Forest Products

The University of Idaho College of Natural Resources offers the only forest products program in the nation that has a fully integrated business-forest product program. With a Bachelor of Science in Forest Products, you’ll have a strong combination of business knowledge and technical skills to qualify for well-paid positions in the forest products industry.

Depending on your interests and career goals, you may focus on one of the following areas of concentration:

• Forest Operations : Learn everything from accessing, harvesting and transporting trees from the woods to a processing point (a mill or factory), to planning and designing timber sales, supervising logging crews, designing and laying out roads and managing the logging and wood procurement operations.
• Wood Construction and Design : Gain the architectural training and business technology for supervisory and managerial positions in the construction industry. Course work includes architectural design, building technology, site design, wood structure and identification, and other skills needed to be successful in these well-paid careers.
• Forest Products Business Management : Study the technical side of forest products, which includes wood products processing, wood drying and preservation, and plywood and particleboard manufacturing. You'll also study management, economics, marketing and finance. To enhance this training, you'll participate in team projects and hands-on learning through field trips and labs.

The University of Idaho College of Natural Resources is home to the largest accredited forest products program in the nation. A degree from an accredited program carries more weight in the marketplace, an advantage when you start your career or apply for graduate school education.

Prepare for Success

If you want to pursue a degree and career in forest products, you should be interested in, and have strengths in, business, construction, forestry, sustainable wood and biomaterials-based products.

Your First Year

During the first year, you will choose an undergraduate degree option in forest operations, wood construction and design, or forest products business management. Depending on your area of emphasis, you may take the following courses:

• Biology 115 – Cells and the Evolution of Life
• Chemistry 101 – Introduction to Chemistry                                                                            
• Communications 101 – Fundamentals of Public Speaking
• English 102 – College Writing and Rhetoric
• Forest Products 100 – Forest Issues and Technology
• Natural Resources 101 – Exploring Natural Resources
• Architecture 154 – Introduction to Architectural Graphics                                                                
• Math 160 – Survey of Calculus
• Forest Resources 235 – Society and Natural Resources

Our faculty and staff members provide one-on-one advising and assistance to help you develop an academic plan. We also try to ensure a timely graduation for all forest products students.

What You Can Do

With a Bachelor of Science in Forest Products, you will be prepared for a rewarding career in the forest products industry. You may become a:

• Forest engineer/manager
• Forester
• Forest products manufacturing marketing supervisor
• Production and operations manager
• Structural engineer/designer
• Technical representative

• Forest Operations
• Forest Products Business Management
• Wood Chemistry
• Wood Composites
• Wood Construction and Design

Opportunities

Nearly 100 percent of our forest products students have an employment offer before or soon after graduation. Our graduates work for federal, state and conservation agencies, nonprofit groups and nongovernmental agencies, including:

• Boise Cascade
• Potlatch Corp.
• Precision Craft Log Homes
• Trus Joist MacMillan
• U.S. Forest Service
• Weyerhaeuser

As a forest products professional, you may:

• Create sustainable products for the future
• Manage renewable natural resources
• Harvest and transport trees from the woods to a processing mill or factory
• Plan and designing timber sales
• Supervise logging crews or manage logging and wood procurement operations
• Design and lay out roads
• Oversee production management, marketing and distribution, and technical and support services
• Design log homes and prefabricated buildings

Idaho Graduates at Work

Current Research

University of Idaho faculty members in the College of Natural Resources (CNR) are recognized nationally and internationally for their expertise and research work in the forest products field. Current projects are investigating the following topics:

• Biofuels from wood
• Strengthening wood fiber-plastic composites for large dimension structures
• Effect of environmental labels on consumer purchasing
• Color modification of wood through electro-heating
• Improving the hardness of wood
• Fuel reduction and ecosystem restoration
• Environmental impacts of timber harvesting
• Collection and transportation of forest biomass for energy
• Grading logs for structural uses
• Plastics from lignin

Activities

• Student Chapter of Forest Products Society
• Student Chapter of the National Association of Home Builders
• Logger Sports

Hands-On Experience

As a student in the forest products program, some of your most important lessons will not come from a book. Field and laboratory experiences are an integral part of our curriculum. You’ll expand your learning through interdisciplinary collaboration and information shared with Washington State University researchers and other universities around the country. 

• Senior Capstone: During your senior year, you will work alongside faculty and students across a variety of disciplines as part of your senior capstone course. You will collaborate with students majoring in business management or food science to create a new product or technology that could be commercialized.
• Student Research / Business Plan Competition: Entrepreneurial students can turn their classroom wood products ideas and research into cash by creating award-winning business plans and showcasing them at the university’s annual Business Plan Competition, sponsored by Vandal Innovation and Enterprise Works (VIEW), a universitywide entrepreneurship program.
• Barker Capital Management Trading Room  (College of Business and Economics): Provides hands-on experiences for students trading in many different markets, including the fast-growing carbon trading market. Students in the program have the opportunity to trade real dollars.
• Student Logging Crew : You may also join the College of Natural Resources student logging crew as a paid member while learning the “how” and “why” of timber harvesting on our 10,300-acre Experimental Forest.

Breakthroughs & Discoveries

Exploring Frontiers of Emissions Trading: Darek Nalle, resource economist in the Department of Forest Products, is an instructor in the College of Business and Economics  Barker Capital Management and Trading Program. The innovative program provides hands-on trading experiences in many different markets, including the fast-growing carbon trading market. Nalle envisions the program as a valuable training tool to prepare Idaho students to fulfill potential business niches, such as:

• Training students to be aggregators, or people who contract with sellers of carbon credits. Students could learn to interface with smaller businesses that can’t afford the six-figure price tag for a seat on the trade exchange but could negotiate with a middleman who is less expensive. 
• Training students to be verifiers, or audit sellers of carbon credits. They would visit sites and monitor management practices to ensure that behaviors are followed as reported.

Business Leaders of the Future: A team of CNR students who competed in the Vandal Innovation and Enterprise Works (VIEW) entrepreneurship competition created ReadyBrace, a tool builders can reuse to brace walls during building construction. The temporary bracing system replaces traditional brace tilt-up systems with a more cost-effective, two-part adjustable clamping system that allows for adjustments and leveling during wall assembly.

Facilities

The College of Natural Resources offers fully-equipped labs that include advanced technical instruments for the development of biobased materials, a heated wood press and dry kiln technology. Facilities and technical resources include:

• University of Idaho Experimental Forest
• University of Idaho Center for Forest Nursery and Seedling Research
• Remote Sensing and GIS Research Laboratory
• Remote Sensing/GIS Teaching Laboratory
• Forest and Range Measurements Laboratory
• Guernsey Outdoor Classroom
• Taylor Ranch Field Station
• Idaho Stable Isotopes Laboratory
• Inland Empire Tree Improvement Cooperative
• Intermountain Forest Tree Nutrition Cooperative
• University of Idaho Laboratory for Conservation and Ecological Genetics
• Landscape Dynamics Laboratory
• Lee Sharp Experimental Area
• McCall Field Campus
• Policy Analysis Group

Faculty Involvement

An extremely diverse group of faculty challenges students both in and out of the classroom. Lab and field facilities are used both on and off campus.

Thomas M. Gorman
Department Head and Professor
Research Specialty: Wood construction and design
» tgorman@uidaho.edu

Armando McDonald
Professor, Wood Chemistry & Wood Composites
Research Interests: * Biobased composite materials research which includes fibre modifications and product prototype development * Synthesis of carbohydrate, protein, and polyphenolic based polymers for use as thermoplastics and adhesives * Synthesis of core-shell polymer systems * Chemical characterization of genetically modified lignin in trees * Characterizing the volatile emissions from wood processing operations * Structural characterization of immunoprotective lilpopolysaccharides (LPS) of the fish pathogen Flavobacterium psychrophilum
» armandm@uidaho.edu