More Women Joining Industry

The 59th annual Interior Logging Association conference in Vernon was well attended.

General manager Wayne Lintott says over 15-hundred people checked-out the activities at the Vernon Lodge and Kal Tire Place over the three days.

He says the trend of more women entering the industry, was a central theme.

“With our training up at TRU (Thompson Rivers University), we partner up with Kamloops and Williams Lake. We put through 16 heavy equipment operators and probably 40 to 50 per cent of them were women.”

Lintott says log truck driving training had four students, and two were women.

“There seems to be a lot more entering the workforce,” he tells Kiss FM.

Lintott says there is uncertainty over the US softwood duties on Canadian softwood lumber, which he says will impact their members, which include logging contractors and trucking companies.

“It’s going to come down the line with the mills reducing their production, and then in turn, not requiring as many logs. So it will affect us.”

Lintott, who has presided over the event since 1974, says over 400 delegates attended the conference.

“We enjoy having it in Vernon, and look forward to having it next year, when it will be the 60th.”