Indiana's international business person of the year.

• Author: Murphy, Scott
• Position: Woodmizer Products President Donald Laskowski

Donald Laskowski's answering machine is way behind.

The automated caller-holding system at Indianapolis-based Wood-Mizer Products boasts that its patented, portable sawmills operate in more than 60 countries around the world. "We're actually up to 80," Laskowski says. "Our phones haven't quite caught up."

From newly freed nations in Eastern Europe to remote places in the Near and Far East with names such as Yap and Myanmar, Wood-Mizer sawmills are finding their way into every corner of the globe, from Asia to Africa, from Canada to South America.

The sawmill for which Wood-Mizer is most famous came along in 1981, three years after the company was founded. Laskowski, the president, invested it with his friend Dan Tekulve. "Dan had manufactured hospital beds," Laskowski says. "I was a farmer from North Dakota, where the state tree is the telephone pole. We knew nothing about sawmills. But it turned out to be the greatest blessing because we weren't trapped into any preconceived ideas. We produced a sawmill that was substantially different from anything that was out there in the industry."

The self-contained Wood-Mizer uses a thin, curved band-saw blade instead of circular blades used in other mills. It uses 80 percent less energy and produces 33 percent more wood. Sawmill prices range from personal cut-your-own-lumber machines for $6,995 to heavy-duty production mills with hydraulic log-handling capabilities for $17,030.

The Wood-Mizer mill's self-containment, efficiency and frugality is a godsend to underdeveloped areas of the world without roads to transport or energy networks to power heavy machinery. "The equipment is completely self-contained," Laskowski says. "It's got its own gas engine, its own charging battery. Anything needed to operate the sawmill is right there. With the lack of infrastructure in these countries, that's a great boost. The whole unit weighs less than 3,000 pounds, and with the curved blade we take 20 percent of the horsepower and 20 percent of the fuel to run it and let one tree stand for every...