Queen City Green Rescues Trees

Springfield Business Journal:

While most Ozarkers were still mourning the countless trees downed and disfigured by the January 2007 ice storm, two soon-to-be business partners began mobilizing to save high-quality wood from chippers and burn piles.

Springfield native Kasey White and Dave Buehler, who lives on about 400 acres south of Mount Vernon, didn’t know each other when the ice storm carved through the Ozarks canopy a little more than a year ago, but they were on the same wavelength. Both were pondering how to reuse the precious natural resource and make a little money in the process.

In December, the duo formed Queen City Green. The startup’s mission is to rescue usable wood that might otherwise be treated as debris and destroyed. Their main suppliers are Mother Nature and real estate developers who have cleared trees to make way for subdivisions or strip malls.

White and Buehler obtain most of their wood by offering to remove downed trees in exchange for permission to haul the wood to Buehler’s land in Lawrence County. Once there, Queen City Green contracts with Amish woodworkers in Mount Vernon who cut the wood into slabs with hydraulically powered tools, White said, noting that no electric power is used.

The wood is then returned to Buehler’s land, where it’s dried in a solar kiln at 150 to 160 degrees for 10 to 14 days, depending on sunlight and outdoor temperatures. Buehler uses a gauge similar to an electronic stud finder to measure the wood’s moisture levels.

Once the drying process is complete, the Amish carpenters mill the wood into planks for hardwood flooring, which White said accounts for about 80 percent of Queen City Green’s business. The finished wood is then stored in a dry place until it’s sold.

Photo by Springfield Business Journal.

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