Josh and Jennifer Johnson are graduates of the Forest Business School’s six-month Essentials program. They did not enrol to learn their trade — they already knew it. What they brought to the program were management questions: where to spend their time, how to structure the money, what to build, and what not to build.
Starting Again on Purpose
By the time Josh and Jennifer Johnson were ready to restart production at Brand X Sawmills in 2026, they had already done something many business owners find almost impossible: they had stopped.
Production had been paused for roughly a year while they moved from Lewistown to the White Sulphur Springs area, built a new home and shop, and reorganized the business around the place where they intend to stay. That pause was not a retreat from Brand X. It was part of a longer plan.
In one Forest Business School session near the end of the move, Jennifer was working on Brand X social media while Josh was back in the shop replenishing what he calls the “blue bins” — the small parts, welding fixtures, and components that make final assembly possible. The scene was a good snapshot of the partnership. Jennifer was rebuilding the outward-facing side of the business while Josh rebuilt the physical flow of production.
The Johnsons are not trying to build the biggest sawmill company in America. They are trying to build a durable one.
“We’re essentialists here with our lifestyle and our business.”
Josh Johnson, FBS Essentials
What They Took from FBS
By the time they reached Essentials, Josh and Jennifer were already good at the work. What the program gave them was not technique but a set of frameworks for testing decisions they were weighing anyway.
80/20
A more deliberate way to think about where shop time creates value — and where it does not.
Profit First
A clearer structure for profit, taxes, and cash — and a way to test whether the business can truly afford another employee.
Essentialism
Reinforcement for deciding what not to build, add, or pursue, including resisting expansion for its own sake.
The clearest test came over a product question. The Johnsons had been uncertain whether to develop a slabber for the Brand X mill. After working through Essentialism, their conclusion was that they had made the right decision not to go down that path.
“We just need to keep it simple and be straightforward with what we offer.”
Josh and Jennifer Johnson, on deciding what not to build
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A Mill Worth Taking On
Brand X did not begin with Josh and Jennifer. The sawmill was designed by Jay Brand in Condon, Montana, in 2004 after decades of experience with other mills. Brand built more than 200 Brand X sawmills before his death in 2016. Years later, during the COVID era, the opportunity arose for the Johnsons — longtime friends of the Brand family — to carry the business forward.
They did not say yes immediately. They studied the opportunity and asked whether it really fit them. What finally settled the question was seeing the mill work.
“Our jaws hit the floor. We were like, this thing is so cool. It’s so precise. It makes boards so quickly.”
Jennifer Johnson, recalling the first time she saw a Brand X mill run
Once they understood what the machine could do, she said, “We have to do this.”
The enthusiasm makes sense when the machine is seen in operation. The Brand X is a 90-degree swing-frame sawmill, built in Montana and shipped fully assembled, and the Johnsons say it is the only swing-frame sawmill currently manufactured in the United States. They also try to source as many components domestically as practical.
How the swing frame works
Because the blade swings through 90 degrees and cuts in both directions of travel, dimensional lumber comes off the mill without repeatedly turning the log.
Brand X describes the mill as easy to use, without unnecessary gadgets — a description that has become part of the Johnsons’ own product philosophy.
But carrying forward Jay Brand’s design has not meant freezing it in time.
Early after taking over the business, Josh noticed a pattern in replacement-parts sales. One costly component failed repeatedly, and when it failed it often damaged surrounding parts. A less thoughtful business might have accepted those replacements as recurring revenue. Josh went the other way.
“Instead of producing attachments and growing the business in a different direction, I really focused on figuring out what this failure consisted of and how to eliminate it.”
Josh Johnson
He redesigned the system, developed an updated replacement kit, and stopped making the old part.
That small story says a great deal about Brand X under the Johnsons. Product improvement is not defined by adding features. Sometimes improvement means removing a failure permanently.
Two Different Skill Sets, One Business
Josh’s route to sawmill manufacturing came through machinery. He spent years as a mechanic at a New Holland dealership, later operated an independent repair business, and has more than two decades of experience across fabrication, welding, diesel and small-engine repair, and hydraulics. At Brand X he is the lead fabricator, mechanic, and product developer.
Jennifer came from a different direction. Her background includes education and newspaper reporting, along with extensive customer-service experience. At Brand X she handles much of the bookkeeping, invoicing, correspondence, website and social-media work, and the organizational work that turns fabricated machines into a functioning business.
The division is not absolute — Josh spends substantial time talking with technically serious customers, and Jennifer is deeply involved in product and business decisions — but both understand the value of comparative advantage.
“I’m a fabricator,” Josh said during a discussion of specific knowledge. “I don’t do the things that even my wife does in this business. I stay in my own lane and I do the things I’m best at because that’s where I’m going to be productive.”
That combination matters to customers. Brand X is small enough that the person explaining the machine may be one of the people who built it. The Johnsons meet customers, orient them to safe operation and maintenance, and remain available afterward.
“If you have a question, you can call and get the guy who built it.”
Brand X Sawmills, on customer service
For a specialized machine sold to owner-operators, that is not a small thing. Brand X is not competing only on steel, horsepower, blade size, or price. It is also selling access to the people who know the machine intimately.
Discipline Before Growth
The Johnsons’ approach to money is similarly direct.
They spent seven years living in a camper as part of the process of staying out of debt and working toward the property and lifestyle they wanted. During an FBS discussion about status and spending, Jennifer contrasted their habits with the steady pressure to display success through new pickups, campers, and other visible purchases. Their approach, she said, is closer to “drive until the wheels fall off.”
By January 2026, when the Essentials group was discussing Profit First, the Johnsons could say that they had paid off the business completely about two years earlier.
“Brand X Sawmills has zero debt right now. We’re super excited about that. We don’t plan to get into that either.”
The Johnsons, to the FBS Essentials group
That does not mean refusing to invest. It means being clear about what an investment is supposed to accomplish.
The same discipline appears in production. Josh has developed a component-building sequence in which several weeks of shop work may produce no visible finished mill. Then final assembly begins and prepared components come off the shelf in order. It took several production cycles to refine that flow. By then, what can look from the outside like a small fabrication shop has become a system.
And it appears in product strategy. Josh has considered digital readouts and additional automation. The question is never whether more technology is possible, but whether it improves the mill enough to justify the cost and complexity for the customer.
