A HIGHLAND timber merchandise specialist has a brand new addition to their administration crew to increase sustainable buying and selling.

Sutherland-based GMG Vitality hope that the brand new worker will improve and develop sustainable buying and selling within the huge but sparsely populated, Scottish Highlands.

The biomass provider, which contributes considerably to the round economic system within the Highlands and the Northern Isles, has secured the companies of a brand new Sawmill Supervisor at its eco-friendly plant within the Strath of Halladale in Sutherland.

New recruit, Vasile Damian, is 30 and a joiner by commerce, initially from Romania however has lived in Thurso for the final 17 years.

He’ll oversee the six full-time staff and manufacturing of greater than 2k tonnes of timber a yr within the £2m turnover firm, reporting to proprietor Malcolm Morrison.

He may even be accountable for the profitable operation of a large photo voltaic array on the roof of its manufacturing facility which not too long ago was put in at a value of £100k.

This was applied to scale back GMG’s dependence on costly and polluting diesel mills for its energy-intensive actions.

In addition to the photo voltaic array, GMG has invested £150k in state-of-the-art sawmill gear which takes its bigger timber and processes it into posts, rail, cladding and purlins, or structural roof members.

It has additionally not too long ago spent within the area of £100k on timber remedy gear which can open up new markets amongst building corporations and farm companies which require handled and stress-tested merchandise.

The resource-rich firm final yr accomplished strategic buy of a considerable swathe of forest within the far north-east to guard future provide and improve its resilience to market shocks.

The forest comprises 21k tonnes of productive timber, very roughly equal to 90k tree-sized logs.

As a significant plank of its enterprise mannequin, the corporate is dedicated to changing each log of timber that it makes use of, and crops 10k new timber a yr, which develop to maturity in 35 years.

It far exceeded this goal in 2021, planting within the area of 20k timber.

The previous foreman at Caithness- and Inverness-based home windows, doorways and equipment properties specialist Norscot, stated: “I’m happy to be becoming a member of GMG at a time when Malcolm is trying to improve and prolong our product vary.

“With our photo voltaic panels in place, our sawmill shifting to optimum capability, such that we are going to shortly see sawdust getting used for brickettes, and our bio mass machine changing into totally practical, we are going to quickly see the enterprise changing into as self-sufficient as potential.

“That’s the final objective.

“We now have invested not too long ago additionally in new equipment to make extra upmarket consumer-friendly wooden merchandise resembling backyard workplaces, cabins, pods and staircases which can use pine wooden.

“Presently, we’re solely in a position to make use of spruce for out of doors merchandise like fencing, posts and pallets.

“Nobody else in our locality is doing what we’re doing so there’s a number of alternative for the enterprise.

“Our objective is to make the Caithness area conscious of us and to go for our regionally manufactured, moderately than shipped-in, merchandise.

“We now have simply launched our on-line store too, so it’s definitely an thrilling time to be working at GMG Vitality.”

Malcolm Morrison, Director of GMG Vitality, stated: “Everybody within the crew is delighted that we’ve got been in a position to appeal to a supervisor of such confirmed calibre.

“Vasile could be very educated; he’s attuned to the peculiarities of the world and he’s very intuitive.

“At a time when we’ve got been investing so considerably, he’s taking on a fantastic duty and we’re positive he’ll rise to the problem of creating the corporate even greener and extra environmentally delicate than it already is.

“Vasile can be instrumental in driving in the direction of our said purpose of ending fossil gasoline consumption and changing into reliant on photo voltaic for 100% of our power wants.”