The Southern Forest Products Association’s A Cut Above series highlights and introduces to the Southern Pine lumber community – and the greater world – the amazing people who are part of our community and help keep Southern Pine among the premiere wood species domestically and internationally!
Heidi Schmidt is global sales manager with Opticom Tech, an SFPA associate member which provides integrated video monitoring solutions for sawmills and other forestry-related facilities. She’s been working in the camera industry for 20 years and in and out of sawmills for about 17 of those years.
Why do you enjoy working in the forest products industry, specifically the Southern Pine lumber industry. What is it that motivates you?
So, I live in Michigan, but I’m a Louisiana girl, so these are my people. It really gives me a lot of reasons to come back to the South and watch the region flourish and grow. And I’ve just grown to love the industry and the people in it. Everybody’s so genuine, friendly, helpful, and caring.
What are some of the things that make the Southern Pine industry so unique, so special?
It’s the people. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a more welcoming and friendlier bunch of people. It doesn’t matter where I go in the Southeast and I’ve been in and out of a lot of sawmills during my 17 years doing this. They’re just the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life, and I’m excited every time I get to see somebody, meet somebody, and chat with them to (hopefully) help them out.
What surprises you the most about this industry?
Every time I go into a sawmill, the people are getting younger and younger (I don’t know if that’s a real thing or if I’m just getting older). But really, the way technology evolves but stays the same is always interesting.
You’re using all of this big machinery and it’s basically the same, but they have these technological advances, and every time I’m just like, “Oh, huh, look at that! They improved that process. I wonder who thought of that. How did they do that” It’s just fascinating how they can turn something so basic into something so technologically advanced.
What is the one thing or maybe the top three things you and Opticom do for the Southern pine industry that sets you apart?
Our job is to build cameras to last within a sawmill, so our products are built specifically for a sawmill. It’s not the other way around, where a lot of companies build really tough products for things, and then they just kind of make it work for a sawmill.
The sawmill is actually our first market that we go to, so when we build a new product, it’s not tested in labs. We call our guys in the mills and we’re like, “Hey, I’ve got this camera I need you to throw in a kiln and see what’s going to happen.” And that’s how we test and develop our products.
Secondly is our customer service. From what I hear, customer service was pretty on point from Day 1, so our goal is to still provide that 1973 customer service in a world where we really just feel like customer service is a lost art.
Well, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about this being a people business, right?
Yes. Technology and AI are great, but you still need that human element. This is a people-to-people business. So, it’s ironic that as we advance technology, people are still the most important part of this.
What are your hopes for the industry?
From a camera standpoint, obviously that we can continue to keep up with the technology and create solutions that will continue to work within the mills.
And we can continue to partner with sawmills that are willing to do that R&D with us. The reality is, if we can solve it for one location and one sawmill, we know that product will be a fit for all of the other sawmills with similar equipment.
As for the industry as a whole. That we stay steady in the U.S. and especially the Southeast. We don’t know what the future holds, but hopefully we can stay steady here with growth, but also create more opportunities to export.
So, then, what are you most excited about in 2024? What are you seeing for this year?
Opticom has plans to visit as many mills as we can, and I’m excited to learn from them because there’s so much technology coming out. I was scrolling LinkedIn recently, and I saw a company posted a new machine. So, I’m excited to go into the mills and see how the new machines so we can get a better handle on how they’re working, how the sawmilling processes are changing and shifting, and how the operators can then adapt our products to be a better fit.
One final question. Where do you see the industry in 10 years? What do you expect to see from a technology perspective related to Southern Pine lumber manufacturing?
So, I expect to see it thriving although, and I’ve put a lot of thought into this because I knew you were going to ask me something like this. But I think it’s going to be different. It’s going to adapt, and I can’t tell you how and I can’t tell you where it’s going, but I think it’s going to shift. And we all know this, right?
People and the industry will find new ways to use Southern Pine in ways we can’t even imagine right now because there’s so many people out there who are so creative. We’re resilient, and by the grace of God, we’re Southerners.
But it’s definitely interesting and the evolution just never ends. The good thing is we have a centuries-long history of using wood, so it’s not going anywhere. It’s only going to get better.
The Southern Forest Products Association’s A Cut Above series highlights and introduces to the Southern Pine lumber community and the greater world the amazing people who are part of our community and help keep Southern Pine among the premiere wood species domestically and internationally!