The buzz of sawmills in that Great Forest in the Sky surely fell silent on April 10 with the passing of timber engineering giant Richard Hyne, aged 89.
He was the second son of Richard Lambert Hyne. ‘LJ’ had joined his father in the business in 1921 and served until his death in 1985.
Building on his father’s legacy, along with brothers Richard and Chris, the late Warren Hyne, managing director from 1979 to 1994, continued to innovate and expand the business’s capacity, establishing himself as a national leader in Australia’s timber industry.
In 1982, at the Hyne and Son centenary dinner at the Maryborough Town Hall, Lambert Hyne, who had put his mind to evolving in the new economic conditions, predicted that within 30 years, houses would be made from softwood pine, rather than using it only in certain parts of the home design.
Lambert’s third son, Chris Hyne, remembers the speech clearly: “Everyone in the room laughed and shook their heads. It couldn’t be done.”
This visionary idea was inspired by the belief that house framing could now be wholly made of pine, and Hyne began to move away from native hardwood for good, fulfilling Lambert’s perceptive prediction.
At this time, led by Warren and Richard, Richard Matthew Hyne’s great-grandsons and respected captains of industry, the business transformed from a small-scale sawmill into a high-volume, modern softwood processing operation.
At the forefront of this transition was the development of new high technology at Tuan, the company’s single biggest project guided by the engineering skills of Richard Hyne.
Turning back the pages, returning to a hotel room in Sweden in the early 1980s, Warren and Richard worked through the weekend to devise an idea on how they could afford the best sawmill equipment from German manufacturer Linck for the proposed new Tuan sawmill.
They settled on the unusual idea of building the mill ‘back to front’ – the dry mill and kilns first, then the sawmill- to afford the project.
Their efforts began to take shape in 1985 and included high-temperature kilns and a high-speed planer with fully mechanised machine stress grading and handling in the dry mill. Operations began in 1986, with the green mill built in 1989 and officially completed and opened in 1990.
“It was the start of a revolution in the house framing story of Australia, because at that time most of the house framing was still hardwood,” recalled Chris Robertson, who joined the Tuan mill as project manager, the year the green mill was built.
“They needed to convert customers in the market away from traditionally hardwood into this new, more reliable structural product,” he recalled.
Combining the best overseas technology with Australian innovation, Tuan brought several “firsts” that established industry best practice, all good news for the timber industry, particularly the housing market.
These included revolutionary high-temperature kiln-drying techniques developed by Warren and Richard in conjunction with the CSIRO, which were an enormous help for research and development.
Hyne would grow from a medium-sized player in the market to one of Australia’s biggest exporters of softwood and the largest exporter of certified Australian-grown plantation softwood, as well as a world leader in high-temperature drying.
Richard started with Hyne in 1955 as an engineer cadet, completing a Mechanical Engineering Degree at the University of Queensland before commencing full-time in the business. He retired as an executive around 2000, then took on contract work on some projects after that.
Richard was chairman of the board, succeeding Warren Hyme around 1999-2000. He retired as chairman in 2010.
Richard Hyne was overjoyed when the Tuan sawmill undertook significant upgrades to enhance its production capabilities and efficiency. These included installing a continuous-drying kiln to address the timber-drying bottleneck and improve the consistency and quality of the timber. The new kiln delivered energy efficiency and enhanced the overall quality of timber products.
The mill’s operations manager and executive director, James Hyne, emphasised the importance of smart investment in operations as a cost-effective strategy to remain competitive in the global market.
The upgrades at Tuan are part of a broader effort to increase structural timber production volumes and process efficiencies in response to the high demand for softwood, particularly structural framing products.
Hyne Timber’s commitment to sustainability and innovation is evident in these upgrades, ensuring every log is used to its fullest potential, thus contributing to the company’s long-term future as a quality product supplier and regional employer.
Richard Hyne is survived by his wife Loretta, daughters Nin, Trish and Cate, and sons Ron and Russ. His life will be celebrated in Brisbane at 11 am on Friday, May 15 at the Mount Gravatt Cemetery and Crematorium in Nathan.
