From Gregory.R.Lord at maine.gov Tue Aug 4 08:33:53 2009 From: Gregory.R.Lord at maine.gov (Lord, Gregory R.) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 08:33:53 -0400 Subject: [certified_forest_products] Certified Forest Products - August 4, 2009 Message-ID: Job Description INNOVATION IN WOOD PRODUCTS MANUFACTURING Sustainable Forest Futures Background Sustainable Forest Futures (SFF) is a nonprofit subsidiary of the Northern Forest Center, with its own specialized Board of Directors. SFF seeks to promote a competitive and sustainable forest economy in a 4 state region. The newest initiative of SFF is the establishment and implementation of a Regional Wood Products Consortium. The Regional Wood Products Consortium is a collaboration between SFF and the wood products manufacturing industry in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the North Country Region (14 Northern counties) of New York. The objective of the Consortium is to encourage and facilitate innovation within the industry, and identify and help companies access new emerging domestic and export markets, in order to enhance economic competitiveness. In part, the Consortium's work will be focused on enhancing the potential of the region's wood products manufacturing companies to meet the challenges presented by foreign competition, successfully compete in the global economy, and take advantage of growing consumer interest in place based products. Key partners with SFF in the implementation of the Consortium include the Maine Wood Products Association, the Empire State Forest Products Association, the Vermont Wood Manufacturers Association, the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, and the Wood Products Manufacturers Association. Together these trade associations have in excess of 300 members who are wood products manufacturing companies located within the region covered by the Consortium. The Position SFF is seeking to fill a new senior staff position to take the lead in developing and carrying forward one on one relationships with the leaders of numerous individual wood products companies throughout the four state region, as a central component in implementing the Regional Wood Products Consortium. Initially, the Consortium will focus on developing and conducting a series of specialized innovation workshops, each focusing on a different aspect of innovation to enhance economic competitiveness, with the potential of repeating each workshop in various locations throughout the region. Subsequently, the Consortium expects to pursue collaborative efforts to promote market development and access. With respect to the workshops, possible innovation topics include mass customization as a potential business model, use of new technologies, lean manufacturing, new product development, developing new marketing strategies, exporting, green certification as a tool to access markets, and innovations in energy management. The senior staff position will work with companies in identifying workshop opportunities that will attract substantial interest, will encourage participation in the workshops, will attend the workshops, and will do followup work with companies interested in implementing innovations flowing out of a workshop. The senior staff position will also play a key role in helping to identify workshop presenters and otherwise structure the workshops, and in working closely with SFF's trade association partners. Qualifications A successful candidate for this position must have specialized knowledge and expertise in the wood products manufacturing industry, which could come from actual experience from a leadership role with a wood products company, or other experience and knowledge which demonstrates such expertise. This expertise must be sufficient so that this person will be able to have substantial credibility when communicating with leaders of wood products companies. This person also needs to have the temperament, flair for and skills to effectively communicate, with enthusiasm, with leaders of wood products companies regarding potential innovation opportunities. Other Matters SFF is headquartered in Concord, New Hampshire, and works throughout the four state region. It is anticipated that this position will require a fair amount of travel within the region. This position reports to the President of SFF. Salary will be commensurate with experience. Contact Information Steve Rohde, President, Sustainable Forest Futures srohde at northernforest.org 603-229-0679, extension 107 Equal Employment Opportunity: We are proud to maintain employment practices based upon the individual qualification, merits, and achievements of people. All decisions to recruit, hire, promote, and release from employment are made without discriminating according to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.informe.org/pipermail/certified_forest_products/attachments/20090804/11408dd3/attachment.html