- The Emmersons, who personal Sierra Pacific Industries, are the US’ greatest non-public landowners.
- SPI owns greater than 2.4 million acres of timberland in California, Oregon, and Washington, The Land Report says.
- Crimson Emmerson’s sons, George and Mark, are chair and CEO of the corporate.
You’ve got doubtless by no means heard of Crimson Emmerson and his sons George and Mark.
However they’re the US’ largest non-public landowners – and so they’ve held onto the title since 2021, based on the newest version of The Land Report.
The household owns greater than 2.4 million acres of timberland in California, Oregon, and Washington, The Land Report stated.
The household owns forest-products firm Sierra Pacific Industries, for which George serves as chair and Mark as CEO. The corporate makes use of the land for timber, wildlife habitat, and recreation, and says it’s among the many US’ greatest producers of lumber, millwork, and biomass vitality.
After varied largely unsuccessful stints operating sawmills, Curly Emmerson partnered along with his son, Crimson, to construct a sawmill in Northern California in round 1950 below the identify R.H. Emmerson and Son, per The Land Report’s 2022 profile of the household. And this time, it was profitable.
Curly purchased the timber and Crimson operated the mill. For years, Crimson labored seven days every week, Forbes reported.
Crimson and enterprise associate John Criminal went on to discovered SPI in 1969 as a publicly-traded firm, which Crimson then privatized in 1974 and dissolved the partnership, per The Land Report profile. Crimson constructed up the corporate’s portfolio of land in California, together with shopping for round 525,000 acres of timberland in a mammoth $465 million buy in 1988, earlier than the corporate made its first acquisition exterior the Golden State when it purchased land in Washington in 2006, The Land Report wrote.
“We had bought to the purpose in California the place there wasn’t alternative to develop,” George advised The Land Report. “We owned virtually 1.5 million acres, and we weren’t going to construct one other sawmill.”
SPI expanded into Oregon with the acquisition of 175,000 acres in 2021, and with it they grew to become the US’ largest landowners, based on The Land Report.
Forbes estimated in 2018 that SPI has annual gross sales of $1.5 billion. SPI says that it now has 18 sawmills throughout the three states. It additionally has window vegetation in Alabama and Wisconsin.
Crimson’s daughter, Carolyn Dietz, leads the Sierra Pacific Basis, which focuses on youth and neighborhood tasks.
