Page 10 - Georgia Forestry - Issue 4 - Fall 2021

Scott Griffin, president and CEO of Superior Pine Products Company
Those descendants of the founding families brought in Griffin, a 30-year veteran of the timberland investment management industry and Army National Guard, in March 2019. Before Superior Pine, Griffin worked for Resource Management Service (RMS), Forest Systems and Campbell Global.
“It’s a really good company,” Griffin says, explaining what attracted him to Superior Pine. “They’re very for- ward-thinking.”
Throughout its history, sustainabil- ity and industry leadership have been a priority to Superior Pine. Former CEO William Oettmeier, Sr. was instrumen- tal in launching the American Tree Farm certification program and helping the Forest Landowners Association get started many years ago. “There is a long, rich history of protecting the environ- ment here,” Griffin says.
Superior Pine aggressively practices silviculture by looking at every track and writing a prescription for its care. It pulls beds up and plants improved pine seed- lings on top of those beds, and it engages in herbaceous weed control and fertiliza- tion to allow its trees to thrive.
a centralized piece of property in Fargo, Superior Pine is transforming into a land management company with holdings around the Southeast.
The white-hot real estate is provid- ing the jet fuel for this transformation, allowing Superior Pine to sell out of its long-held land positions around Fargo and buy into potentially better timber markets in other states.
“We’re actively trying to look at buying more land in other areas and selling some here in South Georgia,” Griffin says.
A Rich History
The origins of Superior Pine trace back to the late 1800s. After its founding, the company, known then as Paper Makers Chemicals, became one of the largest suppliers of chemicals in the paper- making industry. In the 1920s, the three founding principal partners—the Knight family, the Lawrence family and the
Williams family—acquired the Suwan- nee Forest in Fargo as a raw material source and have relied upon it ever since.
While Griffin is at the helm, the founding families are represented on the company’s board of directors and are very engaged in strategy.
“It’s a family-owned business that is into the fourth generation, and that is not typical of family-owned businesses,” says Andy Stone, former president and CEO of Superior Pine and director of family business development at Forest Resource Consultants. “Typically, they don’t survive that long. It has survived a lot of different changes in the forestry industry.”
Stone says most family-owned businesses don’t last past the third generation. He attributes his former employer’s resilience to each generation keeping the next generation informed and involved by bringing them to Fargo and introducing them to the business.
8 | GEORGIA FORESTRY
PHOTO BY FUEL FILMS