For Petersons, the product - not the work - is a grind.

Byline: Jeff Wright The Register-Guard

When Neil Peterson gets that far-off look at the dinner table, or bolts out of bed in the middle of the night, his wife, Linda Peterson, knows the reason why.

"He's in debarker land," she says.

That's because Neil is always thinking of how to build a better debarker - one of the wood grinding and recycling machines that the family business builds on its 10-acre site near the Eugene Airport.

The company is no small operation - with more than 150 employees and annual sales approaching $40 million - so it's no wonder that "shop talk" finds its way into the Peterson households.

That's households, plural, because the private company is also owned by Neil and Linda's son, Cody, and Neil's brother, Dale.

The chance to talk business at home cuts both ways, according to Cody, 34. "We have a lot of great creative conversations, but sometimes it's hard to turn it all off," he says.

And yet, home is also where the best ideas sometimes flourish, says Neil, the company's president. "You're so busy here at work, there's no time to think creatively," he says. "It's when you're driving home that you think, `Now there's an idea.' '

Like many successful family-owned companies, Peterson seems to have found the right niche for each family member who wants to be part of the business - while allowing those pulled in other directions to follow their own career paths.

Cody, for example, has worked his way up to the job of sales manager - a position that often sends him abroad, especially to Japan - while his brother, Scott, has skipped the family business to operate his own sound and light firm in San Francisco.

Dale Peterson stuck with the family business but prefers the back shop to the front office - which is why he oversees the company's research and development efforts.

Linda Peterson, who for years served as the company's human resources director, has pulled back from day-to-day operations to help care for an aging parent and spend more time with her two grandsons.

She's the one credited with selecting the business's trademark color - a royal blue that adorns all the company's huge machines.

"I wanted Cat yellow," Neil admits. "But the blue was a good decision."

The company got its start when Neil's and Dale's father opened Wilber Peterson & Sons Construction in Pleasant Hill in 1961.

When the equipment they used at land-clearing operations didn't hold up to the strain, the company developed its own machine capable of removing cut trees' limbs and bark.

Aware that wood chips could sell for a better price with lower bark content, the company developed a processor that created high-quality wood chips used in pulp and paper mills.

As other companies found out about Peterson equipment, the demand grew and, in 1982, the family officially founded Peterson Pacific Corp., manufacturer of tree debarkers, delimbers and wood chip processors.

With environmental concerns about wood waste mounting, and more countries passing "no burn" regulations, the company later developed the first commercially successful horizontal recycler to process wood and other types of waste into mulch, compost, strand board and other useable products.

The company, which now serves customers in 19 countries, added a 50,000-square-foot steel fabrication building to its complex in 2001, doubling its manufacturing capacity. Also in 2001, Peterson expanded its product line by purchasing an existing bark-blower truck product line.

The business seems tailor-made to Cody Peterson, who recalls growing up in a family where working with your hands - and with heavy equipment - was the norm. "Most kids wanted to be a fireman or doctor, but I think I was born and bred into construction jobs," he says.

His job has literally broadened his horizons, as he travels to Japan about four times a year on business. His 6-year-old son, Caleb, became so enamored with Japan that the family enrolled him last year in the Eugene School District's Japanese immersion school for kindergartners.

Because of their belief that the company's success is tied to its employees' ideas and commitment, family members typically downplay the fact that theirs is a family-owned business, Cody says.

But at the same time, the company tries to elevate the Peterson name because its reputation for top-of-the-line equipment is so closely tied to the name, says Becky Smith, the company's communications manager.

Just recently, in fact, the company formally changed its name from "Peterson Pacific" to "Peterson" to play up the family name.

Creative disputes can be tricky when they put family members on opposite sides of an issue, or other employees opposite family members. But Neil Peterson says those kinds of frictions are fairly rare "because we're all customer-oriented and ultimately we all want what the customer wants."

If family members can't agree on a solution to a problem, "we'll get six engineers in here and see what they say," he says. "Usually the democratic way wins out."

Despite recent challenges because of the recession, Neil Peterson says he's confident about the company's future.

Whether it will ultimately extend to a fourth generation of Petersons is hard to say, since his two grandsons are only 6 and 2 years old - with plenty of time to decide if they're a good fit for the business.

"But right now, they're both saying they want to build machines."

PETERSON

Address: 29408 Airport Road, Eugene

Products: Mobile wood grinders and chippers, mulch-blowing trucks

Owners: Neil, Linda, Cody and Dale Peterson

Years in business: 21

Employees: 155

Family members involved in business: Neil Peterson, president; wife Linda Peterson, human resources adviser and board secretary/treasurer; son Cody Peterson, sales manager; Neil's brother Dale Peterson, vice president for research and development

CAPTION(S):

Neil Peterson (left) stands with his wife, Linda, and son, Cody, at the 10-acre site of their family business, Peterson, in Eugene. With more than 150 employees, the heavy-equipment manufacturing company boasts annual sales approaching $40 million.