If a tree falls in a northern Wisconsin forest …

Does anyone in China hear it?

By Dustin Block

Workers at the Wolf River Lumber Co. in New London rip the lumber to a rough width before it’s sent out for manufacturing. Photo courtesy of Aacer Flooring LLC

You are a tree, a maple to be exact.

You’re one of thousands standing tall in a northern Wisconsin forest. It’s hard to say exactly how old you are, but, for the sake of argument, let’s go with 50.

One thing’s for sure: You’re old enough to know you’re a rare breed.

Maples are common enough, dotting landscapes in the country and city with equal abundance. But you’re different.

You’re a northern hardwood, which makes you harder and brighter than most maples. It also makes you a wanted tree, destined to be shipped by truck, train and boat to take center stage for a global audience next summer.

But, frankly, you’re really not in presentable shape, what with your branches and leaves sticking out every which way. Unfortunately, that means you’re going to have to die.

Wood is stacked and ready to be processed and cut at the Wolf River Lumber Co. in New London. Photo courtesy of Aacer Flooring LLC

But, boy, will it be worth it. You’ll be cut down by a lumber company run by the Ort family, which owns and manages 100,000 acres of northern hardwood in Wisconsin and northern Michigan. Then, you’ll head off to a mill to be cut into rough lumber.

From there, it’s back to the Ort family and its Aacer Flooring LLC plant in Peshtigo, where you’ll be steamed in kilns, ripped into planks, cleaned and manufactured into flooring.

Then you’ll begin your journey around the world …

Aacer, one of the leading producers of athletic floors in the world, is one of several Wisconsin companies developing a market in China.

Breaking into China represents a massive business opportunity — 1.3 billion people use a lot of basketball courts. But the potential sales come with a major obstacle: sending an entire floor about 8,400 miles and 10 time zones around the world into a foreign culture and bureaucracy.

The logs arrive at the Ort Lumber Co. in New London to be de-barked and cut into planks before shipment to the Wolf River Lumber Co. Photo courtesy of Aacer Flooring LLC

“It was always a goal, but it always seemed to be the five- to 10-year goal,” said Mike Mann, Aacer’s director of technical services and point person for the company’s Chinese operations. “With the Olympics, there was a new focus on international sales, and that pushed it way up the list.

“We started to see success and move more and more resources to that end.”

Aacer has landed several contracts in China over the past two years, including a 29,000-square-foot floor for China’s National Training Center in Beijing and several smaller gym floors throughout the country. While Chinese companies produce maple floors, Aacer is competitive because it sells an advanced subfloor system — the cushioning under the floor — and it has access to the world’s best hard maples (aren’t you proud).

A Chinese floor-installation team racks and nails the new floor of the Chinese National Training Center in Beijing. The planks for the floor came from Aacer Flooring in Peshtigo. Photo courtesy of Aacer Flooring LLC

Mann is in charge of developing Aacer’s sales network in China and coordinating all of the details from the Wisconsin end of the international trade. He’s had to fill out reams of paperwork and take a crash course in a new culture.

“For them it’s all about relationships,” Mann said. “We do our deals, then we go out to dinner.

“There, it’s the opposite. They want to have a relationship before they want to do business … it usually takes a couple of dinners and a lot of phone calls.”

A critical part of that relationship is meeting deadlines, Mann said.

“They’re like elephants,” he said. “They never forget. If you can’t get it there, they don’t want to do business.”

That’s made transportation a critical issue for Aacer as it establishes a reputation in China. One of the forwarding companies Aacer works with in Chicago is the Dynasty USA Group, which organizes and tracks shipments to and from China.

For Cindy Hao, owner of the company, the greatest challenge is tracking shipments as they move around the world.

“This kind of business is really timing,” she said, explaining how it’s her job to make sure shipments arrive at each stop on time. If they miss any deadline, the entire shipment is thrown off.

And increased Homeland Security regulations don’t make Hao’s job any easier. But she said the heightened security is worth the extra paperwork.

“Any regulations they add are necessary,” she said. “We don’t have any complaints about that. It’s to secure our country, secure our business and to secure the American people.”

But securing you is the top priority at the moment. Now that you’re all cleaned up and ready for the big show, your road from Peshtigo to China begins, well, on the road.

Once the deal is reached in China, Aacer contracts with its forwarding company to get you moving. The forwarding company provides steel shipping containers that are 40 feet long by 8 feet tall and deep. For this order, seven containers are filled in 45-minute increments with the flooring loaded onto trucks and driven to Chicago.

The first leg of the trip, all 252 miles to Chicago, places the greatest restriction on the load. Trucks are limited to 45,000 pounds on the highways, meaning the containers max out their weight before their volume.

Once the containers reach Chicago, they’re loaded onto a train and travel about 2,000 miles — about a quarter of the total trip — to a port on the West Coast, usually California. The containers are then moved to a barge and travel at least two weeks and 6,400 miles across the Pacific Ocean to a Chinese port.

In China, you and your container have to pass through several layers of bureaucracy before clearing customs and completing the journey.

For you and your fellow travelers, it was a five-week journey costing about $4,000 per container from Aacer’s plant in Peshtigo to Beijing, China’s second-largest city with 15 million people.

Are you tired yet? Not to worry because there’ll be plenty of time for lying down. You see, you are now ready to help form the world’s stage as part of the courts that will host next summer’s Olympic badminton matches.

And if you don’t think that’s such a big deal, you’re wrong. Believe it or not, badminton is a major international sport, and China is home to some of the best players in the world.

Millions from the host country and around the world will watch the competition, and they’ll see you, a Wisconsin tree that’s far from home but shining proud.