A local sawmill is one of 12 Southeast businesses selected as semi-finalists in the Paths to Prosperity program.

Chilkat Valley Sawmill is operated by Chad Bieberich and Sylvia Heinz. Their portable mill is operating at a timber sale at 39 Mile Haines Highway. They are working toward operating near the former site of B & D Lumber off Major Road.

“We take orders. Next summer we’re hoping to have a stock of air-dried lumber,” Sylvia said this week. They buy logs or will mill them on site for use by owners.

For having been named finalists, Bieberich and Heinz advanced to the second round of the program, including the program’s three-day business boot camp and access to mentoring and one-on-one consulting.

A panel of five judges will select two business plans as finalists. Each will be awarded up to $40,000 in seed funding for consulting and technical services to develop the business. Competition winners will be announced at Innovation Summit in February 2017.

The sawmill is one of about seven Haines-based businesses that have been chosen as semi-finalists in recent years. Port Chilkoot Distillery and Fairweather Ski Works were named winners.

The program is administered through Haa Aani Community Redevelopment Fund, The Nature Conservancy and Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

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