The Tennessee Forest Products Center provides a research, development, and demonstration program designed to ensure the sustainable growth of the forestry industry. It is headquartered in a building completed in 2001 (dedicated in 2002). At the dedication a featured aspect of the facility was a sculpture depicting the 95 counties of Tennessee—each in a different wood. Helmut Boehme of Sevier County created the sculpture.
The center’s 10,000-square-foot facility is one of three buildings made possible by a $38.5 million package assembled over six years from state and federal funds appropriated by the State of Tennessee; the US Congress; and the US Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service. The Wood Utilization Research Grant, a USDA sponsored program to support research and development innovations in wood and related material systems to improve the competitive position of the forest products industry, is an important part of the work taking place within the facility.
One important laboratory within the facility is the Joseph T. Mengel Forest Products Laboratory, a 1,800-square-foot, well-equipped research laboratory. The laboratory was named for Mr. J. T. Mengel in 1990. Mengel, who died in 1997 at age one hundred, was an early benefactor of the UT Forest Products Program, and he owned and operated the Knoxville-based Foreign and Domestic Veneer Company. An additional major gift from Mengel’s widow supported forestry management, tree genetics, and wood utilization.