He has built and trademarked the first Ry’s Comet, an exquisite, hand-tooled, state-of-the-art instrument fashioned in fine maple with a cocobolo wood fretboard laced with mother-of-pearl inlays.

When the boss of the US Lumber Coalition took the podium at the Global Wood Summit in Vancouver in October, he did not have to tell his mostly Canadian audience to hold their applause.

To the editor: Right now in Los Angeles, we are seeing what happens when we build homes with wood framing instead of tilt-up steel reinforced cement walls that would be more fire-resistant.