Command Posts

Ristau (left) and McCracken

Since it was established in 1980, Far West Fibers Inc. (FWF) has grown and adapted to the changing recycling scene it is part of in and around Portland, Ore., and the Pacific Northwest.

Under the leadership of John Drew, who began with the company in 1985 and purchased the company in 1988, FWF entered additional geographic markets and handled a growing variety of recyclable materials. In 2005, FWF processed some 265,000 tons of material at its plants and brokered an additional 140,000 tons.

Also in 2005, long-time FWF manager Keith Ristau took over as president and chief operating officer of the company. He manages both day-to-day operations and strategic planning. Drew remains involved as CEO, but he says Ristau and other key Far West executives will lead the company into its next two decades of growth and change.

John Drew

EXPANDING PLANS. Far West Fibers was created in 1980 in Beaverton, Ore., by logging company executive Tom Lindbloom and paper recycling veteran Ron Frashour. The company’s origins were indeed humble, as in its first month it sold a combined 100 tons of old corrugated containers (OCC) and old newspapers (ONP) to three different Oregon paper mills.

By 1982, the company was ready to take its first growth steps with the purchase of an existing recycling operation in Portland, Ore. Three years later what would become another important point on the FWF timeline occurred when Drew joined the firm as a part owner and manager of the Beaverton location. Three years after that, in 1988, founding partner Frashour sold his interest in FWF to Drew.

The state legislature of Oregon helped set up FWF for further growth in 1991 when it passed a law mandating that communities in the state with more than 4,000 residents enact a curbside program as the primary means of collecting recyclable materials.

The new recycling activity in Oregon communities increased the recovery rate of certain grades of paper (especially ONP) throughout FWF’s operating region.

Tremendous volume increases in Portland in particular caused FWF to outgrow the plant it had purchased there in 1982, prompting the company to purchase a 10-acre facility near the Portland Airport in 1993.

Both this 1993 expansion and the creation of a partnership to purchase a recycling facility in Spokane, Wash., the next year were financed in part by Willamette Industries, the papermaking company that was a key consumer of FWF’s secondary fiber. Drew recognizes the role of Willamette’s former VP of Pulp and Paper Mills Steven R. Rogel in the expansion of FWF. "He consistently supported our company during his long tenure at Willamette Industries, and we are indebted to his vision, friendship and belief in our company," he says.

More growth occurred in the 1990s with the addition of another plant in Portland in 1995 and the establishment of a partnership called Business Services Hawaii in that state. In 1999, FWF added a brokerage office in California and converted its Beaverton facility into a trans-loading operation after opening a new facility in Hillsboro, Ore.

The growth of FWF in the 1990s was spearheaded by long-time CEO Drew. Throughout that same period, though, Drew was not only directing the company’s growth but also grooming a team of younger managers who would be prepared to lead FWF into the next phase of growth.

The transition into that next phase is now underway, with the promotion of long-time manager Keith Ristau to president of FWF in 2005. "He’s been an absolutely great mentor," Ristau says of his time working with Drew.

Ristau is part of a leadership team that includes Drew, who is still CEO, as well as what Drew refers to as the "young team" of managers that includes Ristau, Chief Financial Officer Mike McCracken, VP of Business Development Jeff Murray, VP of Sales and Marketing Mark Onustock, VP of Administration Paula Sauer, Spokane Recycling Products Vice President Willie Lampe, Business Services Hawaii General Manager Shon Pahio and several other managers at the various FWF sites.

"We are fortunate to have a group of people in their late 30s and early 40s who have a lot of energy, talent, very good ethics and good ways of treating people," says Drew. "My feeling is that we will be in good hands under their leadership."

ISSUES AND ANSWERS. Drew and Ristau credit each other for providing the management skills that have allowed FWF to survive and grow, but they agree that the challenges confronting independent recycling firms are considerable.

Some of the challenges are global or national, while others are local. "The Portland metropolitan area has to be one of the most competitive in the country," says Ristau. "There are twice as many processors in Portland than Seattle, and it’s a city twice our size."

Part of the attraction of the region is its access to consuming markets. "We are surrounded by many domestic paper mills and do enjoy fairly good domestic pricing and have easy access to the Asian markets, but our competitors have those same advantages," notes Ristau.

One separating factor for FWF has been its long-time partnership with Willamette Industries, now part of Weyerhaeuser. "Because of our involvement with Weyerhaeuser, most of our product is sold domestically," says Ristau. FWF currently has a long-term contract as a supplier to the former Willamette Industries Albany, Ore., mill now owned by Weyerhaeuser.

Another long-term contract has FWF sending ONP to the Norpac mill in Longview, Wash. (Norpac is a joint venture between Weyerhaeuser and Japan’s Nippon Paper Industries Co. Ltd.) "That’s a lot of fiber going to those two mills; it’s a very good relationship," says Ristau.

Globally, FWF’s managers keep an eye on developments in Asia as well as changes to the industrial and commercial sectors of the U.S. economy.

"Keith went to China when the Nine Dragons mill (one of the largest mills in the world) was just being started; he was fortunate to be invited over there with a trade delegation from the state of Oregon," says Drew. "It was apparent that our world was going to change at Far West Fibers forever and that we had better be prepared to adapt early," he comments regarding the massive scrap paper consumption taking place in China.

Along with the opportunities China presents, however, Drew has concerns about the effects on North America. "If we become totally dependent on someone else for our goods and services, we will fail to be part of the producer side of the economic equation—and Far West Fibers has always been part of that producer side," he remarks.

Drew says this is a concern for his own company, which supplies North American mills, and others.

"If we continue to be diminished as an industrial country, that bodes poorly for the next generation and the next generation," he comments. "There must be a point where we determine that it is in our own best interest to produce paper and paper products on a sustained basis with state-of-the-art technology, to support our economy," Drew states. "The basic concern I have is the speed with which I see de-industrialization happen in this country in the last two or three decades."

Drew, Ristau and the rest of the Far West Fibers team are far from passive observers of the economic changes taking place. The company’s strategic moves are designed to allow FWF to keep playing important roles in the flow of recyclable materials in its operating regions.

A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITIES. The moves made by FWF in the past two decades have allowed the company to grow not only into new geographic territories, but also in terms of the variety of materials it processes and sells.

The growth of municipal recycling is one way that FWF has become more involved in handling plastics and metals, but the company is also now handling plastics generated by its industrial and commercial clients.

"The name Far West Fibers is a bit of an anachronism," says Drew. "There are many non-fibers in our plants. I recently saw four or five truckloads of plastic and metal products awaiting shipment in one of our plants."

Ristau remarks that the increase in the plastics FWF handles brings with it some challenges, but mostly opportunities. Clearly, though, there is more of the material flowing through the American recycling stream. "Five years ago, the total amount of non-fiber material we handled was 3 percent by weight; it’s up to 10 percent now," he notes.

Ristau says bottled water is one important component of this new stream. "Five or six years ago, not as many people were drinking bottled water," he comments. But now, the bottles make up a growing portion of what is found in curbside bins. Additionally, says Ristau, "The amount of aluminum cans that we’re processing has gone up five-fold," with generation at its Hawaii location having become particularly strong, he remarks.

The growth of container recycling (plastic and metal) has also meant some increased investment on the sorting side for FWF. "We’re installing a V-screen from CP Manufacturing at our Hillsboro plant as well as an eddy current with an aluminum airveyor system there," says Ristau.

A new alliance FWF has forged with an electronics recycler also represents a diversifying element for the company. According to Ristau, FWF’s facilities will act as "transfer stations" for Total Reclaim Inc., an electronics recycling and asset recovery firm based in Seattle.

Total Reclaim has fleets of trucks that pick up carts filled with electronic scrap. FWF will then load those carts into 53-foot trailers at its existing recycling plants. From there, the trucks head to Total Reclaim’s dismantling and shredding facilities in Seattle.

Ristau says, though, that FWF is exploring the idea of a joint venture with Total Reclaim to open an electronics processing plant in the Portland area.

The growth of the non-fiber segment is part of a pattern of more commingling in the recycling stream that keeps FWF’s managers active and sharp. In addition to the variety that comes from municipal sources, Ristau says, "On the commercial side our stream is pretty well mixed now. It’s about 60 percent cardboard, 30 percent other fiber grades and 10 percent non-fiber."

PRESENT TENSE. The transition from Drew’s leadership to the next generation team of leaders led by Ristau is well underway at Far West Fibers.