The next time you walk through Portland International Airport, look down. The floor beneath your feet is a piece of Oregon history, and Ben Deumling of Zena Forest Products helped put it there.

In this episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, Jennifer Alger sits down with Ben to trace the remarkable story behind Zena Forest Products, a family-rooted Oregon business that has spent 25 years figuring out what to do with the hardwoods everyone else overlooked. Growing up managing a diverse, mixed-species forest in the Willamette Valley, Ben inherited a problem: Oregon had virtually no infrastructure for milling anything other than Douglas fir. So he built one.

What started as a mission to use more of their own forest has grown into a vertically integrated operation milling Oregon White Oak, Big Leaf Maple, Oregon Ash, and more, taking wood all the way from the tree to a finished, installation-ready floor. Ben breaks down the unique challenges of working with Oregon White Oak, one of the densest hardwoods in North America, from writing his own drying schedules after university research fell short to building homemade kilns out of repurposed refrigerated shipping containers.

The centerpiece of the conversation is the PDX Airport project, and the origin story of Zena EdgeGrain, an edge grain tile product that Ben brought to North America for the first time, inspired by a wood floor he tracked down in Copenhagen. The airport needed 75,000 square feet of flooring. Ben had a seven-person team, a brand new product, and a decade-long relationship with the architecture firm that made the introduction. He shares what it really took to land and deliver a project of that scale, including the sleepless nights, the production strain, and the rebuilding that followed.

Ben also gets into the innovation framework behind everything Zena does: finding new pools of raw material, applying new technology, and opening up new markets for wood that would otherwise end up in a burn pile. From beetle-killed pine to invasive Juniper to leftover urban elm logs, the Zena EdgeGrain process is turning low-value, underutilized wood into beautiful, durable flooring and the conversation around what that means for sustainable forestry is one you will not want to miss.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction to Ben Deumling and Zena Forest Products

05:28 - Oregon White Oak: drying challenges, density, and flagship species

13:55 - Vertical integration from forest to finished floor

18:29 - The PDX Airport project and the origin of Zena EdgeGrain

25:39 - Three ingredients for wood industry innovation: raw material, technology, and new markets

33:34 - How a seven-person company landed a major international airport project

43:06 - Marketing to architects, lunch and learns, and building long-term relationships

46:29 - Products beyond flooring: stairs, wall cladding, registers, and Viking ships

The Woodpreneur Podcast brings stories of woodworkers, makers, and entrepreneurs turning their passion for wood into successful businesses - from inspiration to education to actionable advice. Hosted by Steve Larosiliere and Jennifer Alger 

For blog posts and updates: woodpreneur.com

See how we helped woodworkers, furniture-makers, millwork and lumber businesses grow to the next level: woodpreneurnetwork.com

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You can connect with Ben at:

https://www.zenaforest.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-deumling-54057717a/

https://www.instagram.com/zenaforestproducts

https://www.youtube.com/@zenaforest1677