Pacific Fibre coming to Weiser

   Pacific Fibre Products, Inc. is set to build a $4 million wood product manufacturing facility at 378 and 390 Feltham Road off Highway 95, seven miles south of Weiser.
 The site is located at the former Four Onions property.
 Pac Fibre, which began in 1981 following the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington, manufactures “Beauty Bark,” offering its customers various types of landscaping products.
 Chief Financial Officer Mark Fahey and Vice President of Corporate Relations and HR James Bobst addressed Washington County Commissioners Aug. 9, asking for a tax exemption they said would help them while they work to build the business.
 “What we’re asking for is consideration for property tax exemption,” Fahey told commissioners. “That helps us get through those early years. You like to think that you start conveyors going and we immediately ramp up to selling everything we make. That’s not how it works. It takes a while to get going. We intend that most of what we make will stay in the Treasure Valley area, but some of the … products are probably going to go to Utah and Colorado where we have existing customers.”
 Fahey said the new facility would source raw material from area sawmills, including those as far away as Grangeville and St. Maries.

Pac Fibre currently operates facilities in Longview, Wash., which serves as its headquarters; North Plains, Ore.; Central Point, Ore.; and Mollala, Ore., employing over 200 workers between the four locations.
 “We’ve got customers in the Treasure Valley area that are sending their trucks all the way to Longview (Wash.) to bring product back,” Fahey said. “Being here brings us into a new supply chain for raw material and gets us closer to a booming market in the whole Boise, Treasure Valley area.”
 Fahey said the facility would employ an initial staff of seven and, with the exception of one supervisor from Longview, Wash., would all be local hires. Positions include a millwright, two machinery operators, stick picker, clean up, and scale operator/clean up.
 The projected annual average wage would be $24.89 per hour, with entry-level workers starting at $19.95 per hour. All positions are full-time and come with full benefits, including medical, dental, vision, 401k, and bonuses.
 “We hope within year two, to add a second shift and at that point we’ll have about 11 employees,” Fahey said. “We have competitive wages for Washington County. Our benefits program … we match our 401k dollar-for-dollar up to 4 percent of pay.”
 The company’s product is shipped, in part, by railcar, making the location on Feltham Road convenient since it is rail served.
 Pac Fibre is currently working with Union Pacific on leasing the ground where two buildings and a foundation are currently located. He said shipping by rail probably wouldn’t happen in the first year, the product shipped instead by trucks.
 “In year two, we’ll engage with some rail cars,” he said. “We hope to bring raw material in via rail up north because that’ll be more efficient than trucking it in from St. Maries and places like that.”
Trucking Came First
 Before Pac Fibre, there was Lemmons Trucking, Inc. Founded in 1946, the company transported product for local forest product companies, including Weyerhaeuser, which today owns over 11 million acres of timberlands in the U.S., primarily in the west, south and northeast, according to the company’s website.
 Pac Fibre got its start after the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption that occurred in 1980.
 “When Mount St. Helens erupted, a lot of the flanks … was Weyerhaeuser land and there were a lot of blown down trees and salvage that needed to be done,” Fahey explained. “They asked our owners John Lemmons, who was then our owner, and Larry Lemmons, who is our owner today, and said, ‘Would you put in a portable chipper and turn logs into wood chips for the local paper mills,’ and the story goes, that John and Larry looked at each other and said, ‘what the hell is a portable wood chipper?’”
 With that, Pac Fibre was born. Today, 40 years later, the company takes in between 500 to 1,000 loads of pulpwood per week.
The Tax Exemption
 Washington County Commissioners agreed to take the requested tax exemption into consideration, but seemed committed to working with Pac Fibre.
 “We look forward to working with you,” said Commission Chairman Nate Marvin. “What we’ve done for the last two businesses that came in, is we give them a 100 percent break on the new investment. Not on the bare land, but any improvements to the land, the equipment, stuff like that, so we did 100 percent for three years and then we did 50 percent for the next two years. The Idaho legislature allows us to do that for five years. We would have to vote on that amongst ourselves.”
 He added, “And then we’d welcome you to come back and sit down with us when we get all the paperwork done, and I’m certainly willing to look at it, and if everything lines up and all the stars align, then I certainly would be willing to offer you that same package.”