Flathead Electric joins the Montana Wood Products Association
The wood products industry represents hundreds of jobs in our community and millions of dollars in revenue for your not-for-profit, member-owned cooperative. The industry is vital in keeping our forests and public lands healthy. Vegetation management is also an important aspect of Flathead Electric Cooperative’s (FEC) work managing utility rights of ways to reduce fire danger and tree-caused outages. In light of these facts, your Co-op joined the Montana Wood Products Association (MWPA) in July. MWPA serves as the main voice for Montana’s wood products industry and actively engages in timber, logging, and wood products manufacturing advocacy.
“We work closely with our members in the wood products industry and share many of the same goals and values, so it’s a natural fit,” said Katie Pfennigs, FEC’s Director of External Relations, “We look forward to partnering with MWPA to advocate for a strong wood products industry statewide as well as common sense forest management.”
“The Montana Wood Products Association is happy to welcome the Flathead Electric Cooperative as a new Association member! We look forward to partnering with the co-op as we work to meet the goals and objectives of the Association,” said MWPA Executive Director Julia Altemus. “All our members play an important role in retaining a viable timber community in Montana.”
FEC joins MWPA as a “Sustaining Associate Member.” Sustaining Associate Members are organizations “conducting a large part of their business with Montana forest products industry and would be impacted by the loss of the industry.” The wood products industry continues to face many headwinds from supply chain, trade, and inflation issues to uncertainty over log supply from public lands. FEC manages hundreds of miles of utility rights of way on forested lands. In addition, Weyerhaeuser and F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. remain the largest FEC members by power use. FEC also partners with Stoltze on a 2.5mW biomass generator that provides power to the co-op’s electric distribution system.
Learn more about MWPA here.
