New Colfax WA company eyes strawboard plant south of Spokane

Columbia Ag Fiber looking at bonds, loans to finance proposed $90
million facility

A Colfax, Wash., businessman is heading a new company that hopes to
bring a $90 million strawboard and ethanol plant to the farming community 60
miles south of Spokane.

By Addy Hatch
OF THE JOURNAL OF BUSINESS

The businessman, Gary Young, says the new company, Colfax-based
Columbia Ag Fiber Inc., is working with an engineering consultant, a financial
consultant, and a securities consultant to try to bring the project to fruition.
If Columbia Ag Fiber succeeds in building the plant, it would employ about
130 people, Young says.
The company’s proposal calls for the construction of two manufacturing lines
to turn wheat straw into pressed-board building products, as well as a facility
to manufacture ethanol, a plant-based automotive fuel. Later on, the facility
also could make animal feed and other products from the residue generated
by the strawboard and ethanol operations, Young says.
Young says Columbia Ag Fiber has selected three potential parcels that
would be suitable for the complex, each with about 200 to 250 acres. If the
project moves forward, the company would buy property on which to build the
plants, he says.
Financing for the project likely would come from a variety of sources, Young
says, and could include commercial bonds and state-backed development
bonds, as well as bank loans.
Debbie Shephard, properties and development manager at the Port of
Whitman County, says one of the parcels Columbia Ag is looking at is in the
port’s Colfax Industrial Park. Port officials also have discussed issuing
industrial revenue bonds to support the plant, she says.
“We’re optimistic at the port that something might happen,” Shephard says.
“The people we’ve visited with have seemed to be very credible and very
sincere about locating a plant here. We will do whatever we can within our
authority to assist them.”
Young says the consultants Columbia Ag is working with also are optimistic
about the company’s chances of obtaining financing. Based on that, he
believes construction of the plant could start in about four months.
He was prompted to try to put the deal together because of a desire to help
Colfax, his hometown, he says.
“I grew up in this area, lived the first 20 years of my life here, then moved
out. I came back about six years ago,” he says. Upon returning, “The first
thing I did is realize quite frankly that the city seemed to be on a dying trend
… and I wanted to bring in some new business.”
Young had worked for a number of years as a sales executive in the
food-manufacturing industry, with companies such as Nalley Fine Foods and
Brach’s Confections Inc. Since returning to Colfax, the county seat of
Whitman County, he has worked in insurance.
Through contacts at the Colfax Chamber of Commerce and the Port of
Whitman County, he became aware of a proposal by another group to build a
strawboard plant in Colfax, he says. That proposal didn’t pan out, but Young
began working with a member of the other group, and soon they were
approached by an Atlanta-based consultant, Gerry Hooper, who offered to
help obtain financing for the project. Hooper, an engineer, has consulted on
other strawboard projects, Young says.
Columbia Ag Fiber incorporated earlier this spring, and has five employees,
including Young.
Although Pacific Northwest Fiber, a strawboard plant in Plummer, Idaho,
recently closed, blaming a weak market for its products, Young says
Columbia Ag’s plant would have a different orientation than the Plummer
facility. It plans to manufacture value-added strawboard that would be used in
flooring, architectural molding, and furniture, rather than commodity sheets of
pressed board as the Plummer plant did, he says.

http://spokanejournal.com/article.asp?TableID=Scoop&TitleID=1276