Our Staff
Our Staff
Far West Construction Inc. DBA Far West Forest Products is a family owned and operated Corporation. Today Far West Forest Products works actively to promote the use of our local native and other urban wood species, that are currently going into the waste-stream on a large scale. Over 95% of the lumber we provide comes from within a 200 mile radius of our Sheridan CA location and is defined as Local Urban Wood. We are members of the Urban Wood Network and specialize in urban wood products that were rescued from the waste-stream. We are working together with network partners to create a sustainable industry for urban wood. We are following a chain-of-custody program, and will be pursuing USRW Certification as soon as that pathway for chain-of-custody certification is complete.
We offer
Lumber, live edge slabs, burl rounds, turning blocks, pen blanks, carving wood, table bases & legs, custom cutting services, portable band saws, bandsaw blades, sharpening services, sawmill service, sawmill tech support, and both vacuum and dehumidification kilns.
Jim Evans
Jim has been in the timber industry for over 40 years as was his father and grandfather before him, and is a California licensed timber operator. He was a contract faller in the summer and a hardwood and burl buyer in the winter. He was a burl buyer for Earl Roberts of Roberts Gunstocks, Inc. of Marysville, California. This gave him the experience he needed to start Far West Forest Products. In the early 80′s Far West began to package firewood under its own label and began distributing it to CA and NV markets, handling everything from the logging, cutting, splitting, packaging and marketing in-house. We would take the higher value logs to the local mills and the lower quality logs would become firewood. In the 90′s we purchased our first Wood-Mizer sawmill. We realized that these logs could be milled into lumber and be far more valuable. So we were able to add lumber to the firewood and logs that we already sold. By 2001 Wood-Mizer had asked us to be their representative in California. We agreed. Our hands on experience in the lumber industry puts us in a perfect position to help you select the sawmill that best meets your needs. Jim believes that all wood has some value and he strives to see that none is wasted. He is frequently heard saying, “If God took the time to grow it, we’ll take the time to mill and use it”, you may also hear him say, “God didn’t make no junk”. You may recognize him from the opening of each episode of Animal Planets, “The Redwood Kings” where he is running the dozer, as well as throughout several other episodes of season one of, “The Redwood Kings”. Jim passed his craft on to both of his sons Cody and Jason Evans who can also be seen on the Redwood Kings. Both Jason and Cody Evans were instrumental in bringing Far West to where it is today.
Jennifer Alger
Jennifer is CEO of Far West Forest Products, and has worked alongside her father and brothers who are California licensed timber operators and tree service contractors for most of her life and for the past 22 years has been dedicated to the success of the Wood-Mizer Sales and lumber marketing aspect of the family business. She actively promotes California and other west coast hardwoods, and under-utilized species of urban logs for lumber. She has a goal of helping to develop a strong commercial market for lumber milled by small owner operator sawmills, especially in the realm of urban, reclaimed, and salvaged materials. Working with local urban sawyers, she helps them to market their wood and assists them is selling their product on consignment allowing them to spend more time doing what they do best – sawing lumber. She is very passionate about the urban wood movement and is a proponent of a market driven solution to handle our urban forests and reduce the amount of material going into the waste-stream.
Jennifer is a founding member and director of the 501c3 non-profit network: Urban, Salvaged, & Reclaimed Woods Inc. that was formed in 2016. Soon after forming the network she began to see that other networks around the nation were also working to rescue urban wood from the waste-stream and she and the board of directors realized that we could be more effective in our mission and less fragmented if we all worked together and joined forces for the urban wood movement under one brand. After meeting with all the other networks, it was decided that the brand that describes the network the best is the Urban Wood Network. In 2020, Urban Salvaged and Reclaimed Woods Inc. began doing business as The Urban Wood Network Western Region.
Additionally, Jennifer recently led a team of industry professionals and experts as they developed the first ever Standards for Certification and Chain-of-Custody for Urban, Salvaged and Reclaimed Woods that will allow urban salvaged woods to enter markets that have been previously unavailable. Jennifer is currently working with an expert team of developers and customer experience specialists on the build-out of AncesTREE™ and the Urban Lumber Market, an Inventory Management System and enterprise application that will allow users to easily adhere to the industry standards, track the chain-of-custody, manage their inventory, market their wood products, and generally better manage and grow their urban lumber businesses.
If you would like to know more about this network and how you can help, please contact us.