Kevin Rasler, president of Inland Empire Paper Co., retired last month after a 39-year career with the Spokane Valley-based paper maker. 

Born and raised in Port Angeles on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Rasler, now 63, came to Eastern Washington to study chemical engineering at Washington State University. Upon graduating in the spring of 1985, Rasler joined Inland Empire Paper as a process engineer and went on to serve in several roles throughout his tenure, including technical superintendent, pulp mill superintendent, production manager, assistant general manager, and general manager, before becoming president in 2010.   

Millwood-based Inland Empire Paper is a midsized producer of newsprint, butcher paper, and stock for white and brown bags, envelopes, and books for West Coast markets. The company also owns and manages 117,000 acres of timberland in Eastern Washington and North Idaho and plants about 500,000 seedlings per year. The company is owned by the Cowles Co., which also owns the Journal of Business through a separate subsidiary. 

The Journal sat down with Rasler to discuss his career in forestry and paper manufacturing, his achievements, and what he plans to do in retirement. 

What led you to want to work in a paper mill? 

Port Angeles is a paper mill town, so I’ve been around paper mills and forestry all of my life, spending my spare time in the woods, the mountains, and the Olympic National Park. It seemed like it would be appropriate to go and work at a paper mill. Out of the job offers, this one was the most appealing. It was a little smaller company, but after spending my college years in Pullman, I really enjoyed Eastern Washington, with four seasons and a lot more sunshine than you’d get at a paper mill in the Olympic Peninsula. 

Once I came here, there was never any reason to go anywhere else. And because of the size of the company, you got to be involved in everything that we were doing here. There was never any chance to get bored. There was never a flat spot in my career. There was always something new and exciting to do. 

What do you wish people knew more about your industry? 

One of the reasons I take pride in working here is the company’s wise use of resources and ways of minimizing waste, people refer to it as the circular economy. Forestry and paper are interrelated. We own a tree farm and a paper mill, and we have a transportation business here as well. 

We plant and grow our own trees, and when they mature, we take those to market to the regional sawmills where they’re making dimensional lumber products for home building and construction. The sawmill industry has a byproduct of woodchips, so we take those back to make our paper products. That’s part of our fiber. 

The other part of our fiber is recycled paper products. We recycle almost any kind of paper here. Our freight company hauls our finished paper goods to our customers and then brings back recycled paper from those communities. We keep that circular economy going, and we’ve tried to do it with as little waste as possible. We’re always looking for ways to improve it and make sure that we don’t have any byproducts that don’t get used for something positive. 

What are some examples of that use? 

To help eliminate the use of natural gas, we've built systems that generate heat from the process of woodchips being turned into fiber for paper. In the paper-making process, there is some lost fiber. So we capture that fiber as well and put it through another system and generate heat with that which has (reduced the use of) natural gas to dry paper. 

The byproduct of the combustion system creates fly ash, which has all kinds of minerals and whatnot that are valuable for soil amendment. The Palouse suffers from soil acidification, and the pH in the soil is a problem for area farmers. We’re starting a system now that takes that fly ash, turns it into pellets so that farmers can put it into their seed drills. It will go into the Palouse planting process and provide the soil with nutrients while raising the pH balance. It will pretty much close the fiber loop so that all the fiber that comes here ends up going out either as a new product or a soil amendment. 

What are some other highlights? 

Putting in the sixth paper recycling system in North America was a really fun project and it was kind of a calling card. Nobody else was really doing that in the paper industry when we got involved. We were collecting everybody’s newspapers, and that’s how we got started recycling our own paper here. 

In 2001, we built our paper machine. It's not brand-new, but it's still state-of-the-art technology and is one of the most efficient, flexible, and well-operating paper machines out there. It allowed us to really broaden the products we offer here. We’re always thought of as a newspaper producer, but we make over 60 different products here. Building that machine and being part of that project, getting that running, and then seeing how that helped the business evolve was another extremely rewarding project and time here. 

At the end of the day, it always goes back to the people that I’ve worked with here over the years. I’m hardly unique in having stayed here for 39 years. People stay here for a reason, and I’ve had very patient, fantastic mentors. 

Who were your mentors here? 

I reported to Wayne Andreessen for the first 24 years of my career here. I followed his progression. When he got promoted, I took his old job. All the things he discovered and the path that he traveled left me in a lot better shape than maybe somebody else would have been who just came from the outside to take the job. 

And Jim Cowles—this was his passion. He was an employee for 62 years. As president of the company, I spent almost all my career reporting to him. Jim is an extremely inspirational person; he’s steady, consistent, and he has a set of values that he follows without fail. So you get to see how successful you can be if you stay true to your values. Jim is probably the best example of that of anybody I’ve ever met and one of the most inspirational people of my whole life. Since he retired, I’ve gotten to work more with Betsy and Stacey (Cowles), and they’re the same caliber of people.

All those people have allowed us to use our expertise here and make good decisions for the company. I think that philosophy is why it’s still here after 113 years. 

You describe this career as destined, is there anything else you wish you’d done instead? 

You know, I guess there are probably a lot of things that I could have done. During my career, there were opportunities to leave and go somewhere else, but this place never incentivized me to pursue somewhere else. The challenges and people I worked with were not things I wanted to step away from. Some boys like toys, and we have those, and they’re fun to play with. 

What plans do you have for retirement? 

I did buy myself a lifetime National Parks pass. I enjoy just about anything you can do outside. I like being in the woods, doesn’t matter if it’s sunny or snowing. Working at a paper mill will force you to come inside more often than you’d probably like to. My initial plan is to spend as much time outdoors while the weather is nice here.

My wife is an avid traveler, and I haven’t been able to go with her just because of the demands of the job. She’s traveled half the planet, and I told her I would travel the other half with her.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.