Maine Wood Concepts Receives MWPA Pine Tree Award
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Maine Wood Concepts Receives MWPA  Pine Tree Award   FARMINGTON, ME - Maine Governor Paul LePage presented the Pine Tree Award to Maine Wood Concepts owners Doug Fletcher, Jody Fletcher and Gary Fletcher. The annual award from the Maine Wood Products Association was presented August 7 at a banquet.

Maine Wood Concepts, New Vineyard, ME, is a leading U.S manufacturer of custom wood turnings, wood tool handles and custom molded wood parts. Owned by the Fletcher family since 1971, in the last year Maine Wood Concepts added 40 jobs to support its diversification into a line of gourmet kitchen products sold under the Fletcher’s Mill brand.

“The Fletchers have used entrepreneurship, calculated risk-taking and perseverance to keep their company competitive,” says Dan Crowley, executive director of the Maine Wood Products Association. “They have secured local markets for Maine’s high quality hardwoods and created good jobs in Maine while facing down foreign competition.”

Collin Miller, director of wood products initiatives for the Northern Forest Center, facilitated a team to work closely with the Fletchers to help Maine Wood Concepts transition to its expanded business model.

“They saw a need to take a strategic approach to growth of their workforce and began focusing on internal changes that could address their needs,” said Miller. He coordinates the Regional Wood Products Consortium, a collaboration between the Northern Forest Center and the wood products manufacturing industry in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and northern New York.

The activist Governor LePage made headlines earlier for banning LEED in state funded projects, believing its FSC wood specification put local Maine forestry businesses - who are more likely to certify wood under SFI, PEFC, or ATFS -  at a disadvantage.

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