2021-A Healthy Review
By Nicole Poxleitner Community, News
IFG's focus on Wellness came into the year by creating an employee led Wellness Committee. The Wellness Committee met once-a-month to collaborate and create a fun, interactive program to engage employees and help them focus on their physical, mental, spiritual, occupational and financial well-being. Thank you to the members of the committee for your hard work throughout the year! Wellness Committee Members: Cristi Brooks (Sales Office), Christian Burgess (Laclede), Heather Bashaw (Grangeville), Christie Stockstill (Lumberton), Jason Nail (Lewiston), Zeke Barajas (Moyie), Holly Shreffler (Sales Office), Mark Higbee (Athol) and Cheryl Jeffords (Communications). After one full year of promoting the Essential Six discount (with over 90 employees who earned the $50 per month off their insurance premiums) we added a component to include spouses who can earn and additional $25 per month off their insurance for completing certain activities. It has been a popular program for spouses and we hope to see further participation in both programs. In Spring 2021 we had 31 employees that participated in the Spring Dash that was held virtually by United Way. IFG's team placed 4th overall and the IFG participant with the best time/distance ratio was Zeke Barajas of Moyie, who also came in 2nd place overall. Between April and June, IFG hosted onsite Dental clinics with a mobile dental clinic ran by Jet Dental. We had 83 employees participate in the events and had positive feedback that the quality of the work was good, and services were fast and friendly. During Open Enrollment this year, IFG rolled out Omada,…
Jeremy Fromm-Automation Team Leader
By Nicole Poxleitner spotlight
Jeremy Fromm, Idaho Forest Group's Automation Team Leader, has been working for IFG for 10 years and in his current position for 3 years. Fromm graduated from the University of Idaho with a bachelors in Electrical Engineering. He also obtained several certificates for controls which he used in his first position as the Controls Technician at the Lewiston Mill. Currently, he is working on the Lumberton Mill project in Mississippi. This new mill site has many new automation editions that Fromm is participating in. "I enjoy the atmosphere and work ethics at IFG. But Marc's vision for the future of sawmills is contagious and exciting!" Fromm worked as a controls technician at the Lewiston facility for 7 years. While he was still working in Lewiston, Jesse Short approached him about trying to integrate a robot into a sawmill or planer. With his guidance they ended up building a relationship with Fanuc, a company that provides automation products, and purchased IFG's first robot. This robot was named Fritz after Marc Brinkmeyer's father. "The robot just picked and placed lumber that had no production value, but it was a good learning experience." A few weeks later Chad Kosmicki found a good application for the robot at the Athol facility. Over the next few weeks, they installed the robot and it is still operational today. Fromm slowly started to transfer from working at the Lewiston Mill to Automation and began to assist Chad in all of IFG's automation needs. As the Automation Team Leader, Fromm is currently working…