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Forestry’s rising stars: Meet Jon Carey
November 4, 2020 By Canadian Forest Industries staff
The future for Canada’s forestry sector is bright, judging by this year’s winners of CFI‘s Top 10 Under 40 competition. We scoured nominations from across the country in all sectors, including logging, sawmilling, equipment and technology suppliers and associated industries.
To acknowledge and highlight each winner’s contributions, CFI will feature one of 2020’s winners every week for the next nine weeks.*
This week, we introduce our readers to Jon Carey, operations manager at Woodtone Specialties in Spallumcheen, B.C.
Jon Carey’s career in forestry had humble beginnings – he started as a general labourer tasked with stacking lumber.
But it didn’t take him long to start climbing the ladder, working his way into the quality control department as a quality audit technician.
In 2003, he joined Woodtone Specialties (previously Synergy Pacific), a finger-jointing and laminating facility of both structural and appearance-grade engineered products in Spallumcheen, B.C. His current role is operations manager, though Hal Hanlon, president of the Armstrong division at Woodtone Specialities, calls that title a bit misleading.
“It is difficult to apply a title to Jon as he leads the implementation of a multi-species, multi-product business plan for engineered wood products that represents what the forest products industry ultimately needs to look like in British Columbia,” Hanlon says.
Jon, 37, is responsible for production scheduling at the plant, which is unionized, has more than 100 employees and produces more than one million board feet of engineered wood products every month.
It’s akin to a game of three-dimensional chess, Hanlon says.
“If you think you know something about wood and value-added wood products, there is always more to learn – and Jon can teach you,” he says.
Up next: we showcase the achievements of winner Kim Lefebvre.
*Editor’s note: At the request of one of this year’s winners, CFI will not be posting their individual profile.
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