Quesnel hosted a forestry think tank at the North Cariboo Community Campus this week. Former Mayor Bob Simpson, now a forestry consultant, said, “How do we manage the forest differently, how do we manufacture different products from forest fibre, and then how do we retrain the workforce to both of those things ?” …“If anybody walks into our MDF Plant here, that’s the kind of future we’re looking at in our sawmills, if we get into mass timber modular manufacturing etc, where people are sitting in a control booth and there’s nobody on the shop floor.” Simpson says the type of workers will also then change. …Simpson says Quesnel is already a recognized research hub, and has good research partners, UBC, UNBC, Laval University etc, and good partnerships with West Fraser and COFI.