Sawmill Training and Education Center

In Maine, nearly 900 million board feet of sawn lumber are processed by Maine’s sawmills. Currently, there are no accessible facilities providing workforce training on sawing operations. This project will construct a sawmill operations training facility at the Dwight B. Demeritt Forest, 1 mile north of the University of Maine campus. This facility will provide year-round hybrid experiential and instructed training opportunities on the fundamentals of sawyer operations, including selecting log breakdown techniques based on log quality and targeted applications to increase sawlog value, improve lumber grade, and improve processing efficiency. Funding of $750,000 is from FY23 Congressionally Directed Spending, secured by U.S. Rep. Golden at the request of the System. The design firm is Carpenter Associates, a construction firm that has not been selected.