George O'Brien, new President of PL and former Vice President of International Paper.
"The problem with the public's perception of the forest products industry is, they see the clear-cut. And if it looks bad, then it must be bad."But, O'Brien points out, a beautiful meadow was once a clear-cut.
"There's a lot of environmental pressures out there -- how to convince the public and our customers ... that we operate our forests in an environmentally sensitive and responsible way," O'Brien said.
[above three paragraphs from
savannahnow.com]
While O'Brien was VP of International Paper, the company "sold off assets not a part of its core business" including "much of it's west coast timberlands". This was in order to begin paying off a more than $12 billion debt.
Now where have I heard this stuff before?
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Resource Land Holdings
These are the proud new owners of 5,800 acres of former PL lands in Kneeland, Miranda, Rio Dell, Fortuna and Mad River.
from left to right
Aaron M. Patsch, B. Joseph Leininger (founder), James W. Geisz
"The mission of Resource Land Holdings is to build portfolios of resource-rich real estate that produce current income and realize their potential for long term appreciation.""Depressed economic cycles create an environment where capital is nearly inaccessible for the regional entrepreneur, and it is in those situations that RLH presents itself as a source of opportunistic capital, frequently investing alongside local partners and entrepreneurs."
Who are the local entrepeneurs in this deal?
Ranchers Don Schoenhofer and Joe Rice of Fortuna.
