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THEN NOW I think one of the best parts about what we do is that we get to know our clients Micheal Walters working from his office in Farimont, NC Photo Credit: FMIC Staff Photographer
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FMIC SPRING 2021
WITH
MICHAEL WALTERS,
In a new series called Then & Now, we will highlight the evolution of the wood products industry over the years by conducting personal interviews with people who worked in the industry and their relationships with Forestry Mutual Insurance Company.
This issue we visit Michael Walters, Owner of Claybourn Walters Logging Company and Chairman at Forestry Mutual Insurance Company. Michael is from a third-generation logging family in North Carolina. At age 10 he would join his grandfather and father as they logged, and he was enthralled with the manual labor involved. After attending college, Michael came back to the family farm and continued the family tradition of logging and land management. The thrill of seeing the process of harvesting trees was exciting to him. He loved watching forested land transform from the cutting of trees to loading the trucks and delivering the wood to the mill with the big equipment making it look so easy. But 50 years ago, it was a much more manual labored profession. Michael quickly learned the tricks of the trade from the guys that had worked in the woods for three or four generations. He learned from their experience and mastered the complex tasks of logging simply and safely. He truly
CHAIRMAN, FORESTRY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY
enjoyed moving timber from the woods to the sawmills, listening to the people at the mill talk about what they needed from the woods and seeing how he could make it all come together. Taking the whole puzzle and finding a solution is what motivated him.
“50 years ago, it was a rule of thumb one man per load per day. So, if you had one eight-man crew, you got eight loads a day. Today, we have three-man crews getting twenty to twenty-five loads a day. Mechanization of harvesting wood has changed the industry and evolved over time and for the best. Looking back from today to how it was when I was working in the woods, I never imagined how mechanized the industry would have become. How much safer the equipment is and how much longer you’re able to work in the woods…in the industry.” Michael’s father was a huge influence on him and his career in forestry. He remembers his father liked to log the difficult tracks, the wet tracks. His father had a knack for it and always determined to get the right equipment for the job. He recalls his father and grandfather talking about how difficult it was to get worker’s compensation insurance and most importantly how unaffordable it was. They understood what a liability it was to not have it. continued on page 11
