POWERGRAMS

27 past 20 years under the direction of Robin and his sister Lisa Swift. They, with the help of two outside consulting directors, undertook a massive reconstruction of the 60-acre mill, replacing or re-engineering nearly every major piece of equipment used by the company's current 100 employees. Swift drives his pickup around the property, pointing to a recent addition that replaced three batch kilns where lumber was closed inside for 24 hours to dry. Green Southern pine packages are stacked on two tracks now moving in opposite directions, called dual path, through one open building fired by a single steam boiler to produce better-quality wood in less time. An employee in a small adjoining room monitors computer screens to ensure efficiency. Driving past one large metal-roofed building after another, Swift notes that there is virtually no waste from the timber that arrives on trucks primarily from within a 60-mile radius of Atmore. Pine chips are sent to area paper companies. Bark and sawdust become fuel for the mill boilers. Swift pulls up next to the sawmill, a conglomeration of massive metal machinery that debarks logs and saws and sorts lumber. Modern sawmills have optimized control systems consisting of laser scanners and computers that position lumber for maximum results in grade and volume. Speeds vary by machine from 10 logs per minute over the sharp chain and gang to 25 pieces per minute over the edger and 70 pieces per minute over the trimmer. "I haven't done anything yet to rate being on the wall," Swift says smiling in the boardroom lined by five generational portraits of Swift men. "Maybe I'll get there one day." Swift has lived in Atmore and worked at Swift Lumber most of his life. He started mowing grass around the facility then moved on to stacking lumber as he learned about the business from bottom to top. "I guess I started working here when I was 14," he says. "I used to get paid out of petty cash." When he started, the mill produced about 10 million board feet annually, which was doubled after the expansion in 2001. Swift Lumber currently produces about 50 million board feet a year, but Swift says the company is still "the little guy smack in the middle" of multiple big mills along the Gulf Coast. He and sister Lisa are co-owners of Swift Lumber Inc. Their cousins own Swift Supply Inc., which shares space on their huge property on the outskirts of Atmore. Page Swift, Shapard Marks and Robin Swift IV are the next generation who have learned and are learning from the ground up, just like the previous five generations. "We're still a family company," Robin says. "The next generation is here now and we are proud to still be family owned and operated." SAVING THE STRAND Bub Gideons and Foster Kizer are standing in the dark, on the sloping concrete floor of what was Alabama's longest continually operating theatre until the screen went black in 2013. These cousins, along with volunteers and a hard-working board of directors, have since spurred efforts to reopen the most magical place of their childhood and, even among crumbling timbers and tiles, can finally see that becoming a reality. Built in 1921, the Strand Theatre featured famous vaudeville acts before movies took top billing. In the 1940s, the real MGM lion roared onstage for a packed house of 288 awaiting the 10-cent Saturday matinee. Situated in the center of downtown, the Strand was for decades Atmore's centerpiece of social life, being the first air-conditioned building and only place for entertainment in Escambia County. Gideons watched as the Strand slipped into obscurity, all the while envisioning a revitalized building that could anchor an Atmore comeback. Swift Lumber opened a century ago and today covers 60 acres in Atmore. Gideons checks progress of renovations in the Strand Theatre.

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