Thank you for this opportunity to speak to the Japan-America Society of the State of Washington. I’m honored to be tonight’s keynote speaker.
The connections between this society, Japan and Weyerhaeuser run deep. We’ve been an active member and sponsor of this organization for more than 40 years and our people have played key roles.
Dick Dudley will carry on this tradition by serving as your chairman next year, and I take this moment to congratulate him on that honor.
Dick works in our liquid packaging business which supplies material used to make half of the beverage cartons used in Japan.
If you review the connection between our company and Japan, it’s easy to understand why we’ve been such an active supporter of this society.
It’s a story that begins near the turn of the last century and involves both sides of the Pacific.
Here in the Northwest, Japanese employees played a critical role in the early harvest of timber.
In 1917, just 17 years after Frederick Weyerhaeuser founded our company, a significant number of Japanese were working at our Snoqualmie Falls mill. As you entered tonight’s event, you saw some photos of the first in a long line of our Japanese-American employees.
A look at our employee records at the White River sawmill in 1939 reveals names like Kikuchi, Imamura, Morimoto, Sakamoto, Tamaguchi and Ishihara.
They held jobs with pretty strange sounding names such as straw bosses, speedermen, keep up boss, buttsawyer and fireman.
About this same time, we started one of the longest-standing trade partnerships with Japan.
The year was 1923 and Tokyo and Yokohama were rebuilding following a massive earthquake. Much of the lumber came from Weyerhaeuser.
Since then, the connection between Japan and Weyerhaeuser has continued to grow. We opened our first Asia-based office in Tokyo in 1963.
If you travel to Longview, you’ll see the North Pacific Paper Company called, NORPAC. This is a joint venture between Weyerhaeuser and Nippon Paper Industries that makes various grades of newsprint and publication paper for customers in the United States and Asia.
Today, Japan has grown to become Weyerhaeuser’s number one export destination. In 2006, Weyerhaeuser sold nearly 650 million dollars worth of goods to Japanese customers.
Most of these goods were carried by Westwood Shipping, our shipping line which links West Coast ports with ports in Japan, Korea and China.
Japan is an ideal trading partner for Weyerhaeuser and we honored this relationship with a Japanese bridge across Lake Sacajawea in Longview in 2003. At its dedication, I remarked that it symbolized the bridge that our Japanese trade has built across the Pacific.
Some would say that geography played a role in the connection between Weyerhaeuser and Japan. After all, Washington, our home state, is the closest U.S. port to Japan.
But I think there is something else behind the Weyerhaeuser - Japan connection. It is our common love of the beauty and utility of wood.
More than a century ago, Weyerhaeuser was founded on trees. Today, we’re still true to our roots as we manage or own millions of acres of timberland in five countries. And we’re a leader at converting those trees into products that are used around the world. Products such as softwood and hardwood lumber; engineered lumber; fluff pulp; containerboard; packaging and more. We’re also a major homebuilder in the United States.
By size, scale, breadth and reputation, we are indisputably world class.
In the 21st century, I believe Weyerhaeuser will contribute to the solution of important problems for people and the planet. Problems such as reducing our dependence on foreign oil while remaining carbon neutral. We will make that contribution through innovation and the careful management of one of the world’s most renewable resources – trees and their cellulose fiber which can be used in applications ranging from shelter, to clothing, to fuel.
In fact, just today we announced our intention to work with Chevron to jointly assess the feasibility of commercializing the production of biofuels from cellulose-based sources.
This work will focus on researching and developing technology that can transform plants, wood fiber and other nonfood sources of cellulose into economical, clean-burning biofuels for cars and trucks.
No other company is better positioned than Weyerhaeuser to release this type of potential from trees.
But even with our rich history and expertise in the use of trees, we are newcomers to understanding the strength and beauty of wood compared with the Japanese.
As long ago as 4500 B.C., the Japanese were building architecturally sophisticated structures out of wood. Against this background, wood frame construction became the predominate and preferred method for building residential structures in Japan – which is rare in Asia where it is more common to use concrete and brick.
Japan also demonstrates its deep appreciation for the beauty inherent in wood through intricate carpentry and joinery.
It should come as no surprise then, that Japan and Weyerhaeuser should be drawn to each other.
Virtually all of our North American log exports are sent to Japan – I might add that these are our best quality logs. The Japanese affinity for wood, combined with a desire for quality, also has resulted in our creation of a special, high-grade form of lumber called J-grade. And, because of Japan’s influence, other parts of Asia are developing an appreciation for wood-frame residential construction, thereby opening new markets to us.
But as our Japanese employees demonstrated in 1942, this bond between our countries involves more than trade. It is about the connections we make as people.
That was a dark time for many loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry.
Many of the Japanese employees who had helped build our company in its early days were among those uprooted and sent away to internment camps.
But even as their lives were being disrupted, they took time to speak of their love for this country and moments of kindness that withstood the hysteria of war.
Many of these feelings were expressed in an advertisement the Japanese community placed in the May 21, 1942 edition of the Snoqualmie Valley Record.
I find many things touching about that ad, but what really struck me were the following lines:
“A warm and hearty thanks to all you sympathetic people who have gone out of your way to give us a smile, a word of encouragement and a firm grip of the hand. You will never know how much these gestures have meant to us all…”
Unfortunately, many of these employees never returned to Weyerhaeuser.
But that statement captures what happens when we look beyond cultural, physical or other differences.
It demonstrates what happens when we learn to see the similarities between us and value the richness of diversity.
I personally learned a diversity lesson several years ago while my family was living in Portland and we had the chance to host a Japanese exchange student attending Lewis and Clark College.
Initially, we wondered how a young woman from a different culture would fit in with our son and two daughters. Would she find common ground with them or would the traditions of different countries build a wall between them?
Without getting into details, let me just say that our concerns were unfounded. Before we knew it, Masae and our kids were thick as thieves.
Over the next several months, we created a connection that evolved into a lasting relationship. We taught each other many things about our different cultures and created a lasting bond.
Today, we are still close to Masae and my wife and I consider her our “third” daughter.
Masae and my own daughters taught me an important lesson that I’ve carried to this day.
From them, I’ve learned that diversity is the way that business will succeed. It can’t be an “add on”. It must be integral to everything we do.
The real power of diversity comes from surrounding yourself with different ways of thinking and tapping into new solutions.
Such richness of thought will be even more important in the future as the world looks for creative, bold ways to address the problems that transcend borders and cultures. The environment is one area that is in need of bold creative, world-wide solutions
All of us, for example, must work together to develop rational and workable public policy regarding greenhouse gas emissions.
We need to assure there is room for growth and prosperity at the same time we reduce the human impact on the planet.
We believe that trees play an important role in achieving a sustainable lifestyle for the world’s people. We believe that trees, along with human ingenuity, are among the world’s most renewable resources, and that we should invest in both.
Weyerhaeuser is already taking a leading role in this effort.
Last year, we committed to cut our companywide greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from the year 2000 levels by 2020. That’s the most aggressive target in our industry, but it’s just the start.
We believe that by demonstrating the benefits of using wood, you can solve many of these problems.
For example, did you know that it takes 16 percent less energy to produce a home framed with wood than with concrete or steel?
And, unlike other building materials, wood products store carbon? According to our research, approximately 56 percent of carbon remains stored after a tree is manufactured into products.
“Cut a tree and save the planet” doesn’t quite have the same emotional ring as “plant a tree and save the planet,” but it is much more accurate and actually better for the environment.
Through the cycle of planting trees, making products from them, and then planting again, we can remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.
But you only achieve these benefits by using trees.
A young, growing tree absorbs more carbon than an old tree. A solid piece of lumber stores carbon while a decaying log in a forest releases carbon.
To some, this is a new concept. But I doubt that the Japanese, a society that has revered wood for nearly 6,000 years, are surprised by the idea that this cycle enriches our lives. As the Japanese proverb aptly says: “Even withered trees bring prosperity to the mountain.”
Our society needs to develop the same understanding about trees. There is nothing wrong in saving a scenic forest or the wilderness. But we must not assign the same value to all forests.
Some forests, like those we manage, must be in production in order to provide the answers to many of the problems we face today.
At Weyerhaeuser, we envision a world where trees are used to make our clothes, build our homes, and fuel our cars.
We can achieve this world only if we grow trees sustainably and then put them to use. Such a view will not come overnight. It will require the same patience as is needed to create a Bonsai tree.
Later this evening, during the presentation of the Tom Foley Award, you will see pictures from the Weyerhaeuser Bonsai Gardens, one of the world’s most impressive collections of Bonsai trees.
I’ve seen the patience and skill it takes to create these beautiful works of art.
Let me be the first to congratulate the Seattle Japanese Gardening Association on the honor you’ll receive tonight.
The strong connection between Japan and the United States will also be critical for developing new and innovative solutions to the world’s challenges. These are two of the most ingenious, innovative economies in the world. Alone, and together, our countries have created many of the things that will create a better future for all.
This society has been instrumental in building a bridge between Japan and the United States that has allowed these two great countries to work together. Not only have goods flowed across this bridge, but ideas and friendship as well. This society has helped us learn more about each other as people and to create incredibly strong bonds between us.
Weyerhaeuser is proud of the role we’ve played in helping this society create such an important connection between our two countries. It is a connection that has served all of us well and one upon which we must build to meet the challenges of the future.
Should anything ever strain this relation or challenge your resolve, I would ask you to remember the character our Snoqualmie Valley employees.
They looked beyond their situation to celebrate the deep-seated appreciation and respect between the people of two nations that developed over many years.
It is a lesson none should forget.
Thank you.
