Columbia Wood-Processing Facility To Focus On Locally Grown Trees

COLUMBIA, MD — State officials, forest products professionals and other partners recently toured Cambium’s flagship wood-processing facility under construction in Columbia this week.

The Cambium facility showed those on the tour how multiple parts of the local wood supply chain can be connected in one location to help buyers source sustainably grown lumber that meets their needs.

Once operational, the Howard County facility is expected to include a wood innovation laboratory, kilns and vacuum kilns, sorting equipment, production space, a woodshop and a customer showroom. The business intends to support research, processing, product development and sales involving locally sourced and salvaged wood, the Maryland DNR noted.

Cambium representatives said the facility will work with approximately 15 wood species across applications including mass timber, furniture production and thermally modified wood, which uses heat rather than chemical treatment to improve the wood’s resistance to decay.

“Strong markets give landowners more options for keeping forests healthy and productive,” Maryland's State Forester Anne Hairston-Strang said. “Expanding markets for Maryland wood can support forest stewardship while creating more value from a renewable resource we are already growing here.”

The facility tour also focused on opportunities to strengthen Maryland’s wood supply chain and increase the use of Maryland-grown wood in public projects. Maryland’s forests produce considerably more wood than is harvested each year, but gaps in processing, marketing, and distribution can make it difficult to move that material into construction and consumer markets, state leaders noted.

Cambium officials said that wood produced from the facility will be traceable to its source, potentially down to the individual forest or tract of land. This traceability can help buyers verify where materials originated and better understand the environmental and community benefits associated with their purchases.

“Foresters can identify work that would improve forest health and long-term productivity, but whether that work is economically feasible often depends on having a market for the wood that comes out of it,” Maryland Forest Service Stewardship and Utilization Manager Dan Rider said. “Cambium is showing what that connection can look like in practice, where better processing and stronger markets can make good forest stewardship more workable.”