SynTerra names financial strategist Andrew Rosenfeld to the firm’s Board of Directors.

Posted March 9, 2021

Andrew Rosenfeld has more than 35 years of financial and strategic planning experience in the industrial, chemical, and energy sectors.

GREENVILLE, SC — SynTerra Corporation, a science and engineering firm, has named Andrew Rosenfeld to the firm’s Board of Directors. Rosenfeld, a Principal at C14 Strategy, has more than 35 years of experience in industrial, chemical, and energy sectors specializing in financial and strategic initiatives.

“We are honored that Andrew accepted this position,” said SynTerra President Steve Precourt, also a board member. “He is uniquely skilled at the intricacies of corporate and client business development and market analysis. He blends different and sometimes disparate pieces into diverse and successful partnerships.”

Precourt and others on the SynTerra management team cited Rosenfeld’s expertise in the following areas:

• Development of actionable business plans and strategies
• Financial and operational economic analysis
• Negotiations related to mergers and acquisitions
• Best practices of leadership and relationship building

In addition to his 10 years of leadership at C14 Strategy, Rosenfeld was the Co-Founder, Vice Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Fiber Industries and the President of American Sands Energy Corporation. He previously served as Energy Analyst at PioneerPath (a division of Citadel); Managing Director covering energy at Impala Asset Management; and Refining and Chemical Equity Research Analyst at Prudential Securities and Schroders. He also held management, commercial, and technical positions at Koch Industries, Sirius Chemicals, and Marathon Petroleum.

Rosenfeld holds a Master’s of Business Administration degree from the American University ‒ Kogod School of Business. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical and Petroleum-Refining Engineering from Colorado School of Mines.

In addition to Precourt and Rosenfeld, the other members of the SynTerra Board of Directors are: Kathy Webb, SynTerra Vice President of Sciences; Ruth Albright, SynTerra Vice President of Engineering; and Carlton Owen, Founding President and CEO (retired) of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities.

Founded in 1993, SynTerra is an employee‐owned firm of engineers, geologists, scientists, and surveyors who help clients meet business objectives and address technical challenges. Clients include manufacturers, mining operations, utilities, pulp and paper companies, developers, and government agencies. SynTerra has offices in Greenville, SC; Birmingham, AL; Cary, NC; Charlotte, NC; Hendersonville, NC; Lexington, KY; Pikeville, KY; Tampa, FL; and Tuscaloosa, AL.

For more information, send an email to communications@synterracorp.com, and a SynTerra representative will contact you promptly.

The rise of mass timber construction.

By Chris Haire (Posted July 23, 2020)

On the face of it, the recently completed 280-foot-tall Mjøstårnet in Brumunddal, Norway, is not really much of an impressive feat. After all, the Empire State Building is more than 1,400 feet tall. And that says nothing of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates, which stands at more than 2,700 feet.

But the Mjøstårnet is a standout nonetheless, if only for one simple fact: It was constructed primarily out of wood, or mass timber to be exact.

In mass timber construction, structures are built out of wood, from the walls to the support beams. Not that concrete or steel don’t play a role in mass timber construction — they may be part of the foundation or stairwells — but wood products are the main construction material.

The Mjøstårnet was made from cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glue-laminated timber (glulam), both of which are engineered wood products that have steel-like strength at far less weight. Think of them as “plywood on steroids” — instead of layers of veneer, they are comprised of layers of lumber resulting in products from a few inches thick to a foot or more thick. Together, CLT and glulam help make tall wood projects like the Mjøstårnet possible.

the recently completed Mjøstårnet.

Norway’s wooden wonder isn’t the only high-profile mass timber high-rise to capture the architectural imagination. Before Mjøstårnet, Brock Commons in Vancouver, British Columbia, had the honor of being the tallest wooden building in the world, standing at a height of 174 feet.

But none of those mass timber marvels is as impressive as the planned Atlassian in Sydney, Australia. Rising more than 40 stories, or nearly 600 feet, above the ground and outfitted with glass windows and solar panels, the Atlassian will also feature four staggered stories of outdoor gardens, making it an exciting combination of the industrial and the natural.

If things keep going as they are, we might be entering a bold new age of mass timber dominance in the construction industry. In the U.S. alone, more than 700 mass timber projects were either completed or are on the books as of this March, according to a report from wood construction advocacy group Wood Works.

“Mass timber construction has the potential to revolutionize the building industry,” says Carlton Owen of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities and a SynTerra board member. “Whereas a concrete building has to have long delays between floors, a mass timber building can go up literally as fast as the components show up.”

Owen adds, “Waste is drastically reduced as all components are produced at the factory, and the product can literally be taken directly from the truck and put in place, without ever being stored on site.”

While few in the construction business would argue that increasing efficiency, cutting construction times, and reducing waste are bad things, mass timber could provide a significant boost to the timber industry. “Mass timber should lead to a resurgence in lumber production that gets the wood market out of its near total reliance on home construction and adds greater balance with commercial and industrial,” Owen says.

Another potential plus: A healthy mass timber industry could lead to a healthier environment.

“Buildings represent about 40 percent of global CO2 emissions. If we don’t build more sustainably, we risk our own future,” Owen says. “Trees and their products are God’s natural CO2 managers. They pull CO2 from the atmosphere and store it, and then when you cut the tree and make long-lived products such as lumber, you store it for decades or centuries while new trees keep the process going.”

He adds, “A piece of wood is 50 percent embedded carbon by weight.” Owen also notes that “steel and concrete produce even more CO2 and aren’t renewable.”

And then there is the matter of aesthetics. Unless you’re a diehard aficionado of brutalism — and there are plenty of those folks out there — most people are drawn to wood.

“People naturally love wood — our furniture, our floors, wooden art, etc. We showcase appearance wood wherever we can. Now, with mass timbers, we can expose wood in even greater ways,” Owen says. “You’ll never see anyone hug a steel or concrete beam.”

For Owen, it’s a case of everything old is new again. “In the past, we built with single mass timbers, such as those that are seen in old buildings with huge beams. With the modern lamination of boards, we can recreate those mass timbers and all of their structural benefits using nature’s only renewable, sustainable building material.”

A new era in mass timber could bring changes to the construction industry and the environment.

Projects are sprouting up throughout the U.S. — like the T3 in Minneapolis, Minn., Carbon 12 in Portland, Ore., and two University of Arkansas projects (the Adohi Hall dorms and the Library Storage Building). Owen notes that even retail giant Walmart has embraced mass timber construction at its new, still-under-construction 300-acre corporate campus. Closer to SynTerra’s home base in Greenville, S.C., some notable mass timber projects include the Clemson Outdoor Education Center in Oconee County, S.C., and Continuum in Lake City, S.C.

With all that in mind, Owen sees a promising future for mass timber, especially in North America, which has plenty of forests. “I believe this is the century of forests and forest products,” he says. “We have what the world needs, both in terms of carbon sequestration and modern building materials.”