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In 1979, a discussion with Bob Higgins and the IDA took place and the Medco management decided it had an obligation to look at any significant opportunity in MDF. Mr Higgins then made the decision to send Paul Steele, the company accountant, and Ted Bauer, the MDF sales manager, to Ireland to see what could be learnt.
The two men travelled to Ireland in early May of 1980 and spent a week with the IDA and Forestry Department. They were given an extensive review of the development of Irish forestry, the projections of future wood production and the current state of the industry and toured the southern part of the country looking at forestry and sawmill operations.
A follow-up trip in July 1980 took place with a six-person team, so Medco could study all the issues of an Irish project, including what a timber supply contract might look like, Irish financing, government incentives, tax structure, corporate structure, building sites, construction contractors, transportation both for timber as well as product going out, market research and many other topics. Paul Steele then did most of the work compiling a report for presentation to the board of directors at their October meeting in Chicago. John Wadsworth of BIS in the UK, who was a panel products market researcher well respected in the industry, was also brought in to report on the development and future potential of European markets for MDF.
The big issues were timber supply, markets for MDF and cost. The timber contract was to be with the Republic of Ireland and as such would be ratified by the Dáil, giving it the status of a national treaty. There was caution about the fibre quality of the Irish timber, which was mainly Sitka spruce, so Medco arranged to ship several truckloads of Sitka spruce and then planned a test production run in the Medford mill, which actually produced a very good product.
The company recognised that marketing and generating sales in volume of this new product across Europe quickly was going to be one of the biggest challenges.
A follow-up meeting was scheduled in early December 1980 in Medford, to review the project further and then make a final decision.
At the December meeting in Medford, the conclusion was a ‘go’, and Paul Steele left immediately for Dublin where he spent the rest of the year finalising all the big issues – the timber contract, the IDA agreement, bank financing, corporate structure and sales and marketing arrangements and so on. Medco formally announced the European project in March of 1981. This US$50m project went out on ‘the wire’, was reported in all the trade press and Seaboard also hosted a reception in London to mark the moment with the UK trade.
It was obvious to Paul Steele very early on that if Medco was going to go ahead with this project that someone was going to have to move to Ireland. There were others at Medco who would have liked the job but would not have agreed to move on a long- term basis. Mr Steele’s wife accompanied him on the December trip to get a feel of what a move might be like and they stayed over the Christmas holiday, which was a good experience. By the autumn of 1981 they were residents of Ireland.
Clonmel was selected as a central point and good location for the plant within the expanding forest resource in Ireland, and with good access to the ports of Cork, Waterford, and Dublin.
CONSTRUCTION BEGINS Construction began later in 1981 and state-of-the-art equipment was supplied by a host of international vendors – the forming line and multi-daylight press from Washington Iron Works (US), refiners from Sunds Defibrator (Sweden), sanding line from Steinemann (Switzerland) and many more. The company employed an outstanding team of professionals and any start up challenges were successfully overcome, leading to the first production run and first MDF board being produced on September 28, 1983, at 1.32pm precisely.
On April 27, 1984 the company held the official opening ceremony and the minister
for Forestry and Fisheries, Paddy O’Toole represented Ireland, along with the Mayor of Clonmel, Tommy Boyle. Bob Higgins and Russel Houge came from Medford, US. Senior representatives of the timber trade from the UK, Continental Europe and Ireland were present. The Bishops of both the Church of Ireland and the Church of England were in attendance, to bless everything created and for the future. It was a very special day. The very first UK contract in 1983 for the Clonmel facility (MOE-0001) was with James Latham for Woodberry Brothers and Haines, a furniture manufacturer in the west of England. No FSC, CE marking or E1 in those early days – that all came later.
At that time MDF was not fully understood nor accepted in the marketplace, but with the help of American colleagues and the pioneering spirit and effort of the UK and European sales and marketing teams, to grow and expand the market, MEDITE of Europe was able to achieve full annualised production of 150,000m3 of operation.
within the first year
Creative advertising played a key and integral part in stimulating the market in those early days, with visuals and strap lines used such as ‘MEDITE leaves the others sanding’ and ‘Do your designers suffer from wooden thinking’ and the ‘MEDITE House’ campaigns being good examples. The next steps were to focus on the development of a range of value-added MDF products, which positioned MEDITE as a premium supplier, coupled with its international technical and marketing expertise.
In the next few years, MEDITE experienced a period of strong market growth, culminating in the company doubling the capacity of the Clonmel facility.
The rest as they say is history… ■
• Acknowledgements and thanks: Piecing together this historical overview
would not have been possible without input from Paul Steele, Rory Kirwan, John O’Brien, Con Little, Peter Parker, Peter Stewart, Ed Annan, Peter Travis and Chris Sutton
AUTHOR: GEOFF RHODES
In September 2011, Geoff Rhodes established GRA as a specialist forest products and international trade consultancy, providing independent in-depth assessment of markets and market potential for wood-based panel products. Geoff is well known for his pioneering work over many years driving the introduction and huge expansion in the use of MDF in the UK and international markets. He is a former president of the Timber Trade Federation (now Timber Development UK), the European
Association of MDF Manufacturers (EMB), the Fibre Building Board Federation (FIDOR) and a former board member of the European Panel Federation (EPF). He is also a fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and since 2016, he has been president of the Institute of Carpenters (IOC). In 2017 he was the recipient of the TTJ’s Lifetime Achievement Award for services to the timber industry.
geoffrhodes.associates@
gmail.com
www.ttjonline.com | November/December 2023 | TTJ
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