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Steve Hays, a classics professor at Ohio University, is preparing to start a woodworking business. (Provided via Steve Hays)

Professor Steve Hays prepares to open lumber business this summer

After watching his father deteriorate in front of a TV for the last years of his life, Steve Hays swore he would find purpose when entering retirement by starting a lumber business on his land.

Hays, a classics and world religions associate professor at Ohio University, has dreamt of producing lumber since he moved to a farm in 1994, but now with money for machinery and a skilled business partner, his dream will become a reality this summer.

He is beginning the business while in early retirement, in which he plans to retire before 70 and teach one semester a year for three years.

Hays and his wife moved into a Civil War-era home with 88 acres outside of Amesville. More than half of that land is covered in trees. Each year, many trees die, which leads Hays to cut them down and split it into usable timber and firewood. That quickly turned into a community effort.

“For several years we had what we called firewood parties,” Hays said. “Any friend I could find who had a hydraulic wood splitter and everybody who had a pickup truck would bring their pickup truck, and people who needed wood and people who didn’t need wood would come to work.”

One year, the effort sent out 30 truckloads of firewood for people who could not afford it. Hays saw that high quality wood is abundant in Athens County and did not want the resource to go to waste.

“We did some good that way, but I kept thinking, ‘Some of these are really wonderful trees, great big white oaks, red oaks and ash trees,’ ” Hays said.

Though Hays cut back on time in the classroom, colleagues are still happy to have Hays' teaching for a little while longer. 

“We are all glad he’s only on early retirement,” William Owens, associate professor and chair of classics and world religions, said. “He is one of the best professors at Ohio University because of his commitment and (charisma). Today’s undergraduates should take the opportunity to take a course from him before he fully retires.”

Hays said early retirement allows him time to begin the process of constructing a company to repurpose dead trees into lumber for the region.

“I ran into a friend who was planning to buy a saw mill, and we got to talking (about making it) a unified business,” Hays said.

Recently, Hays bought a kiln, which is a critical step in the curing process for turning timber into marketable lumber. The kiln, along with another air-drying mechanism, allows for the wood to maintain its quality in all different kinds of environments. Wood morphs in homes that are air-conditioned or have heating and cooling systems because it alters the moisture content of air.

Heath Hutchinson, a professor of natural resources at Hocking College, has been in the timber business for a long time. Hays and Hutchinson are collaborating on purchasing and building the infrastructure necessary to create a business. Their vision is to only produce malleable lumber, but also help families in the region who own land.

“There are trees everywhere, that’s the wealth we have around here. A lot of that wealth, that property, is controlled by people who otherwise have very little wealth,” Hays said.

What has tended to happen in the past is that a family would harvest the trees when necessary to pay for a large expense, leaving land mutilated and barren by the use of industrial sized equipment, Hays said. However, he sees a solution to the problem.

“We would work as consultants with (families) and cut down the dead and dying trees, get a logging truck and drag them out (with equipment) that would have little impact on the land,” Hays said.

After low impact harvesting, the lumber can be driven down to the mill where the lumber can be dried and turned into materials for all kinds of products. Hays anticipates on working each case out separately, either by compensation through shares or cash.

“The point is, we should provide a place for them to do something useful with those trees that would otherwise just be lost,” Hays said.

He sees the workshop being functional by June, as he and Hutchinson are now erecting the necessary structures for wood drying and lumber production. The team plans to mainly produce flooring and simple wood cuts.

He said he thinks Athens should make use of the resources in the area instead of buying hardwood from big box stores.

“(People then) build up a conscious economy where people are thinking about their trees as resources and wealth,” Hays said.

@sovietkkitsch

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