What could hurt the economy? Coronavirus for one. Also, former Weyerhaeuser CEO has died

The business columnist poked his head up from the computer screen, saw the 67th or 68th consecutive day of rain, muttered a few curses, and went back to looking up YouTube videos on ark construction, as well as writing some observation on current events:

▪ In certain businesses it’s always something. In agriculture, the weather is too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. In retailing, the weather is too something (so people are staying home or are out doing something else), the economy is weak so people aren’t spending or the economy’s OK but people are spending their money on housing, student debt or something else.

In trade this year, it’s a whole bunch of something elses.

Not even two months into the new year, the list of something elses affecting trade had accumulated to an ominous height. How many can you name? Trade spats with China over almost everything. Brexit. The slowing of the economy in China. The slowing of the economy in Europe. The replacement of Nafta with a new agreement with Canada and Mexico. A tentative agreement with China that might roll back tariffs, or not, and might lead to more trade agreements, or maybe not. Boeing’s troubles with the 737 Max, since airplane sales are such a big component of U.S. trade. The U.S. election year.

Now let’s add two more.

The coronavirus is causing huge disruptions in international business and tourism travel and in production and supply chains in China. How much that disruption will cost the global economy will depend on how widespread the virus becomes and how long the contagion lasts. Coming up with even a rough figure would be near impossible, not only in totaling direct costs but in separating that from everything else going on. But a reasonably accurate estimate would be “a lot — and getting larger by the day.”

Meanwhile, here’s a much smaller but still potentially disruptive event. Groups protesting planned natural gas pipelines in Canada have shut down Canadian National rail lines in British Columbia and Ontario. Of particular significance out west is that the protests and blockades are hitting the port of Prince Rupert, B.C., competitor to the Puget Sound ports.

“We are currently parking trains across our network, but due to limited available space for such, CN will have no choice but to temporarily discontinue service in key corridors unless the blockades come to an end,” the railroad said in a statement this past week.

Much like the corona virus situation, the impacts and implications of a prolonged rail-freight disruption in Canada will be far-reaching and tangled not just for the economy north of the border but for shippers, producers, exporters, customers and competitors in the United States.

For all the questions to be answered, here is one certainty about global trade and logistics in 2020 — if you’re looking for a placid, predictable year, this ain’t the business sector to find it in.

▪ The passing of a well-known figure in the business community is an opportunity to assess not only that person’s life and work but the changes in that individual’s company and industry.

Few illustrate that so well as the changes for Weyerhaeuser and the forest products industry since John “Jack” Creighton was running that company.

Creighton died Jan. 29 at the age of 87. He had retired as chief executive of Weyerhaeuser in 1997 but not from business life. He took on the jobs of chairman and CEO of United Airlines in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; locally, he was a strategic director for the Seattle-based tech-investment firm Madrona Venture Group.

Creighton’s appointment as Weyerhaeuser CEO in 1991 marked the start of a transition of Weyerhaeuser, both in terms of leadership — he was the first CEO not a member of the family whose name was on the company door — and company structure. It was Creighton’s job to start bringing some order and strategic rationalization to what was a sprawling company with hands in everything.

It’s a much different company than when Creighton was running it. It’s had four CEOs since Creighton —Steve Rogel, Dan Fulton, Doyle Simons and currently Devin Stockfish. Although it wasn’t done with acquisitions in the post-Creighton years — it took on the Willamette Industries deal under Rogel and the combination with Plum Creek Timber under Simons — the theme has been much more about pruning or in some cases hacking away. Pulp, paper and packaging are gone. The company itself converted to a real-estate investment trust, placing the emphasis on its timberland holdings.

If a company with $6.6 billion in annual revenue and the largest timberland acreage holdings in the U.S. can be described as low-profile, Weyerhaeuser is. Its landmark headquarters on the east side of I-5 in Federal Way has been a see-through building for several years, the company having abandoned it for the joys of operating in Pioneer Square in Seattle. Twenty-five years ago, Weyerhaeuser would have been counted among the state’s most prominent companies, just as the forest products industry (timber, pulp, paper and lumber) would have been top-of-mind on the list of Washington’s biggest industries, along with aerospace.

Today tech has replaced forest products on that list of the state’s biggest economic drivers, and Weyerhaeuser is barely an afterthought when thinking of the region’s biggest corporate names. Trees — the core asset and product of a company like Weyerhaeuser — might not change dramatically from seedling to harvest. But the companies and industry that depend upon them sure can.