Ben Christensen & Paul Timmins: Cambium Carbon

June 9, 2022

Ben Christensen & Paul Timmins – Cambium Carbon

“We set out on a path to learn as much as we could to make local material be as good if not better than the traditional supply chains.”

Paul Timmins

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Ben Christensen and Paul Timmins of Cambium Carbon. Ben is the CEO and co-founder of Cambium Carbon, and Paul is the Director of Wood Products at the company. At Cambium Carbon, their priorities go beyond just selling wood products; their mission is to create a solution for significant problems such as climate change.

“My background comes from addressing the climate crisis, and I also happened to grow up in a woodshop. My dad’s a carpenter, and I always grew up around wood, but I never really thought I could connect those two dots. But while at grad school, I learned about the massive problem of urban wood waste, and I recognized that there’s an opportunity to create aggregation and connection across a national movement that has done a lot of fantastic work over the last 15-20 years and really grown.

I wanted to take it to the next level and tie that into addressing climate change. We’re a public benefit company, and we focus on helping the communities that we work with, our milling partners, and the different supply partners we work with across the country. Then we reinvest in the forests where we see that salvage wood comes from. We have a 15% tree planting commitment. We work with many amazing local planting organizations, and anytime we sell the table or wood product or flooring, we put that directly back into community planting. That’s what we’re all about.”

Ben Christensen

Making a Big Difference

“So I started a company called OE Custom about 21 years ago to do general construction. I worked my way through the ranks of that and found myself, near the 2008-09 collapse, wanting to deviate from construction and move more towards my woodworking hobby. There was a lot to be learned during that time and a lot to figure out.

I was buying a lot of material from the traditional supply chains, but I had a couple of tree buddies throwing trees away of the same species that I was making products out of, and curiosity got the best of me. So I grabbed two Cherry logs to start it all off, went on Craigslist, met with some sawyers, and started my journey of taking local waste trees and turning them into high-end products.

Since about 2010, we’ve been working to figure out how to build products out of and develop this supply chain. Just before COVID hit Baltimore Fallen Lumber (formerly OE Custom), we pledged that we would no longer use the industry’s material. We were only going to focus on our own supply chain and use the material coming out of Baltimore and Baltimore City.”

Paul Timmins

At this point in his journey Paul met up with Ben and his team at Cambium, and the two have now joined forces to accomplish their monumental goals. They have over a decade of experience in just this space alone, and the pair are excited to share their journey with everyone out there to see if they can make the difference that they genuinely believe in.

Steve’s Advice Corner

“I spent a lot of time talking to people about mindset. There’s a reason why my marketing agency is called Acres of Timber because when you see timber, there’s money. Nature is abundant, nature provides, and even if you were to take a percentage of the urban forest, there are still billions of acres of urban forest out there.

As long as IKEA, Pier One, and West Elm are still selling billions of dollars in furniture, there’s a market for your wood products. So I like resetting the mindset a lot because Woodpreneurs work super hard and oftentimes by themselves. They’re milling, stacking, and stickering, all by themselves. I started masterminds, networking groups, and DM groups to help people feel like they’re not by themselves.

There’s nothing more lonely in an entrepreneurial journey than feeling like you’re alone. It’s the quickest way to give up. So knowing that you can plug into something bigger and work towards something even bigger than yourself can really help. We’re on the ground level of something massive, and there’s more than enough money on the table for everybody to eat.”