Dirt Talk by BuildWitt: Vadim Kovalev w/ Wood World – DT 376
Date: September 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Dirt Talk features host Aaron Witt in a wide-ranging, energizing conversation with Vadim Kovalev, founder of the Wood World media agency, mechanical engineer, and influential storyteller in the forestry and sawmilling world. Their talk dives into the complexities, challenges, and importance of the wood and resource industries, Vadim’s immigrant background, his career path from Russian roots to Pacific Northwestern forestry, and the pressing need to shed light on misunderstood industries shaping daily life.

Main Themes & Key Insights

1. The Wood World—Public Perception vs. Reality

• Everyday Use of Wood: Vadim and Aaron open by joking about how everyone interacts with wood daily (toilet paper, furniture, etc.), yet few recognize its pervasiveness and importance (00:00–03:00).
• The Diverse Wood Industry: The wood industry is much more than “just logs”—it’s a vast world spanning from reforestation and sawmilling to high-tech optimization, automation, pallets, and global trade (00:00–06:00; 58:30–1:01:00).
• Resource Stereotypes: Both guests emphasize the “logical fallacies” that plague public understanding—namely, the equating of any tree-felling with environmental disaster, without recognizing sustainable forestry or the everyday goods it provides (114:46–116:57).
• “We are the environmentalists”: Vadim contends that the resource industries themselves house most of the environmental science and stewardship know-how (122:45–123:05).

Quote:
"If you were to zoom out and look at the Earth...wherever there's trees, there's people harvesting them and making stuff out of them. Wood fiber is used in so many things people don't even think about." — Vadim (42:00)

2. Regions & Contrasts—Forestry of the Northwest vs. Southeast

• Geographic & Economic Differences: Aaron and Vadim unpack how logging is strikingly different in the Pacific Northwest vs. the Southeast: bigger, older trees, steep terrain, more expensive machinery and tech in the Northwest; flatter land, faster-growing pines, lower margins, mills exerting economic control in the Southeast (05:50–08:47).
• Advanced Logging Operations: Stories of logging technology such as tethered feller bunchers, yarders, and custom-built machines in the Northwest; the economics that drive what’s possible—and not—in each region (07:23–11:32).
• Mill Dynamics: Southeast mills, driven by high volumes and low prices, leave loggers with razor-thin margins and little leverage despite record profits at mills during COVID-19 and housing booms (11:32–13:16).

Quote:
"The logging up in the Northwest could not be more different from the Southeast...Economically, there's more volume in the Southeast, but it is cheap. Whereas Northwest, you’ve got some fancier stuff...it’s a higher end product." — Aaron (06:00)

3. Vadim’s Immigration Story & Perspective

• Soviet History and Resilience: Vadim recounts his family’s journey from Russia to Oregon due to religious persecution and economic hardship, including his grandfather’s time in the gulag and the family’s refusal to “go with the agenda” (13:50–16:41).
• Appreciating Opportunity: Stories highlight humility and gratitude, such as Vadim’s grandmother’s WWII experience and his family’s grounding influences (16:56–17:58).
• Learning & Language: Growing up forced to learn Russian—against his childhood wishes—now pays dividends in international business and global outreach (27:45–29:04).

Quote:
"My background is what fuels a lot of what I’m doing. I just can’t not have a fire lit under my ass...insane energy. That’s part of what fuels me." — Vadim (17:42)

4. Engineering Journey and Entry into Wood

• Practical Learning: Vadim describes how he used high school/college opportunities (the Running Start program) and tenacity to “play the student card,” landing hands-on apprenticeships and job shadows in engineering and resource companies (23:02–34:08).
• Mechanical Engineering and Career Shifts: He emphasizes following curiosity, not just titles, and the iterative value of trying new things, learning from failure, and discovering dislikes as well as likes—advice for young people entering any field (47:28–51:09).
• First Steps in the Sawmill Tech World: His break came from a Craigslist internship at JoeScan while still a teen, where he worked in 3D scanning for sawmills and began seeing the “massive industry” behind everyday wood products (39:47–43:48).

Quote:
"Go try stuff and go fail. Go start something. Go do something. Wouldn't you agree? Take steps to fill in those variables." — Vadim (49:27)

5. Technological Innovation in the Sawmill Industry

• Optimizing the Organic: Vadim breaks down how scanners and math are used to maximize the value extracted from irregular logs—“deconstructive manufacturing”—solutions like point clouds, 3D imaging, and automation (43:48–55:03).
• Intellectual Property & Challenging Status Quo: He recounts how fieldwork in Amish Pennsylvania led to patented innovations in scanner design, striving to reduce complexity for end-users (69:04–73:19).
• Sawmill Automation: Even traditionally off-grid communities (like the Amish) adopt tech to survive and compete, highlighting how economic pressures drive adoption of optimization tools (69:46–73:19).

6. Industry Leadership, Storytelling, and Becoming an ‘Influencer’

• Unplanned Influence: Vadim explains how his innate fascination with video, combined with seeing the lack of public-facing content for the wood industry, led him to shoot and share process videos (“the inside of a sawmill in 4K”), catalyzing a new industry role (74:11–78:13).
• Tipping Points: A chance, humorous encounter with a sawmill industry giant (Brian Fehr of BID Group) at a tradeshow led Vadim to a new role as a content creator, documenting and promoting the first-ever turnkey mill construction processes (80:59–89:34).
• Transition to Entrepreneurship: Finding corporate constraints limiting, Vadim was encouraged to start his own agency, leading to impactful industry advocacy, outreach, and partnership work from 2017 onward (89:34–91:27).

Quote:
"I never thought about becoming...an influencer or whatever they’d call it. But I’m signing contracts and they say, 'You’re an influencer.' If that’s what you want to call it..." — Vadim (74:02)

7. Industry Challenges: Workforce, Demoralization, Reputation

• Recruitment & Retention: Both Aaron and Vadim detail the steep labor shortages facing forestry, sawmilling, and mining, exacerbated by persistent negative public perceptions and messaging that have “demoralized” entire sectors (91:27–92:27; 110:55–111:52).
• Pride vs. Stigma: Workers are proud, but routinely stigmatized. Company owners need to “arm your people with a story” about the meaning and importance of their work—from the debarker operator up (112:18–114:17).
• The Narrative War: Industry inaction and fear (of lawyers or environmental groups) have surrendered the public narrative, making it urgent to shift towards proactive, transparent storytelling to combat misinformation (116:57–120:46).

Quote:
"We’re not gonna talk about it, we’re gonna hide back here. And it should be fine. Right? ...Well, it’s ended up becoming a huge problem...You surrender the entire narrative to groups that can take it and wield it in some pretty potent ways." — Aaron (94:09)

8. Sustainable Stewardship, Policy, and the Big Picture

• Sustainable Forestry: Vadim and Aaron highlight U.S. reforestation rates, debunk clear-cutting panic, and describe how modern forestry is “positive for four decades”—planting five trees for every one harvested (93:33–93:43).
• Complex Realities & Global Examples: Stories touch on the exploitation of resources abroad (Africa, the Amazon) versus idolization and over-protection (California, B.C.), ultimately calling for a wisdom-based, “holistic” management lens (98:16–101:20).
• Genesis and Stewardship: Vadim roots his convictions in the Biblical call to “subdue” the earth—not via exploitation, nor by idolizing untouched nature, but through responsibility, production, and stewardship (95:51–98:16).

Quote:
“There’s two crazy extremes...one is exploitation...the other extreme is idolizing the natural resource...we’re called to subdue, which to me means wisely, sustainably steward.” — Vadim (98:20)

9. Call to Action: Transparency, Ownership, and Future-Proofing

• Stop Victimhood, Start Storytelling: Both hosts refuse the “victim” mindset—if industry players don’t advocate for themselves and own their stories, no outside group will save them (103:41–104:28; 120:46–124:12).
• Long-Term Vision: Laws, political wins, and PR victories are fleeting—the only sustainable advocacy is a persistent, grassroots, positive narrative shared by everyone in the field (115:58–116:57).
• Younger Generation’s Burden: Aaron voices frustration with older industry gatekeepers resisting change, stressing that the urgent work of protecting resource development for future generations can’t wait (105:48–108:35).

Quote:
"We can sit around and blame people, but we've got to do something about this, because no one else is going to...If you don't do your part, it's not going to change. And if it doesn't change, we are fucked...We're playing with something that shouldn't be played with—this is the future we're playing with." — Aaron (104:28)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (w/ Timestamps)

• On Logging Tech:
  "One of my favorite sounds in the world is a feller buncher hitting a tree...I love it." — Aaron (09:11)

• On College Mindset:
  "Go try stuff and go fail...You have to reverse engineer yourself." — Vadim (48:03)

• On Sawmill Patents:
  "I'm not taking the credit—there was a whole team of us engineers working on it. But my point is: just challenge the status quo...Let's solve that for our customers so they can just plug it in and be done." — Vadim (73:19)

• On Name Recognition:
  "Brian is the ‘B’ in BID [Group]...I got all kind of, like, scared, because I should have probably said other things." — Vadim (80:59)

• On Public Narratives:
  "Every time I put a tree getting felled...on the internet—guaranteed, so many comments about how they're killing the planet. Just like clockwork." — Aaron (114:46)

• On Industry Agency:
  "If you don’t do your part, it’s not going to change...We are fucked, for lack of a better term...Can you at least just not be in the way?" — Aaron (104:28–106:15)

• On Biblical Roots:
  "There's a word, 'subdue'...We, the people put on this planet, are given an instruction: go subdue it...We're not called to exploit...The other extreme is idolizing the resource...We’re called to subdue, which to me means wisely, sustainably steward." — Vadim (95:51–98:20)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–03:00 – Opening banter, public’s daily interaction with wood
• 05:50–08:47 – Northwest vs. Southeast logging operations, economics, tech
• 13:50–17:58 – Vadim's immigration, Soviet-era persecution, WWII family stories
• 23:02–34:08 – Engineering education, “student card,” job shadow stories
• 39:47–43:48 – First sawmill job, 3D scanning, introduction to wood world
• 69:04–73:19 – Field innovation, Amish sawmills, cable simplification, patent
• 74:11–78:13 – Becoming an industry content creator, “sawmill in 4K”
• 90:00–91:27 – Industry labor shortages and reputation issues
• 95:51–98:20 – Stewardship, Genesis, extremes of exploitation/idolization
• 114:46–116:57 – Public misconceptions, losing the narrative, advocacy
• 119:19–120:46 – Transparency as the remedy, shining light on good work
• 122:45–123:05 – Scientists and environmentalists are within the industry

Conclusion

Vadim and Aaron’s candid, high-energy exchange ultimately calls out the urgent need for a new narrative around resource industries. Wood and dirt are foundational—yet misunderstood—sectors with global stakes. Through personal story, innovation, and advocacy, leaders like Vadim (and platforms like Dirt Talk) are starting to “shine the light,” arm workers with pride and fact, and recast logging, mining, and construction as honorable, essential, and sustainable work—so long as the industry itself steps forward to tell the story.

Useful For:
Anyone in the resource, forestry, construction, or adjacent fields will find actionable perspective, motivation, and fresh context from this episode—whether you’re a student, manager, or industry veteran seeking to understand (or change) the story we tell about the world we build.