LFPDC Faculty Take Leadership Role in the Forest Products Society
All four faculty members in the Louisiana Forest Products Development Center (LFPDC), LSU AgCenter, have taken on leadership positions in the Forest Products Society (FPS).
In August, at the Society’s annual international convention in Quebec, Dr. Niels de Hoop, Associate Professor, will be installed as President and Dr. Richard Vlosky, LFPDC Director and Crosby Land & Resources Endowed Professor of Forest Sector Business Development, will be installed as Vice-President. Dr. Todd Shupe, Professor and Director of the LFPDC’s Wood Durability Laboratory will remain Regional Board Member for the South-Central Region for the next year. Dr. Qinglin Wu, Roy O. Martin Sr. Professor in BioComposites/Nanomaterials and Director of the Composites Engineering Laboratory, will become the Faculty Advisor for the newly created FPS Louisiana State University student chapter based in the School of Renewable Natural Resources.
In addition, at the Quebec convention, LFPDC faculty member Dr. Mark Gibson, Director, School of Forestry, Louisiana Tech University, will receive the prestigious Fred W. Gottschalk Memorial Award, named for the first President of the Society, which recognizes exceptional service to the Forest Products Society by an individual member. The Forest Products Society is an international not-for-profit technical association founded in 1947 to provide an information network for all segments of the forest products industry.
LIFT2 Grants Awarded to Three RNR Faculty
LSU has awarded 15 grants totaling $500,000 to faculty members through its new LIFT2 (Leveraging Innovation for Technology Transfer) grant program, which provides funding to validate the market potential of the faculty members' inventions. Grants are for up to $50,000. LSU President F. King Alexander says in a prepared statement that "this program will help to see many of these projects advance from basic research to market." Results of the research from the first grants are expected within a year. The grant awardees were selected from among 47 applications.
Congratulations are in order for three of our Faculty members receiving these prestigious awards:
Professors Todd Shupe and Richard Vlosky in the School of Renewable Natural Resources, along with Dr. Jim Richardson in the E. J. Ourso College of Business Administration on the LSU A&M campus received one of these these for their project titled: “Reclaiming Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA) from Decommissioned Preservative-treated wood: Technology, Economics, and Markets”
Assistant Professor Julie Anderson Lively in the School of Renewable Natural Resources, also received one of these awards. The title of her project is “Packaging and storage of a new blue crab bait”
Dr. Todd Shupe (PI) is Professor and Director of the Wood Durability Laboratory, Louisiana Forest Products Development Center, School of Renewable Natural Resources at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge, La. The laboratory is world recognized as a leading research and testing laboratory and is ISO/IEC Standard 17025:2005 accredited. Dr. Richard Vlosky (co-PI) is Director of the Louisiana Forest Products Development Center and Crosby Land and Resources Endowed Professor in Forest Sector Business Development at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center in Baton Rouge. Dr. James Richardson (co-PI) is John Rhea Alumni Professor of Economics and Director of the Public Administration Institute in the E. J. Ourso College of Business Administration at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dr. Richardson has also served as Chairman of the Department of Economics, Acting Dean of the College of Business Administration, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Louisiana State University.
The wood-preservation industry is a $4.5 billion industry in the U.S.. For all species, a total of 8.2 billion board feet of lumber and 59.4 million cubic feet of logs are estimated to have been treated with waterborne preservatives in 2007. In Louisiana, the forest product industry ranks as one of the top manufacturing industries, employing almost 30,000 workers, second to petro-chemicals, with an annual payroll of over one billion dollars and contributes over $4.9 billion annually to the state’s economy. Southern pine is the dominant species for treated wood and nearly half of all southern pine lumber is preservative treated. It is important for Louisiana non-industrial forest landowners that Louisiana maintains a viable wood preservation industry so the landowners can obtain maximum value for their timber.
The main goal of this multi-institutional research is to determine the suitability of spent CCA-treated wood as a source for (1) recycled, “green” CCA and (2) raw bio-polyols, obtained via continuous microwave liquefaction, in the fabrication of “green” spray-foam insulation. Specific objectives are to (1) determine the technical efficacy, (2) economic feasibility and (3) market structures of an innovative patented processes at the pilot-scale level. This is unique research that is aimed at the development of a closed-loop spent CCA-treated wood pole recycling process with no discharge of solid waste into the waste stream. The technology has been covered in two US patents awarded to Dr. Shupe.
Crab bait is big business: According to Dr. Lively, over 40 million pounds of blue crab are harvested annually in Louisiana, and the most common bait is East Coast caught Atlantic menhaden shipped frozen to the Gulf of Mexico. This is costly and becoming prohibitive as the fish is overfished. Dr. Lively's lab has developed a new bait using waste from the seafood industry in Louisiana, which is under a provisional patent. The goal of her project is to take the feasibility test results from academia and produce a product available for use in the commercial industry. The objectives of this project will be to 1) improve storage techniques for optimal mass production, and 2) evaluate the bait in the black drum fishery. This new bait would be applicable for bait markets across the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast.
-- Quick News --
- Second Listening Session on EPA Water Rules Set for July 30 in Winnsboro. A second listening session is scheduled for July 30 to hear comments from Louisiana’s agricultural community about proposed water rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The event will be held at the Scott Extension Education Center in Winnsboro. Registration and lunch (provided) will begin at noon. More details are available on our Extension News page.
- A new link has been added with information on forestry degrees and forestry-related careers: Forestry Careers & Degrees: A Guide for Students. The link is located on our Jobs, Graduate Assistantships, Internships page.
- 2nd Quarter 2014 Timber Tales is now available. The details and a link to the newsletter are available on our Extensions page.
- Arborist Workshops 2014: The 2014 schedule for Arborist Workshops and other learning opportunities has been updated, and registrations are open. For more information, see our Workshops page.
- As part of the LPB series "Alive in America's Delta", see our own Yu-Hsin Hsueh (Ph.D student of Dr. Chambers and Dr. Keim) as she talks about her own encounter with alligators while doing research in the swamp. This segment gives witness first-hand to how this keystone species – and cultural icon – was brought back to viability using a combination of biological science and marketplace economics. The full program can now be accessed on LPB online.
- The Spring 2014 issue of Research Matters is now available for download. Catch-up on the research highlights in forestry, wildlife, fisheries, and wetlands involving our RNR Faculty and talented Graduate Students. Also, see what is going on in our undergraduate classes with the "service-learning" aspect of our programs. The Spring 2014 issue download (pdf), is available on our Research Matters/Newsletter page.
- The Student Chapter of Society of American Foresters (SAF) has a new way to keep you informed, share their news and events, and keep in touch: They now have a Facebook page. LIKE their page, and keep up with all the latest! Support your local (student) Foresters!
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