Korbel mass timber startup expands, adds Humboldt County jobs

Mad River Mass Timber is expanding at the former North Fork Lumber Company site in Korbel. Founder George Schmidbauer said the startup is preparing a much larger phase-two facility later this year. The move could push hiring to as many as 30 workers across several skill sets, from manufacturing and equipment operation to the kind of technical work needed to keep a new wood-products plant running.

Mad River Mass Timber makes dowel-laminated timber panels, an all-wood alternative to steel and concrete that can lower a building’s carbon footprint while creating demand for wood from sustainably managed forests. Mad River Mass Timber was California’s first producer of dowel-laminated mass timber, developed with help from UC Berkeley researchers.

California’s tall-wood provisions were early adopted in the 2019 California Building Code cycle and took effect July 1, 2021. The 2021 International Building Code allows mass-timber construction types IV-A, IV-B and IV-C, and can reach up to 18 stories. California’s embodied-carbon program has added pressure on builders to compare materials more closely: AB 2446 and AB 43 direct the Air Resources Board to build a framework for measuring and reducing the average carbon intensity of building materials, and covered projects under California Green Building Code Section 5.409 must report whole-building life-cycle assessment results.

In the 1950s, lumber employed about one out of every two working people in Humboldt County, and the industry brought in more income than the rest of the local economy combined. The old model shipped logs out of the county; Mad River Mass Timber is trying to do the opposite by keeping processing, manufacturing and higher-value work in Korbel.

A California mass-timber coalition representative called Mad River Mass Timber a strong local example of the state’s effort to create more opportunities for Humboldt County.