Bieberich and Sylvia Heinz with children Sage
and Lucy Anne.
Haines sawmill owners Sylvia Heinz and Chad Bieberich won a $25,000 “Path to Prosperity” business coaching grant this week, but Heinz said it took her family a while to determine what their path was, and to get on it.
On Friday, Southeast Alaska nonprofit Spruce Root selected the couple’s Mud Bay Lumber Company as one of two winners among 12 regional businesses to receive consulting and technical assistance. “We can only buy knowledge, not equipment,” Heinz said.
The competition is a year-long process that involves attending a multi-day “boot camp” in Juneau and writing a business proposal, but for Heinz and Bieberich, it took two tries.
Heinz attended boot camp in 2016, but Mud Bay Lumber Company was not selected as an award recipient that year. Heinz credited that time as necessary to develop her family’s business, learn how to work as a husband and wife team, and get hands-on experience in understanding the “triple bottom line” business model.
A triple bottom line model refers to a method where businesses give social, environmental and financial impacts equal weight, instead of focusing solely on profits, Heinz said.
“The main value in the Path to Prosperity process has been really believing and understanding that a local timber business doesn’t just have to do with my family’s income or the fact that we like wood,” Heinz said. “All the businesses in town are tied together, (and) all the individuals that buy from those businesses are tied together,” she said. “Each of our successes leads to each other’s successes.”
Bieberich said that the award validates his company and his industry.
“(Logging) was a lifeline in this part of the state and that industry is all but dead,” he said. “Now, this tiny little (sprout) popped up, and that’s us. We essentially get the opportunity to invent what this industry is on a small scale.”
For two months, Heinz worked from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. to create her 80-page business plan. It outlines how Mud Bay Lumber Company would pay for management training, visiting regional sawmills, hiring an accounting professional and a lawyer, creating a logo, and web design.
One of the judges on the board that selected the winning companies suggested Heinz first visit other sawmills to help determine how to best prioritize spending, Heinz said. “I’d really like to ask (operators) ‘What would you have done differently when you first started?'”
In her own business, Heinz said that learning how to identify and capitalize on her and her husband’s differing focuses was a key development since they began five years ago. “Chad’s way better at paying attention to the present, and I am always paying attention to the future,” she said.
Heinz, who pursued the project as an investment for her family and town, said that winning was worth the time it took away from mothering her two small children.
“As a mom and a business owner, any time I’m putting into something, it’s taking something away from something else.”
Heinz said the Path to Prosperity program made her realize she needed to take the risks for her family and her community.
“We had to find that path before we could jump on (it) and now it really feels like we’re on the path,” Heinz said.
The other award recipient is a composting company in Juneau.
Heinz and Lisa Daugherty of Juneau Compost will formally accept their awards in Juneau on Feb. 12 at the 2019 Mid-Session summit, hosted by Southeast Conference.
Spruce Root will accept new applications for the 2019 Path to Prosperity program beginning April 1. For more information, visit spruceroot.org.
Port Chilkoot Distillery and Fairweather Ski Works were the winners in 2015.