NELSONVILLE, Ohio -- Appalachian Partnership, Inc. has announced the launch of the new website for Ohio Wood Products. Designed to be Ohio's foremost wood products resource, is a single hub where distinct sectors of the hardwood industry can easily connect. At the heart of the website is the Ohio Wood Products Directory with a GIS-enabled supply chain map that is making the industry more accessible. 

"The site and company directory is a culmination of hundreds of man-hours and thousands of miles across Ohio visiting nearly all of the shops and factories in the database," said Frank Roberts, program manager of Wood Products at API. "There is now a single working platform that connects and directs users around the globe to our highly sought Ohio hardwoods and craftsmanship."

"'Wood Works Here' was chosen as a central message for the launch of the new website because it conveys the real value of Ohio hardwoods across a very broad spectrum," said Roberts. "Ohio's well-managed hardwoods work not only in Ohio, but around the world, for the environment as well as the economy." 

Ohio's hardwoods industry includes lumber, logging, timber brokering, pallets, mulch, paper, hardwood flooring, furniture, musical instruments, caskets and more.

Transforming standing timber into these products and services requires a diverse group of talent, transportation, and technology. The Supply Chain Database on the site has more than 1,600 companies and 300 sawmills represented, and steadily growing. The directory's GIS-enabled map pinpoints and connects hardwood suppliers, master loggers, craftsmen, and products.

Hundreds of millions of board-feet of valuable oak, hickory, walnut, maple and birch are harvested from Ohio's Appalachian region each year and find their way across the country and around the world, and more than a billion board-feet of timber is grown in its place. 

The proper harvesting of timber is not limited to large forests. Private landowners who decide to sell the timber on their land are learning that professional wood harvesting can mean a greater profit, minimal disturbance to their property, and faster and higher quality regrowth. Wood even works for private landowners. 

The new site was created to help bolster Appalachian Ohio's often underserved hardwoods economy and to help connect and streamline its supply chain. Ohio's hardwood industry contributes more than $24 billion to the state's economy annually, employs more than 120,000 people, and is home to the largest hardwood furniture manufacturing sector in the nation. 

"A lot of people are surprised to learn just how far-reaching Ohio's hardwood impact is," Roberts noted. "For example, Hochstetler Wood Ltd, an Amish furniture manufacturer right here in Millersburg, Ohio, provides furniture for two large national restaurant chains with hundreds of locations across the U.S. They chose American-made wood furniture over foreign plastics and other materials."

"The Ohio Wood Products website and interactive database are an easy-to-use tool for members of the forest products industry in Ohio and surrounding states," said Brad Perkins, executive director of the Ohio Forestry Association. "Loggers, sawmills, furniture manufacturers and other forest products companies can use this website to connect with the right sources of raw materials for their business and to enhance the marketing of their products."

Ohio Wood Products, part of the Appalachian Partnership, Inc., is a not-for-profit economic development organization headquartered in Nelsonville, Ohio. Its mission is to foster enduring, widely shared prosperity across Appalachian Ohio by helping build the region's private sector business economy. Learn more at http://OhioWoodProducts.com.