Download February 1, 2016 The Honorable Senator Joseph Scarnati III Senate

February 1, 2016
The Honorable Senator Joseph Scarnati III
Senate Box 203025
Harrisburg, PA 17120-3025
Dear Senator Scarnati:
I am writing you as a member of the Northern Tier Hardwood Association to express my concern
about the Governor’s line-item veto of the funding for Pennsylvania’s Hardwoods Research and
Promotion. I urge you to support continued investment in Pennsylvania’s Hardwoods Research
and Promotion, which solely funds the Northern Tier Hardwood Association (known as NTHA)
through a grant from the Hardwood Development Council. Over the last twenty years, the
Northern Tier Hardwood Association has been dedicated to furthering the forest products
industry throughout the nine county region in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania, including
Bradford, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Pike, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Wayne, and Wyoming
counties.
The forest product industry has historically remained one of the region’s stable and leading
sources of employment and is essential to the local rural economy. It is NTHA’s mission to
promote long term economic development in the Northern Tier of PA through intelligent forest
management, careful expansion of secondary wood processing, improved manufacturing
methods, regional hardwood promotion, and education.
Renewed and continued grant support from the Pennsylvania Hardwood Development Council
(HDC) will have a direct, substantial impact on the viability of the Northern Tier Hardwood
Association and its members, and the success of the region’s forest based enterprises and the
entire regional economy.
Without such funding, NTHA will not be able to provide opportunities for members such as
myself to train and grow professionally through continuing education. In 2014-2015 alone,
NTHA hosted twenty-four different trainings:
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12 Game of Logging chainsaw safety classes
6 Advanced Logger Rescue classes for EMS/Fire personnel
2 Hardwood Log Bucking classes
3 free CPR/First Aid classes
Several forest landowner workshops
In NTHA’s 2014 – 2015 training block, there were a total of 239 industry workers, 71 fire and
EMS personnel and 9 landowners trained, for a total of 319 people in 24 classes. Without your
support, none of this will be possible.
Furthermore, NTHA’s mission is directly related to the mission of the newly created “Green
Ribbon Task Force on Forest Products, Conservation and Jobs”. Not only can the Northern Tier
Hardwood Association be an asset to this new task force, but it would be a disservice and
contradiction to the Green Ribbon Task Force on Forest Products, Conservation, and Jobs to cut
the funding for Hardwoods Research and Promotion in Pennsylvania.
[Add personal message here]
Thank you for your time and consideration,
[Your name]
Member, Northern Tier Hardwood Association
[Your Address]