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W O R K F O R M E / S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 48 Q: What does Player Design do? Tyler Player: We design and build large-scale industrial machinery for wood products and food recycling operations. In particular, our proprietary energy and drying systems are often applied to the renewable energy sector. As the demand for better energy answers has grown, we have grown with it. Our pat- ented furnaces and other solutions allow our clients to compete on a global scale with biomass products, which is a cornerstone of meeting ongoing renewable energy goals. MB: What's an early project? TP: We designed and built the wood pellet manufacturing plant operated by Wood & Sons in Sanford — the rotary drum dryer and the biomass furnace. The project uses sawmill waste to manufacture high-grade pine pellets for residential heating. Pellets are the mainstream wood to energy com- modity that everyone knows and we have been a technology piece in that business since our inception. The level of growth we have had in that industry is consistent with how much more that industry stands to provide in the overall energy sector. MB: What's a more recent project? TP: A more recent project is J.D. Irving [a privately owned conglomerate headquar- tered in Saint John, New Brunswick]. They are doing an expansion of their pellet mill in St. Leonard, New Brunswick. We're putting in a rotary dryer that's 14 feet around and 65 feet long and weighs 125,000 pounds. The project is to handle sawmill residuals and manufacture wood pellets to replace coal in electricity produc- tion. Our dryer drums, for the most part, come out of Montréal. We subcontract that part of the fabrication, but in the last year we have added our own fabrication shop with the purchase of K-Pel in Fort Fairfield. This project illustrates one of the strengths of Player Design. As a Maine- based firm, we are known worldwide in the growing wood to energy business. As that demand grows, our technology and research is being increasingly sought after. This is a win for not only our Maine-based business but also under-utilized wood in northern Maine. Our most recent project is, of course, our announcement on the steam-exploded pellet. This is the natural evolution of our technological innovation in the wood-to- energy world. MB: What's your background? TP: Born and raised in Aroostook County, I graduated from Presque Isle and went on to UMaine for engineering. After fin- ishing my degree, I returned home and worked for Huber Engineered Woods and McCain Foods [respectively, a building productions innovator based in Charlotte, N.C., and a Canadian multinational frozen food company based in Florenceville, New Brunswick, both with locations in Easton]. I was an engineer for both and worked on large capital projects. MB: What inspired you to go out on your own? TP: I went out on my own completely in 2010. I had been building plants for McCain and for Huber, at that point, since the late 1990s for a long list of locations all over the world — startup, commissioning, project oversight. You reach a point when the travel becomes a lot, and it was a good point to transition to new opportunities. Tyler Player, a Presque Isle native and University of Maine engineering graduate, founded Player Design Inc. in Presque Isle in 2008, added Ashland log manufacturer MaineFlame Inc. in 2020 and acquired fabrication shop K-Pel Industrial Services Inc. in Fort Fairfield in 2022. MaineFlame has proposed a $7 million expansion of its plant to add the production of steam-exploded wood pellets for heating and industrial power needs domestically and overseas. The project inspired curiosity about Player Design, which tends to keep a low public profile but has worldwide operations. Q & A B Y L A U R I E S C H R E I B E R Tyler Player is seen here with MaineFlame logs and steam-exploded black pellets his firm will be manufacturing in Ashland. P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F P L A Y E R D E S I G N A Presque Isle firm grows its waste-wood-to-energy business Founded in 2008 in a basement office, Player Design now has machinery installations around the world.

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