2008 NATIONAL TECHNICAL WRITING AWARD WINNERS
JOEL CATHEY AND DAN GOERLICH

Outgoing FRA Chairman Jim Brody (left) congratulates Dan Goerlich, who received the award on behalf of both authors.

The Forest Resources Association conferred its 2008 Technical Writing Award on Joel Cathey, of Keysville, Virginia’s Ontario Hardwood Company, and Dan Goerlich, of Virginia Cooperative Extension, at FRA’s April 13, 2008 Annual Awards Luncheon at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Cathey and Goerlich co-authored the finest Technical Release FRA published during the previous year.

Goerlich thanked Brody and FRA, offering warm praise to his co-author and the Ontario Hardwood Company’s owner, the Hogan family, for developing the workshop the publication documented: “They went to great lengths to support this program, and it’s been a huge success.”

Cathey and Goerlich’s Technical Release, Log Grading and Merchandising Workshop, describes the results of a workshop to improve the merchandising of valuable hardwood logs in Virginia, developed following a 2002 Virginia Tech study revealing that loggers lose an average of 20.7% of value due to undercut, overcut, and improper merchandising in the woods.

Designed and conducted by Ontario Hardwoods and Virginia Cooperative Extension, the workshop is structured so that each team of five participants collectively grades four to six logs and then evaluates the accuracy of their log grading after the lumber is graded. Participants learn how external defects impact the quality.

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