 The renovated George D. Aiken Center at the University of Vermont, home of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, is a model of environmental design. Its many green features set new standards for renovation projects. They are also powerful teaching tools. One of the Aiken Center's most visible lessons is delivered through its interior design signature, the certified wood paneling that adds warmth and color to the building. According to Rubenstein School Dean Mary Watson, wood gives a tangible presence to UVM's sustainably managed research forest in nearby Jericho where it was harvested. We wanted to use certified wood from Jericho Research Forest because that's a vital piece of the Rubenstein School. We wanted to bring the wood into the Aiken Center where every student comes and give them a very visceral, direct connection to what's happening in the forest. We also wanted the wood in the building so that students would be prompted to ask the question, what does it mean to manage a forest sustainably? What does it mean when we have certified wood? Wood goes through many steps to earn the imprimatur of being certified. The most important part of the sequence comes at its outset, the forest where the wood originates. Like the Jericho Research Forest, it must be certified as sustainably managed by an accrediting body. In Jericho's case, the Forest Stewardship Council. A sustainably managed forest balances environmental, recreational and economic interest through a management plan that keeps it healthy, productive and diverse into the future. Brendan Wiener, coordinator of the Rubenstein School's Green Forest Re-Education Initiative, managed the Aiken Timber Harvest in a way that promoted the forest's overall ecosystem health. So this is a tree that I've marked with blue paint to indicate to the logger that it's a tree that's meant to be cut. And the reason I mark this one is because the canopy of the tree has a lot of large dead branches that's showing signs of decline. And so if your objective is to use trees for timber, then this is an excellent example of one that is ready to be used. By extension, Wiener also determined which trees would not be cut. In addition to thinking about trees that should be cut from a forest, it's also important to think about trees that should be left in a forest. And this is a great example of a big old oak with a nice canopy that's providing lots of acorns that will both feed wildlife and also hopefully start a next generation of oaks in this area. One of the most important aspects of harvesting wood sustainably is employing a skilled logger who can extract the trees in a way that doesn't damage the surrounding forest. Loggers like Bill Tory, who did all the tree cutting for the Aiken project, use a technique called directional felling. The technique I use in cutting a directional felling for the tree is to remove a slice, almost like a pie slice, out of this tree in the direction that I want it to go. As that tree folds, I want to have that angle on the bottom of my wedge down enough so that I can control the hinge all the way to the ground. Tory aims for a small hemlock in an open area he has cleared of debris. Tory hits the bullseye with this 100-year-old red oak. If you come back here at this stump and now look right at that hemlock and stand right here, you'll see the top of that tree is right at that hemlock. At the end of each day, Tory drives the logs he cut from the felled trees back to a storage area. When the job was finally complete, the logs were expertly loaded on a truck by a skilled operator and transported to the next stop in the process. To convert the logs to rough boards, the wood paid a visit to Ganya Lumber, a Forest Stewardship Council certified sawmill in Pittsburgh, Vermont. The job of a certified sawmill, says Vice President Ken Ganya, is to make sure the wood destined for the Aiken Center is kept separate from the rest of the wood in the lot as it's being processed. Well, the FSC certification means that you're keeping wood that's been through the FSC program in the forest in its own process batches and I document all those steps and it follows the chain of custody. When it's time to run the UVM batch, the milling operation is cleared of all other jobs. So the first thing of course is after the wood has arrived, we load the infeed decks and it goes off the infeed deck into the debarker machine which removes all the bark. Next the logs are sent to a head sawmill where the head sawyer makes the round log into a squared up timber or can't, exposing the best faces. Then it goes to the resawmill. The resaw man has any time, anywhere between three and six timbers going through his machine in a merry-go-round fashion and his job is to pick the best faces. The boards are then cut and the ends are trimmed to make them in even length. Finally the boards are inspected for quality with the best going to UVM and the others to the open market for flooring or pallets. The boards are then loaded on a truck and sent off to the next stop in the process where they will be kiln-dried. For about a third of the wood, that process is taking place at Beacon and Parsons at Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, Vermont, a high-end furniture maker with its own kiln. Green wood, like the boards that arrive from Ghana, needs to be dried to avoid splitting and cracking. But the process has to be done carefully, says Beacon and Parsons co-owner Jeff Parsons. If we dried them too quickly, the outside of the boards would dry and the inside of the board wouldn't be as dry and something has to give and that something is ordinarily a check or a split on the face of the board. However, if we dry it too slowly, we run the risk of getting staining. In addition to managing the curing process, Beacon and Parsons, like Ganya Lumber, plays its part in keeping crack of the certified wood. In this case, our role is to maintain the chain of custody. So we received a ticket when the wood was delivered from the Sawyer, who's also certified, and when we are done with it, we'll pass our ticket and his on to whoever it is that receives the wood. After about 50 days, the wood is finally ready to be removed from the kiln. Wood looks good. I don't see any indication of any staining, which is one of the dangers. And I see very little indication of any degrade. There are a few pieces that have checks and all of those checks were predictable because these pieces were very close to the center of the log. So it looks good. After it's removed from the kiln, the wood is taken to a waiting truck where it's stacked, secured in place, and shipped off to the next way station on the road to certification. At Amoskeek Woodworking in Colchester, Vermont, the wood's journey from tree to finished board undergoes a crucial step. The timbers that were roughly cut at Ganya Lumber will be turned into finished boards of the thickness, width, and length the Aiken renovation calls for. The process has three steps. The first is planing the rough board to the right thickness. Inside a contained area, the wood is fed through a double-headed planer producing a flat, even board. Second, the boards are cut to width with computer technology assisting human decision making. Finally, the boards are cut to length. David Smith has lead estimator at Amoskeek, which is also certified by the Forest Doer Chip Council. As at the other stops, Amoskeek's role is to maintain the chain of custody. So once the material comes through, we input the information as this is a forest certified product. So once it goes through the process, at that point the tracking is more or less complete because once it hits the next cell, we know automatically that the material is and will continue to be forest stewardship certified product. According to Smith, managing a forest sustainably makes business as well as environmental sense. This morning we saw the red-oping process through. The material is absolutely gorgeous. The forest that this product came from has been very well managed and that management provides a better product and it's that kind of management that we need in every forest. After the wood is cut to size at Amoske, it is off to the final stop in its journey to have its surface textured. That work is done at Bingham Lumber in Brookline, New Hampshire. The textured finish that Bingham produces is unusual. To create the divots in the wood, it goes through a special machine, one that is proprietary to Bingham, so we are able to view it only from a distance. After going through a hand station, where further distressing is done by a skilled artisan, it goes through a special sander, able to reach down with paper or brush into the divots. Bingham plays its part in maintaining the chain of custody, says General Manager Bill Tapley. When the material comes in, it's documented with a, you know, a paper trail into the office. We match up any tally tickets with the material coming in. It gets put into a storage area and then into production and it's followed through until it's wrapped, ready to be sent back out. Once the job is finished, the boards are packed on pallets ready to be shipped to the Aiken construction site. The busy site is made busier by the arrival of 27,000 board feet of certified wood from the Jericho Research Forest. Some of the wood is glued, then screwed onto pallets before being placed on the walls. Some is cut further to squeeze into tight corners. And some boards are positioned in long vertical bands. It's hard to work with the wood and not notice its quality. It is a super nice wood. It's got a lot of character to it. With the hardwood, you see a lot of color variation. The wood paneling was installed in the Aiken Center over a three month period. The end result was worth all the hard work. The wood creates a warm, natural environment, but it also teaches an important lesson. Certified wood is important because it shows that we can produce the products that people so much love and enjoy, but we're also managing the forest for ecosystem health and we're making sure that forests are around for future generations.