New BC Premier David Eby and forests minister Bruce Ralston are setting out to remake the province’s forestry industry to one that crafts high-value products here at home rather than shipping raw logs for milling elsewhere. By creating more finished products here, the industry would support more jobs with less timber. Crafting innovative wood products locally is a familiar theme for Teal Jones. It’s what we’ve always done. When founder Jack Jones returned from the Second World War he used his army stipend to start the company as a one-man cedar roofing mill. It wasn’t long before his sons were old enough to start cruising timber and bringing in the cedar he needed to cut shingles, shakes, and siding with his growing labour force. Today, his sons Tom and Dick remain true to their father’s legacy, employing more than 1,000 British Columbians across the entire process – from planning harvests to replanting new forests. Well over half of those employees work in value-added milling and manufacturing, more than 500 at the company’s Surrey headquarters alone.