By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

COULTERVILLE, Ill. — Not far from Coulterville is the farm owned by Marian Greer and his wife, Barbara. On this farm the couple ventured out from their farming operation with a sawmill that was originally built from farm machinery parts back in 1960.
“I’ve had a sawmill for 48 years. On February 1960, I started sawing,” Greer said.
That initial sawmill lasted him a decade, before he decided to upgrade. After that, he said, “I put in an automatic hydraulic one.”
When he originally set up his sawmill, it was just a sideline for his farming operation. It wasn’t long before he was so busy that he decided to dedicate himself full-time to the mill. “It is a major business,” Greer explained. “I gradually phased out of farming. My son-in-law farms for me now. We run the sawmill and make hardwood chipboard and furniture.”
Through trial and error, he has developed a way to create tables from his wood chips without using any epoxy.
“They are heat-resistant tables that we don’t use any glue or resin in,” he said. “They are just naturally bonded. I got a patent for this.”
Greer also has two International and 10 U.S. patents. “I like building things,” he explained.
Greer modestly said he is not an engineer, adding that his education has come from the farm and what he referred to as the “school of hard knocks.” He has a way of envisioning how he wants things to work. He said he can’t always afford what he wants, so he just creates them.
For example, he bought a particle board plant in Tennessee and transported it to Illinois. He set it up and built what Greer calls one of the first American-made, waste-fired heating systems.
“It turns biomass into heat,” he added. “The same heat is used to dry the wood chips. It fills three different heat needs.”
Working the land and creating things that last are what Greer is all about.