends up in a landfill. But we're working with the carbon smartwood folks who have line of sight on truly 10s of millions of board feet of very good wood that otherwise just just gets wasted. They sort of process it they maintain Chase chain of custody, reintroduce it into the supply chain,
Mark D. Williams<br> 48:49
what do you mean by wasted? Why would it be wasted? Just falls and rots versus it being harvested right then and there. Yeah,
Speaker 1 48:56
oftentimes, let's say somebody is building a new multifamily development and they're going to cut down 500 trees, it historically hasn't been top of mind to make sure that that wood goes to good use, it'll get chipped it ends up in a landfill and that's that. And so what we're able to do is actually prevent that from happening. Identify that would identify the wood that fits our spec, go through the processing necessary to then reintroduce that back into the market as a beautiful deck board or a tongue and groove siding plank.
Mark D. Williams<br> 49:26
You know, I think one of the things and maybe we'll kind of before we end just want to talk a little bit different segments of your products. So I mean, you got siding, decking and dimensional lumber are those those are the three places right now for
Speaker 1 49:38
the Yeah, those would be the three broad categories.
Mark D. Williams<br> 49:41
And what percentage of let's say sales or demand would be on which one of those may I'm just trying to gauge like, which sector basically is creating the most demand?
Speaker 1 49:51
Yeah, siding for sure. 60 To 70% siding. I would say it's it's 2025 30% decking and then mentioned lumber which is a broad broad label but it's basically it's one by twos all the way up to a nominal two by 12 is a growing segment for us because that originally was sail trim detail, but we're seeing it for pergolas, we're seeing it for bench slats. We're seeing it used for some other finished making fire pits or planters. So really anywhere wood is used. You can use Arbor wood,
Mark D. Williams<br> 50:27
right? Oh, interesting. I'm thinking of it right now we're working on a project and it was I think it was Alaskan. Is it Alaskan cedar was as well it was back to Nam thinking man, your product would actually work really? Well, for this. It's just funny. How would you when you frame your thought process a little bit differently? How many things also now it can apply to? Because I think originally when we discovered you it was siding. And then thinking about now, as you kind of get educated on the different products and what you can do you're like, oh, this kind of opens up some different doors, that you know that where you could where you could, you know, apply it? What, from a competition standpoint, not locally within thermally modified wood, but I assume in terms of the overall industry PVC, you know, the, you know, the synthetic products? They what would the percentage of let's say, real wood, whether it's just regular cedar that, you know, people have been using forever versus thermally modified, let's just say all natural materials versus anything non natural. What would be the split roughly, do you think on siding and decking?
Speaker 1 51:28
I would say our biggest competition is the non natural materials.
Mark D. Williams<br> 51:32
But any idea? Was it like 9010 8020 95? Five like Well, yeah,
Speaker 1 51:36
you know, it's a good question. I would say it's 80 to 90%. We're not going against western red cedar. We're not going again. I mean, we are to some extent, but it's infrequent, we're not necessarily trying to battle against the big European juggernauts who have been doing thermally modified wood, or battling against composite decking or battling against engineered fiber cement siding. Almost exclusively. And when I say battle battle maybe isn't the right word, because it's, it's an awareness thing. I mean, a lot of people just aren't aware of it. And even when they're aware of it, they just don't know enough about it. They haven't seen it enough. They haven't felt it, they haven't you know, so that's part of the work right now,
Mark D. Williams<br> 52:13
from a marketing standpoint, you know, you know, other than the guy who's building everything in his in his in his on the Zoom calls that we'd love to see, what what how do you address marketing? How do you look at marketing, I know we talk about education, and I assume agreeing to come on this podcast, things like that are is a big part of education. But you know, in some ways, your most of the listeners here would be builders, architects, designer peoples in the industry. So the trickle effect is going to be really positive here. I don't think a lot of my homeowners necessarily listen to it. They're certainly welcome to but I guess where I'm going with this is like from the funnel standpoint, how do you look at marketing? Where are you spending the majority of your time kind of pushing your educational platforms and knowledge to? Is it to show homes? Is it to trade shows? Is it to builders, walk us a little bit through your marketing strategies,
Speaker 1 53:01
it really started and still to this day is centered around digital marketing. So digital marketing is the core of what we do we think of ourselves. When we're when we're having sort of business development conversations, we think of ourselves as a media company that happens to be in the manufacturing of wood products business. And so it's, it's social media, we do pretty well on social media, we have, you know, five figure, Instagram followers, which is, you know, not not not record breaking, but nothing to shake a stick at either. And we've worked very hard at that. It's harnessing the algorithm, it's understanding how to maximize your investment in spending and boosting content. We've done a lot of work in SEO, thought leadership on our website, blog posts, information sharing, I mean, it's part of education, awareness raising, and it's also just understanding how to harness the power of the algorithm to be discoverable. We've focused on that more, and we've had a lot of traction and a lot of success. And I would say we've we've way, I don't want to say we've punted the coverage, it's more we've punched well above our weight in that regard, the amount of money that I've spent based on what I've got in return has been a big success. I would
Mark D. Williams<br> 54:11
based on your earlier point, I have I mean, the product is pretty sexy. I mean, there has to be the visual element, which you already spoke to, has to be a huge reason why people engage with it. So rarely, people want to touch it, they want to feel it. I mean, I have the sample deck in the office. I mean, when I go places people want to touch they're instinctively drawn to try to connect with it. Right. And I feel like that has to be a strong poll, you know, in your marketing to that people are left with like, oh, how do I get this? What is this? I think curiosity. I think that the underlying even I mean, obviously it's a call to the show, but I guess that's really the base of all of us like you, it's hard to educate someone who isn't curious. And I think your product naturally is like, what is that? Is that stain? Is that a coating? Like how do they do that? And I do think that that process ends up leading to a lot of questions that then you dispatch like, here's our sales rep, or here's, here's our story. And that's kind of where it leads to the education. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 55:07
And we do trade shows. And so that's kind of you mentioned seeing us at IBS will be at IBS and 2025. And in an even bigger way, and we're realizing that we've put a lot of eggs in the digital basket, and we need to also nurture more traditional especially, I mean, not every custom home builder is on Instagram, you know, so you have to be at the shows. But every single show, somebody is going to pick our product up, and they sniff it. And this is composite, right? What's in this? No, no, no, it's just wood, it's just wood. Really, this is just what and then you know, and then you have the conversation. But it takes that kind of tactile experience. And so the pictures are great, the pictures capture attention, the pictures, get them into like the tippy top of the funnel. But to start to convert and to have more meaningful tangible conversations, you have to get product in front of people. And so that's, that's where the rubber meets the road. And there's a lot of power in getting samples. And so we've done a lot of work and put a lot of investments in elegant, fairly sophisticated sampling experiences, you know, there are sampling platforms that have emerged as sort of the de facto way for the modern designer to actually curate and find new materials. The days of the large physical materials, sample material library at an architectural studio are kind of going away for more collaborative digital design studios. And so making sure we're on all the right platforms so that people can find us, we spent a lot of time and money, making sure we're on the material bank and swatch box, and we've got BIM models, and all of those things. So yeah,
Mark D. Williams<br> 56:35
lots to go there. Yeah. Well, as we kind of coast into the end here, maybe switch things a little bit to just on the personnel side, I was trying to kind of interesting for an entrepreneurial standpoint, like, you know, what are you interested in outside of work? And, you know, how do you self educate? How do you stay motivated?
Speaker 1 56:50
Yeah. So, I think, you know, mental health is as important as physical health when you're an entrepreneur, especially early stages, when you're grinding it out. It's stressful, it's hard work. It's anxiety inducing, you're questioning yourself every day. So I tried to be very intentional that taking care of my brain and taking care of my body. It's why I live in Minnesota. So I live in northern Minnesota, I love I love trail running, I love riding gravel bikes, I love skiing, Nordic skiing, downhill skiing, I do yoga, my wife owns a yoga studio. So I have access to a bunch of free yoga classes and yoga instructors. To me, I think that's really important. But I'm a constant lifelong learner, I just love to learn I was I was blessed with that gift for my parents who always made learning fun, whatever it is that I'm into, whether it's bikes, skis, guitars, music, or thermally, modified wood, I just am on a constant quest for knowledge. And so I think, as an entrepreneur, as a business leader, in general, I think you just have to have that mentality, you're never done. You're never done learning. And so sometimes you just have to be intentional about it. And sometimes just keep your mind open. And you will just learn keep your eyes and
Mark D. Williams<br> 57:58
ears. I think we could have a yoga and Arbor would clap. You know, I think of all the yoga studios that have been in, you know, with a synthetic LVT or whatever wood floor, right, wiping up the sweat. I mean, there's a lot of yoga studios and bar studios in the country. I think they could all be converted into some hardwood floors. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you very much for coming on. If people want to reach out to you personally. LinkedIn, the website, what's the best way for you LinkedIn? It's pretty full. If you want to come work for you. Yeah, you know, maybe I got to come up with a new way than LinkedIn because you're getting inundated. But what are the best places to you know, find out more about Arbor wood as well as yourself? Personally?
Speaker 1 58:31
Yeah, you can certainly find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, our website, we'll get you in some way or fashion to me, Arbor wood co.com. We're active on Instagram. We're on Facebook. We're on all the channels. We're on Pinterest, we're on YouTube. If you just query Arbor would go, you will find us. In fact, thanks to my marketing team, if you just query thermally modified wood, we're going to be the number one organic search returns so easy to find us. Very good. Well, thanks
Mark D. Williams<br> 58:59
again for coming on, John. Appreciate it. Thank
Unknown Speaker 59:01
you, Mark. Absolutely.
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