Schools
Sawmill Boosts NRT Program At Mt. Hood Community College
Natural Resources Technology program students will use the sawmill to bolster building skills and better their understanding of logging.
From Mt. Hood Community College: Mt. Hood Community College’s Natural Resources Technology (NRT) program now has a new tool to teach students with – a sawmill.
Second-year NRT students have been using the portable mill to transform logs into boards, posts, and other building materials to create sheds and tables. T
he band-saw mill, a Wood-Mizer brand, mills logs as large as 32 inches in diameter and 21 feet long. Most importantly, it also encourages NRT students to build skills in communication and teamwork while teaching them to operate a hydraulic mill.
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"Using a sawmill offers a great learning opportunity," said Jason Pinkerton, a Forest Resources instructor with the NRT program. "Students are forced to make decisions and to work and talk with each other.
"Plus, there's an opportunity to create some wood products for campus and to support existing curriculum, like Fisheries Technology's building and maintenance class," he added.
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Pinkerton said that the mill can use fallen trees from the Gresham campus, and the program’s students and staff can work with local property owners and businesses to transport logs to the mill on campus.
In the process, NRT students will learn about timber harvesting and urban tree salvage – a growing industry focused on using trees and tree remnants sourced primarily from urban/suburban areas and from logging operations.
The purchase of the sawmill was made possible by a $10,000 donation from the MHCC Foundation.
The donation came from a local anonymous donor who specifically wanted to contribute to the college's NRT program.