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Management faculty member John Kaliski has passion for wood

Portable sawmill

Lumber is one passion of Management faculty member John Kaliski, and it shows when he uses his portable sawmill to convert trees to boards.

2007-03-12
By Mari Schuh, Special to The Free Press [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 3/11/2007]

MANKATO — We all have our passions. John Kaliski’s is lumber, and it shows — quite literally.

“There’s always sawdust somewhere on my body,” he said from his home in Mankato.

Kaliski owns Run of the Mill, a portable sawmill business that focuses on small- and medium-size sawmilling jobs and the sale of hardwood lumber.

For people who need a few hardwood trees removed, Kaliski just might be the guy for the job.

Kaliski takes the project from fallen tree, to logs, to lumber before you know it, thanks to his 2-ton 25-foot-long portable sawmill. His sawmill allows him to convert logs to lumber on-site. Pulled on a trailer behind his truck, the sawmill takes only 10 minutes to set up.

Instead of dragging logs across the ground or using large machines to move them, Kaliski uses a logging arch that lifts and carries the logs to the sawmill. With only the logging arch’s tires touching the ground, Kaliski avoids damage to customers’ lawns and prevents soil compaction.

“I really value the forest. I aim to leave it healthier than I found it,” he said.

Run of the Mill customers can now make use of Kaliski’s new kiln. The 30-foot vacuum kiln pulls out moisture from the entire board at the same time. Drying by kiln means dramatically faster drying times. Lumber that takes months to air dry takes mere days in the kiln.

After the stack of lumber thoroughly dries, customers can use it to make anything from floorboards and paneling to fireplace mantels and cabinets. No need to say goodbye forever to the old red oak in the backyard that grandpa planted.

A couple of years ago, Kaliski launched his Web site, www.runthemill.com, to promote his business. Full Swing Solutions completed search engine optimization on his site so search engines such as Google list Run of the Mill near the top of their search results. Kaliski now sells wood farther away than before and reaches new customers, such as Ken Anglin.

Anglin’s 60-foot backyard shade tree was splitting. It was time to cut it down. Kaliski brought his sawmill on-site and the two guys got to work. Kaliski was grinning nearly the entire time, Anglin said.

“He’s passionate about lumber. He’s like a kid at Christmastime,” Anglin said.

Anglin noted Kaliski’s careful work in not roughing up the ground. “He’s fanatical about it. It’s great,” he said.

He plans to make the finished boards into sofa tables and other furniture. “It’s a fun way to hang on to a tree memory,” Anglin said.

Memories and history fill Harley Goff’s 1880 pioneer log cabin. The cabin’s flooring was fashioned from leftover interior wooden beams from an old factory. Kaliski hauled his sawmill to the site to cut the long beams down to size.

“I wanted an authentic look to everything in the cabin, and we had the material available,” Goff said. “It’s gorgeous stuff. We turned the beams into 12-inch-wide flooring.”

Kaliski and Goff also teamed up for a project in a remote location with difficult accessibility. Kaliski maneuvered his sawmill into the area to help mill a downed red elm. The tree’s lumber made great boards for Goff’s porch.

“John did a very fine job. He’s conscientious about what he does,” Goff said. “He’s a man of tremendous energy.”

There’s no doubt about that. You have to wonder when the man sleeps. Run of the Mill isn’t even Kaliski’s day job. He works as an assistant professor of management at Minnesota State University and also runs a software company. Kaliski finds that lessons from his sawmill business often translate into classroom curriculum, such as the increased business from search engine optimization.

“I cross-fertilize everything,” he said.

The 43-year-old Chicago native didn’t set out to create a portable sawmill company. It found him, in the form of a nasty storm in 2001. Strong winds blew down several maple and ash trees on his property. He deemed tree services too costly and found the job too small for loggers. He didn’t want heavy equipment to damage his land any further. So he bought a portable sawmill and took matters into his own hands.

Kaliski is drawn to the physical nature of the work and its permanency, a far cry from his work in the software field, he said.

“I’d build a piece of software and the shelf life of it would be (virtually) nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing theoretical about the boards I carry. And after I’m gone, there’ll be something still standing.”

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