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Vol. 48, No. 4

(Founded in 1972—Our 559th Consecutive Issue)

F E AT U R E S

April 2019 A Hatton-Brown Publication

Phone: 334-834-1170 Fax: 334-834-4525

www.southernloggintimes.com

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Lovell Logging Residential Area Specialist

Good Meeting Carolina Loggers Assn.

Co-Publisher Co-Publisher Chief Operating Officer Executive Editor Editor-in-Chief Western Editor Managing Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Art Director Ad Production Coordinator Circulation Director Online Content/Marketing

David H. Ramsey David (DK) Knight Dianne C. Sullivan David (DK) Knight Rich Donnell Dan Shell David Abbott Jessica Johnson Jay Donnell Cindy Segrest Patti Campbell Rhonda Thomas Jacqlyn Kirkland

ADVERTISING CONTACTS DISPLAY SALES Eastern U.S. Kathy Sternenberg Tel: 251-928-4962 • Fax: 334-834-4525 219 Royal Lane Fairhope, AL 36532 E-mail: ksternenberg@bellsouth.net Midwest USA, Eastern Canada John Simmons Tel: 905-666-0258 • Fax: 905-666-0778 32 Foster Cres.

Whitby, Ontario, Canada L1R 1W1 E-mail: jsimmons@idirect.com

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Hardy Rhodes Reluctant Success Story

Mill Feature Georgia-Pacific Talladega

Southern Stumpin’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

out front:

Perseverance has paid for Charles Greenleaf in east Texas. The young logger just started his company, Double G Logging, two and a half years ago. He’s worked nearly 24/7 to breathe life into it and has faced, and overcome, numerous adversities, both in the woods and on the home front. Story begins on Page 8. (David Abbott photo)

Bulletin Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Safety Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Mid-Atlantic Show Preview. . . . . . 34 Industry News Roundup . . . . . . . . 54 ForesTree Equipment Trader . . . . 63 Coming Events/Ad Index . . . . . . . 70

Western Canada, Western USA Tim Shaddick Tel: 604-910-1826 • Fax: 604-264-1367 4056 West 10th Ave. Vancouver, BC V6L 1Z1 E-mail: tootall1@shaw.ca Kevin Cook Tel: 604-619-1777 E-mail: lordkevincook@gmail.com International Murray Brett Tel: +34 96 640 4165 +34 96 640 4048 58 Aldea de las Cuevas • Buzon 60 03759 Benidoleig (Alicante), Spain E-mail: murray.brett@abasol.net CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING

Bridget DeVane

Tel: 1-800-669-5613 • Tel 334-699-7837 Email: bdevane7@hotmail.com

Southern Loggin’ Times (ISSN 0744-2106) is published monthly by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc., 225 Hanrick St., Montgomery, AL 36104. Subscription Information—SLT is sent free to logging, pulpwood and chipping contractors and their supervisors; managers and supervisors of corporate-owned harvesting operations; wood suppliers; timber buyers; wood procurement and land management officials; industrial forestry purchasing agents; wholesale and retail forest equipment representatives and forest/logging association personnel in the U.S. South. See form elsewhere in this issue.

All non-qualified U.S. subscriptions are $65 annually; $75 in Canada; $120 (Airmail) in all other countries (U.S. funds). Single copies, $5 each; special issues, $20 (U.S. funds). Subscription Inquiries— TOLL-FREE 800-669-5613; Fax 888-611-4525. Go to www.southernloggintimes.com and click on the subscribe button to subscribe/renew via the web. All advertisements for Southern Loggin’ Times magazine are accepted and published by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. with the understanding that the advertiser and/or advertising agency are authorized to publish the entire contents and subject matter thereof. The advertiser and/or advertising agency will defend, indemnify and hold Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. harmless from and against any loss, expenses, or other liability resulting from any claims or lawsuits for libel violations or right of privacy or publicity, plagiarism, copyright or trademark infringement and any other claims or lawsuits that may arise out of publication of such advertisement. Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. neither endorses nor makes any representation or guarantee as to the quality of goods and services advertised in Southern Loggin’ Times. Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. reserves the right to reject any advertisement which it deems inappropriate. Copyright ® 2019. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Periodicals postage paid at Montgomery, Ala. and at additional mailing offices. Printed In USA.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Southern Loggin’ Times, P.O. Box 2419, Montgomery, AL 36102-2419 Member Verified Audit Circulation

Other Hatton-Brown publications: ★ Timber Processing ★ Timber Harvesting ★ Panel World ★ Power Equipment Trade ★ Wood Bioenergy

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SOUTHERN STUMPIN’

By David Abbott • Managing Editor • Ph. 334-834-1170 • Fax: 334-834-4525 • E-mail: david@hattonbrown.com

Black/White ell, spring has now officially sprung, and you know what that means…it means it’ll be summer, football season and then Christmas again in just a few weeks, or so it will seem. I’ve always heard that time passes more quickly the older you get, and now that I’m truly getting old, I find that truth to be truer with each passing year. I’m actually writing this on the vernal or spring equinox, March 20, the official first day of spring, and the layers of pollen on my pickup truck attest to it, although the temperatures after sunset still have a bit of catching up to do.

This month, in addition to the usual news items, a look at a Georgia-Pacific mill in Alabama, a review of the Carolina Loggers Assn.’s annual meeting and a preview of the Mid Atlantic Expo in North Carolina in May, Southern Loggin’ Times brings you a trio of logger stories. Our featured articles this month represent a wide geographic territory: Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina. That’s a far cry from last issue, when just about everything we had was in Georgia.

We’re still finding rain throughout the South to be a factor, as still many companies have been unable to work when we tried to visit, but it’s improving.

First up is Charles Greenleaf’s Double G Logging in Texas. Charles is a young guy who truly went into the logging business not because he had to but because he wanted to; in his early 20s, he already had a stable job with a six-figure income, benefits and retirement package, but his heart was set on the woods, where he’d worked with his grandfather growing up. He used his considerable salary and great credit to buy a full line of equipment and started logging during the day while still working his other job at night; he kept that up for two years till he got the logging company in a strong position, and then quit his “gravy job” to focus on logging full time. His work ethic and dedication to his dream are quite commendable, and quite the opposite of what we usually hear about lazy, spoiled, entitled millenials. Guys like him, I think, make me optimistic for the future.

Next we have the Lovell family from Tennessee.

Representing the kind of traditional multigenerational father-son partnership that we love to see so often in these pages, Howard Lovell Sr. and Jr. have been making their diversified company go for more than 30 years. Along with clearing and grinding crews, the Lovells have found their niche in “urban logging” around Chattanooga, clearing smaller tracts, often for residential development.

Finally we present Hardy Rhodes of Arkansas.

Mr. Rhodes is something of an anomaly for these pages: a guy who didn’t actually want to be a logger, at least not at first, even though he grew up in the business. In fact, as a teen, he asked his dad, who had been a logger, to stop taking him to the woods because that wasn’t what he wanted to do

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with his life. Whereas a lot of kids today might say that because they just want to stay home and play video games on their devices, Rhodes is from a different generation. It wasn’t aversion to hard work that motivated him to reject the woods; he wanted to pursue a career in healthcare, and first he wanted to serve in the military. Life had other plans, though, and Rhodes eventually came back around to and embraced his logging heritage, which has made quite a fine life for him. On a personal note, I want to add that Mr. Rhodes and his lovely family were unfailingly kind and hospitable when they invited me into their home for dinner a few months ago, and I had a great time getting to know them.

Now, if you’ve read this far, I have a challenge for you: based on my brief descriptions above, and without skipping ahead to look at their pictures, can you tell which of these three loggers are black, and which ones are white?

Of course you can’t, and with good reason: because it doesn’t matter. They’re all loggers, and like all loggers, they have a story to tell. The challenges they all face as loggers, they all face equally, regardless of their skin color. Hey, the rain doesn’t care, it falls on us all just the same.

Social Commentary I have a reason for bringing this up. Ordinarily I wouldn’t. For whatever reasons, the majority of logging business owners are white men, that’s a fact, but I honestly don’t believe most people in this industry, in the year 2019, have any problem whatsoever with accepting and respecting loggers of any racial background. I hope I’m right and not hopelessly naive, but I truly believe most of us really do judge individuals by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Unfortunately, there are always a few exceptions.

So here’s where this is coming from. Back in February I posted a couple of videos to our social media pages on the good old internet, which of course is widely known for always showcasing the best in people. I took those videos on the day I visited Charles Greenleaf’s crews in Texas.

Now Greenleaf is trying out a log truck with an automatic transmission—that’s what I thought was particularly interesting and worthy of the video and the post. It was an especially muddy road on a wet day, so even though the truck was unloaded when I happened to be there to shoot the video, Greenleaf and his driver reported that it was pulling loads out just fine in those conditions. The video got a ton of views (about a half million I think) and more than 100 people have commented on it. Most of those comments were fine, many debating the relative merits of automatic transmissions in the woods. Sadly, a few felt compelled to make some comments that we

deemed inappropriate, and had to delete.

Now, here’s the good news, at least from my perspective. Of the handful of comments we deleted, only one that I saw was blatantly racist. The others were actually directed at picking on loggers from Texas in general, and were probably meant in good humor, but the language was a bit too crude for our family oriented audience, so it had to go. But as for the one stupid, ugly, racist comment: that’s totally unacceptable. Happily, and despite what the commenter in question might falsely believe, the racists are outnumbered, even here in my home state of Alabama.

First Hand Experience If the comments on that video represent the overall population of the southern logging community, then only about 1 in around 125 of us is very racist, a little under 1%. I don’t know if that reflects the experience outside my own cushy bubble, but I hope it’s even less than that.

Rhodes spoke with me about his experience just a bit. He didn’t mind acknowledging that some racism does exist: “Everyone knows it’s out there,” he says, noting that what he has experienced has been mostly indirect or subtle. He admits that in some cases, some individuals might not have been as eager to do business with him, or might assume he was the hired help rather than the boss. But, he says, no companies discriminate.

Like me, Rhodes believes that racism in the South is way better than it used be. “Where I am, it is not as blatant,” he says. “If I go to a meeting, I am usually the only back guy there, so it might be a little out of my comfort zone, but everyone has always been nice to me. In the woods, that is an even playing field. I think there is an unspoken rule that loggers, it’s a brotherhood, and that supersedes the other stuff. If it’s raining and he can’t get his wood out, then it is raining and I can’t get my wood out. We’re going through the same things, so there is a bond there. We’re equal.”

I think Mr. Rhodes is right; I think I speak for most of those in the southern logging industry when I say that we don’t care if a person is black, white, or anything else. We respect hard work and honesty and we think everyone willing to work for it deserves a fair shot; skin color is not and should not be relevant. It’s ridiculous that there are still a few dragging their knuckles about this stuff in the year 2019, but I do believe that with each generation their small-minded kind becomes an increasingly insignificant minority. But, for the few of you still around, let’s say it one more time: racism is stupid. It was stupid when my grandparents were teenagers 100 years ago, it’s stupid now, it’s always been stupid, and it will always be stupid, and SLT wrong. End of story.

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Making A Way â– Charles Greenleaf had other options, but worked day and night to bring his logging dream to life.

By David Abbott CALL, Tex. harles Greenleaf, 26, only ★ started his company, Double G Logging, two and a half years ago, in September 2016. For him, it started when, while driving to work one day, he saw a used 1998 Peterbilt truck for sale on the side of the road. He made arrangements with a bank to buy the truck with the intention of using it to haul hay. As he showed it off around town, his friends and neighbors kept telling him that it was too good a truck to use it only for hauling hay part of the year and leave it parked the rest. One of his uncles, Bo Bennett, suggested hauling logs instead, and even offered to drive it, but advised his nephew to also buy a set out trailer.

That sounded good to the younger man. So, while looking for a log trailer to buy, he came across Myers Logging in Louisiana. Myers

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From left: Charles Greenleaf, Johnnie Gore, Daniel Dunman, Dalton Dunman

Now in its third year, Double G Logging fields nine company trucks plus contractors, hauling at least 10 loads a day per crew.

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After struggling in his first two years with incessant breakdowns on older machines, Greenleaf has gradually switched to a mostly newer fleet.

had a complete set of used equipment for sale: a 2005 Timberjack 460D skidder, ’01 Prentice 384 loader and ’03 Tigercat 718 cutter.

Greenleaf decided to go all in and bought those machines, too. “I just took a shot in the dark and called up Campbell Global and they gave me a contract.”

It might have been a shot in the dark, but it wasn’t just a whim.

Greenleaf did have a background in logging; his grandparents on his mother’s side, Millard and Doretha Bennett, had a logging business, and his uncle Alvin Bennet was one of the best in the area. According to Greenleaf’s mom, Millard was the first black contractor for Temple Inland in Evadale, Tex. Growing up, Greenleaf spent summers helping out on the Bennett Logging crew.

“It was a different style,” the young man says, comparing his grandfather’s company to his.

“They clear cut; I didn’t know what plantation logging was till 2016.”

He didn’t run any machines growing up, so when he started his company he had to teach himself and learn as he went. Still, the experience left its mark on his youth. “I had been away from it for eight years, but every time I saw a log truck anywhere, or anytime I heard someone talking about it, I tried to jump in on the conversation,” Greenleaf says. “It was something I always wanted to do for myself.”

Indeed, he’d grown up wanting to be a logger, but his family had discouraged him from pursuing that dream. “I heard all the horror stories about it: stay away from logging, there’s no future in logging, don’t do it. Everybody said go to college, get a degree, get a job with benefits and retirement.”

SLT SNAPSHOT Double G Logging Call, Tex. Email: wildcat24co2010@yahoo.com

Good Run Of Bad Luck

Founded: 2016 Owner: Charles Greenleaf No. Crews: 3 Employees: 26 Equipment: 3 loaders, 4 skidders, 3 cutters, 9 trucks, 15 trailers Average Production: 125-150 loads per week Average Haul Distance: 50 miles Tidbit: Charles Greenleaf faced, and overcame, more than his fair share of tribulations in getting Double G Logging off the ground. Beyond struggles in the woods, he suffered losses at home. But he wasn’t alone in that suffering. His cousin, Cord Rawls, was only helping out at Double G part time when he received what must be the most tragic phone call a parent can get: his son, not quite two years old, had been killed in a hit and run accident. It hit the Double G crew hard, since many of them are family. Rawls now works full-time as a foreman of one of the Double G crews. Incidentally, it was Rawls who contacted Southern Loggin’ Times to recommend Greenleaf for an article.

The thing is, he did have one of the jobs they wanted for him: the day he saw that old Peterbilt for sale, he was driving to his job working as a process operator at the Valero oil refinery near Port Arthur. He recalls it as his gravy job: “I didn’t have to worry about anything, made over six figures with guaranteed pay and ben-

that he is a logger, he confirms, “All those horror stories are true. But if you enjoy doing it then you make a way through it.”

efits.” In fact it was that good salary, along with good credit, that allowed him to buy all this equipment. But it wasn’t about the money or any of the rest; what he really wanted to do was log. That was his passion.

As for those horror stories he’d heard growing up, the ones that failed to dissuade him? Well, now

The start was anything but easy.

“My first week logging, my whole first year, it was just nothing but heartaches and disappointment,” he admits. “Our first day on the job, we were about halfway through the first load when the boom on the loader stopped moving. So we were down for three days before we got the first load out.” And that was just a taste of things to come. Once that first load was finally loaded, Greenleaf himself was going to drive it to the mill; he only made it a mile down the road when he had four blowouts. But, they got new tires on the trailer and finally got that first load delivered.

Pretty soon Greenleaf had bought a second truck, a 2000 Freightliner, and hired a driver. Not quite two weeks later, the transmission went out on the first truck. While it was being repaired, he hauled literally day and night with the other truck, with two drivers taking shifts on it.

“We ran it around the clock for a couple of weeks.”

In November, the week before Thanksgiving, he added a second skidder, a ’08 Deere 748H, making a weekend trip to Tennessee to pick it up. “I drove the Peterbilt with my mom and kids following in a car behind me and my uncle and cousin Kelvin Bennett in a car in front of me,” he recalls. “I had zero experience driving or hauling anything across country but we made it.”

Even with all the problems he faced, Greenleaf continued the rapid growth, much of it out of

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The logger buys from Texas Timberjack in Jasper, where Cat machines still come with a Prentice paint job.

necessity. By December 2016, the loader went down again. Greenleaf this time chose to replace rather than repair it, picking up a ’14 Prentice. His uncle Bo then encouraged him to buy a third truck, reasoning that the new loader could keep three trucks busy. In late January 2017, the fledgling businessman bought a 2006 Mack. “I remember freaking out because the note on it was $1,600 a month, and I thought there was no way I’d be able to pay that.”

When March 2017 rolled around, Double G had survived a strict quota in its first winter; just when the mill started opening up, the ’08 748H broke down. While it was in the shop for repairs, the crew figured out that the remaining skidder, the old 460 Timberjack, couldn’t keep up with the three trucks they now had to load. So Greenleaf went to Doggett Machinery in Lufkin and

purchased a brand new ’17 John Deere 748L. Now the skidders could keep pace with the trucks, but the cutter couldn’t stay ahead of the skidders.

So he bought a second cutter, this one a ’14 Prentice 2470C from Texas Timberjack in Jasper. This one was serial number 100; Double G later acquired another 2470C that was serial number 101.

Greenleaf was pulling overtime to make Double G work, and he wasn’t alone. His cousins Cord Rawls and Kelvin Bennett both also had day jobs, but came out to cut on the weekends to help the crew get ahead for the next week. After hours on weeknights, one of the skidder drivers would also stay late to cut extra. The extra cutting was necessary because both cutters suffered one breakdown after another.

“We didn’t know what it was like to

have a shear run all week,” he says.

“It got to where we were just running one at a time, alternating every other day.”

August 2017 brought with it Hurricane Harvey to Texas. The crew lost a week to the storm, and when they were able to get back into the woods, they discovered they’d lost even more. Three machines had been completely submerged up to the cabs by flood waters and destroyed.

Double G split into two crews in October that year, when Greenleaf’s uncle had to take two weeks off for surgery. With newer machines and two more trucks, the crews started hauling more wood, with 80-90 load weeks. They were looking forward to entering 2018 strong. Then in January, the rain started. “And it rained, and it rained, and it rained some more. At the beginning of 2018, we didn’t think it was ever

going to stop raining,” he reflects.

By March 2018, both the cutters were at last running consistently, it seemed. Greenleaf figured they’d carry him a while into the future.

Instead, one of them caught fire and burned to the ground. The next day he bought a brand new 2570 Prentice (Cat) feller-buncher. Right after, the other cutter went down yet again, this time to spend six months in the shop.

Salesman Walter Enos at Doggett sent Greenleaf a Deere 643L to demo; he ended up buying it for the second crew. That same week, the boom on the third Prentice loader broke in half; Double G replaced it with a new Deere 437E. In October ’18, when breakdowns continued to plague the other cutter even after its six months in the shop, Greenleaf finally traded it for a new 2570D cutter, also adding a new Cat 525D skidder. “That

Greg Curtis

Shaun Orchosky, Sr.

David Samuel

Kelvin Bennett

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showed us that we needed newer equipment.” Thus free of the constant major breakdowns, things finally started to get on track, at least as far as the business went.

Cost Throughout all this, Greenleaf kept working a full-time schedule at the refinery while trying to get his new business off the ground. “I didn’t sleep, I didn’t go home,” he recalls. “I’d leave work and come in just to change shirts and go to the woods.” He kept up that grueling pace for two solid years. It paid off in the end, but it also cost him a lot.

“I lost a relationship because of it,” he says. When the relationship with his sons’ mother ended, he had to adjust his priorities, and his schedule, to spend more time with his sons. That meant quitting his job at the refinery last June.

Along with newer machines, Greenleaf believes that his quitting the refinery made a big difference for Double G. Ever since he narrowed his focus, his company has stepped up its game to stand shoulder to shoulder with the big boys, he says.

As they were laying the groundwork to build Double G’s shop a year ago, Greenleaf got the call that his dad was in poor health, in a

The three Double G crews work mostly in pine plantation thinning.

Houston hospital with heart failure.

Oscar Charles Greenleaf hadn’t logged; he was a colonel in the Army and a manager for the Federal Reserve. His picture still hangs on the wall at the Federal Reserve Bank in Houston. A few months later, the younger Greenleaf took a well-earned family vacation to Disneyland in California, but on the second day there, they had to go

home. His dad had passed.

“It was just one battle after another,” Greenleaf reflects on the first few years of Double G. There were the usual logging struggles—rain and breakdowns, turnover with employees—but the toll from the personal battles he faced at home was greater.

“I lost my dad, I lost my relationship with my kids’ mom; I had to fight for custody of my kids.”

Now that he has come out on the other side of all that, things are looking up, both in the woods and at home. He’s getting to spend more time with his sons, Greyson, 5, and Mack, 1. Greyson wants to be a logger, and Mack was named after the truck. He also got married in February to a girl from Kirbyville, Kadi.

“I’m down to one job now,” he’s happy to report. “And I try to shut

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down in the evenings and not to work on Sundays. I try to make family time.”

Equipment Today, Double G is fielding mostly newer iron in the woods, not to mention several newer rigs on the roads. Crew 1 has a 2018 John Deere 437E loader, ’18 Caterpillar (branded Prentice) 2570D fellerbuncher and ’17 Deere 748L skidder. Crew 2 features 2018 model

Deere 748L skidder and 643L cutter working with a ’14 Prentice 2384B loader, which Greenleaf says is soon to be traded. Crew 3 has a ’13 Prentice 2384B loader, ’18 Cat 525D skidder and ’18 Cat/Prentice 2570D cutter.

Greenleaf deals with salesman Jimmy City at Texas Timberjack’s Jasper branch for his Cat/Prenticebranded machines, while he turns to salesman Walter Enos at Doggett Machinery in Lufkin for John Deere pieces. Greenleaf credits both deal-

Newlyweds Charles and Kadi Greenleaf

ers with helping him through a rough start. “If it hadn’t been for Deere pulling us back, and Cat helping us out too, there wouldn’t be a Double G,” he admits candidly.

On the hauling side, Double G has nine trucks: Macks, 1998-2019 models, and Peterbilt, ’98-’09. The trucks pull Viking, Pitts, Kent, Big John and shop-built trailers, including plantation, straight deck, and pole trailers. He uses Progressive for trucking insurance. Greenleaf has good relationships with Randy and Cheryl Valentine, the owners of Ellis Truck and Trailer in Kirbyville, and with Willy Williams, who handles truck repairs for the logger. Double G is a customer of Sun Coast Resources and Jasper Oil Co., both in Jasper.

Second Chances Greenleaf is quick to give credit where it’s due, admitting he has gotten and still gets a lot of help in the woods, in the office and at home. His uncle, Bo, who had hauled pulpwood for his grandfather’s company back in the day, advised him early on, and that was a big help. “He brought to the table leadership and expertise and the knowhow and the drive,” Greenleaf says. “I don’t think there was a truck in Texas that could out pull him. And he didn’t have to do it; he was 67 when we started. He came out of retirement and he set the tucking side of it on fire for us. Without him we couldn’t have done it. He pushed the others; he would come back to pick up another load late in the day to shame them into coming back to get another load too.”

Also, the logger notes, “We have had leadership with our forester, Robert Wilson. His advice has helped, and just his knowledge of the business.” Wilson’s dad also worked for Temple and Campbell Global, and ➤ 60

May 3-4 Is your company in?

Your competition is.

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Urban Logging ■ Lovell Logging has found their niche in Tennessee.

By Jay Donnell OOLTEWAH, Tenn. he world of logging can be very competitive. When a large tract of timber is up for sale there will usually be several timber companies looking to out bid each other. This can make things tough for smaller logging companies that don’t have the resources to compete with some of the larger outfits. Smaller companies have to think outside the box and Lovell Logging is a prime example. Howard Lovell has made a name for his business by buying timber in residential development areas where the tracts run smaller, but the number of jobs are aplenty.

Lovell Logging was formed in

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★

Howard Lovell Sr. and Howard Lovell Jr. have been working together for many years.

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1986 by Howard Lovell, Sr., who had run his own sawmill for several years and bought and sold logging equipment for just as long. He started off skidding with a John Deere 720 farm tractor and eventually bought a John Deere 440 skidder and a Timberking knuckleboom loader. The equipment was nothing like it is today during those times, but Howard Sr. made the most of it and built up his logging business in southern Tennessee.

In the early 1990s his son, Howard Lovell, Jr., took over the logging operation and has since expanded the business into two crews that run a wide variety of used equipment. In 2003, Lovell also formed Ooltewah Clearing and Grinding and today he manages

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Lovell Logging's two crews work mostly smaller hardwood tracts (this one was 12 acres), but there are exceptions.

both logging crews as well as the clearing and grinding operation which can be quite a handful.

Lovell has found his niche in the Chattanooga area by doing what he calls “urban logging” and purchasing smaller tracts of timber because the competition isn’t nearly as intense for those tracts. He occasionally has to deal with pushback from people in the community and especially in subdivisions, but Lovell isn’t fazed because he has a job to do and understands that people sometimes don’t think logically when a couple log trucks and logging equipment moves into an area close to where they live.

Operations Lovell Logging was clear-cutting a 12-acre tract on some rough and muddy terrain near Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga when Southern Loggin’ Times visited the operation.

The company had been on this tract for two weeks, but because of the rain it was only the third day they had been able to work. This has been a theme for many southern loggers this winter.

The terrain can be tricky at times for the company during the winter months, especially on the smaller tracts where everything is so condensed. This tract was a bit smaller than what the business normally works. Usually the tracts are at least 20 acres. The other crew that day was on 120 acres.

Lovell Logging mainly cuts hardwood and rarely does any thinning

SLT SNAPSHOT Lovell Logging Ooltewah, Tenn.

Email: Ocg-Howard@hotmail.com Founded: 1986 Owners: Howard Lovell, Sr., and Howard Lovell, Jr. No. Crews: 2 Employees: 5 Equipment: 2 feller-bunchers, 2 loaders, 4 skidders, 1 dozer, three trucks Average Production: 40+ loads per week Average Haul Distance: 50 miles Tidbit: Ooltewah, Tennessee is located in Hamilton County and is a suburb of Chattanooga. The town has a population of 687.

From left, Rene Sanchez, Agustin Rangel and Howard Lovell

work. In fact, their last thinning job was almost two years ago. While they do work on a lot of smaller tracts, they still manage to get their fair share of 100-acre tracts. On the bigger jobs the company must build their own roads with a John Deere 750B dozer.

The two logging crews combine to produce roughly 40 loads per week. They haul logs to Resolute Forest Products in Calhoun, Tenn; WestRock in Stevenson, Ala.; Cardin Forest Products in South Pittsburgh, Tenn., and some pine to Huber’s reopened OSB mill in Spring City, Tenn.

Lovell Logging maintains a shop and office in Ooltewah where any big time equipment maintenance is performed. Employees start working around 7:30 a.m. each day and generally call it a day around 5 p.m.

They usually work Monday through Friday, but because the rain has been so prevalent the crews have been working any Saturday they possibly can.

The one good thing about all the rain is that the mills have been wide open and Lovell reports his business has plenty of work in front of it.

While the logging operation has been running smoothly over the past couple years, the business still has to deal with the pitfalls that come with working in more populated areas.

“When you’re driving through a developed area to get to the back of a development for phase two of a land clearing a lot of people don’t understand that we cleared phase one two

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The Lovells prefer to buy used machines from other loggers; their newest piece is this 2014 Deere.

years ago,” Lovell explains. “We had a lady drive up to the job one time and say ‘I can’t believe you’re destroying these trees and all the wildlife’ and she lived in phase one of the development that we had cleared two years ago.”

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Iron Lineup Lovell Logging uses mostly used John Deere, Timberjack and Prentice equipment to get the job done in Tennessee. They purchase most of their machines from loggers in south Ala-

bama and south Georgia. Meade Equipment in Chattanooga provides many of the parts the company needs when a machine breaks down or needs an upgrade. Stowers Machinery also helps out with Prentice parts.

Their newest piece of equipment,

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purchased only three months ago, is a 2014 John Deere 748H skidder.

They also have a 2013 648H skidder and a 2012 643K feller-buncher.

Other equipment includes a 2004 Timberjack 460D skidder, 2003 Prentice 410E loader, 2002 410E

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loader and a couple of older John Deere skidders. Lovell prefers to run used equipment so that the business doesn’t have a large payment hanging over its head each month.

This has proved especially beneficial during the rainy winter when the company hasn’t been able to work as much as he would like.

“Buying later model equipment works pretty well for us,” he says.

Oil is changed every 250 hours and machines are greased twice a week. Luckily for Lovell, each of his employees is mechanically inclined and can do a lot of the minor equipment repairs themselves.

Lovell Logging also runs three trucks, a 2004 Peterbilt, 2001 Peterbilt and a 2001 Sterling that pull McLendon, Big John and Pitts trailers. Due to a shortage in truck drivers Clyde Sexton is the lone driver employed by Lovell Logging right now. Lovell finds himself driving a truck on many days, which only adds to his workload. He recently had two prospective drivers turned down by the insurance company because they had tickets on their record from driving their own personal vehicles. Neither one of them had a ticket from driving commercially. This goes to show how tough

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Finding the right drivers can be as much a challenge in Tennessee as it is everywhere else.

it is for new drivers to get started with logging companies.

Lovell has even put out an ad to try to find new drivers, but has had very little luck. “We’ve been looking for some new drivers, but it’s really hard to find qualified people,” Lovell says. “I don’t want to just turn anybody loose in our trucks so we may just have to sell

one of our trucks, keep two and try to find another contractor.”

The company experienced a sharp increase in insurance rates last year following a relatively minor claim of about $1,000.

Many of the log hauls are around 40-50 miles, no more than 80, but when you’re talking about working in urban areas DOT can be a little

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stricter about mud on the roads. The company hasn’t had a major trucking accident involving another vehicle in 15 years, but they did have a driver with a load of pulpwood tip over going around a roundabout.

The truck was totaled, but it was a single vehicle accident.

Each logging crew has two men working on the job. Agustin Rangel

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runs the loader and the feller-buncher for one crew and Rene Sanchez runs the skidder. The other crew is headed up by Charles Bowman, who runs the loader and the fellerbuncher, while Colton Bunch operates the skidder.

Employees receive two weeks paid vacation each year and they get off for all the major holidays. After the company reaches a certain number of loads in a week workers get a bonus for each load after that. Drivers are paid by the hour, but Lovell has paid by the load in the past.

“Right now they want to get paid by the hour,” he says.

Lovell reports that his business has experienced a small amount of equipment vandalism over the years. They’ve had batteries stolen and machines have been spray painted. Rocks have also been thrown through machine windows on a few different occasions. Lovell doesn’t get too upset about it as long as the damage is minimal.

“The problem I’m having is that I have to be in the truck a lot now.”

Lovell spent many summer days with his father in the woods and he learned how to run a logging company by watching his father do it for many years. Howard Sr., 76, is “semi-retired” but still helps out with the business when he can.

After starting a sawmill in 1976 Howard Sr. knew he wanted to get into the logging side of things, but he had to learn on the fly. “He taught me everything I know about

it and it was fun growing up being around my dad and working,” Lovell explains. “We fought a lot back in the day, but probably because we’re too much alike.”

The business appears to be in good shape as Lovell does not have any plans to expand the company anytime soon. If any equipment upgrades are made in the near future he wants to update the loaders, but for now things are going well as the company has enough timber to last through the end of

summer. Lovell does most of the bookkeeping himself while his wife Barbara also helps out.

Lovell has some simple advice for anyone just starting out in the logging industry. “Don’t get in over your head,” he says. “Start small and update when you can.”

Lovell Logging is a member of the Tennessee Forestry Assn. Both Howard Jr. and Howard Sr. were part of the first master logging class the association held back in the SLT early ’90s.

Company Standing Lovell formed Ooltewah Clearing and Grinding with partner Tommy Stafford. They bought a 2410 Peterson grinder and a track hoe to get things started. The operation has since expanded and equipment now includes four track hoes, three dozers, a 4710 Peterson grinder and three trucks. The company has a contract with the city of Chattanooga to grind their urban waste and they also have a contract with Resolute Forest Products to regrind some of their boiler fuel.

The 50-year-old very clearly has his hands full, considering he has two logging crews, a clearing and grinding company, and recently he’s had to drive a log truck on many occasions. “It gets a little hectic sometimes, but we’ve got good personnel on the grinding company and these guys here in the woods are great,” Lovell says.

May 3-4 Is your company in?

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Jack Swanner: 828-421-8444 www.malbexpo.com Southern Loggin’ Times

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The Rose: Living Out The Lyrics The first day of class the college professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being. She said, “Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m 87 years old.

Can I give you a hug?”

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, “Of course you may!” and she gave me a tight squeeze.

“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked.

She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich future husband, get married, and have a couple of kids.”

“No, seriously,” I asked. I was curious as to what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

“I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this ‘time machine’ as she shared her wisdom and experience.

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her 3x5 cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed, she leaned into the microphone and simply said, “I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.”

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began: “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.

“There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

“We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!

“There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

“If you are 19 years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn 20 years old. If I am 87 years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn 88.

“Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

“The elderly usually do not have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.”

She concluded by courageously singing The Rose and then challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives.

Eventually, Rose completed her studies and got her degree. One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over 2,000 college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

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Remember, growing older is mandatory but growing up is optional. We make a Living by what we get. We make a Life by what we give.

Ponder On These I was drinking at a bar, so I took a bus home. That may not seem like a big deal, but I’d never driven a bus.

I thought getting old would take longer.

A wise man once said nothing.

Respect your elders. They completed high school and college without the Internet.

Why do I have to press 1 for English. Did America move?

We have enough gun control. What we need is idiot control.

Behind every angry woman stands a man who has absolutely no idea what he did wrong.

Patience is what we have when there are too many witnesses.

Let’s stop sending money to other countries and let them hate us for free.

Vegetarian is an ancient tribal name for the village slacker who could not hunt, fish or light a fire.

I look at some people and sometimes think…really? That’s the sperm that won?

If guns kill people then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk and spoons make people fat.

My decision-making skills closely resemble those of a squirrel when crossing the road.

Some things are just better left unsaid, and I usually realize it right after I say them.

We owe illegal aliens nothing; we owe our veterans everything.

Camping is where you spend a small fortune to live like a homeless person.

If money is the root of all evil, why do churches beg for it?

‘Reaganisms’ Worth Remembering “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.”

“Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.”

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

“Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.”

“I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.”

“The taxpayer is someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.”

“Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this planet is a government program.”

“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”

“Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.”

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops, subsidize it.”

“No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.”

“If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

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World Of Roads Photo Essay

North Yungas Road, Bolivia— With no guardrails protecting drivers from a potential 2,000-foot plunge off a cliff, this 12foot wide ribbon is known as the Death Road because it claims more than 200 lives each year.

U.S. 129 at Deals Gap—Starting at the NC/Tennessee border, this 11-mile stretch is said to have 318 curves, some nicknamed Pearly Gates, Brake or Bust Bend, and Gravity Cavity.

Dalton Highway, Alaska—The History Channel’s ‘Ice Road Truckers’ series focuses in part on this remote 414-mile road, built in the 1970s to bring supplies along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

Hawaii Highway 200—A combination of fog, narrow lanes, and a series of one-lane bridges once made this road so dangerous that some rental car companies forbade customers from using it.

California Highway 1—Known for stunning views and steep drop-offs, the highway crosses numerous bridges, one of which soars 280 feet above the Bixby Creek Gorge in Big Sur.

Trollstigen, Norway—The one-lane route is known for its 11 hair-raising hairpin curves and steep, 9% gradient and is a popular tourist attraction during summer months.

Stelvio Pass, Italy—The second highest paved road in the Alps climbs to just over 9,000 feet and has gradients as steep as 14%, not to mention 60 hairpin turns packed into just 15 miles.

Guoliang Tunnel Road, China—Carved by hand, this twoway road is merely 13 feet across and features steep drop-offs to one side and dips and twists at unexpected angles where the rock was easiest to remove.

Tianmen Shan Big Gate Road, China—This route is said to have 99 curves that symbolize the nine palaces of Heaven.

Colorado Highway 82—At 12,100 feet above sea level at Independence Pass in the Rocky Mountains, this route is full of steep drop-offs, tight curves and narrow stretches that can accommodate only one car at a time.

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operator/topper had 5 years of experience with other employers. He was considered an experienced chain saw operator, but was not wearing the required personal protective equipment.

Skidder Operator Cuts Leg When Topping Tree BACKGROUND: In the southeastern U.S., a logging crew was select cutting grade logs. Most trees were felled with a three-

wheeled feller-buncher, but oversized trees and timber in the SMZ’s were manually felled. One employee—the skidder operator—limbed

and topped the felled timber.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS: The 40-year-old skidder

UNSAFE ACT AND CONDITION: He failed to put on his chaps before he topped the tree. He started to cut an 8-in. diameter, 15ft. limb from the tree. The operator stood on the wrong (tension) side of the stem as he cut the limb and failed to recognize that this limb was under pressure.

ACCIDENT: When he completed the cut, the tension (stored energy) of the limb was released, and the limb forcefully struck the chain saw. This forced the saw onto the operator’s left leg below the knee.

INJURY: Since he did not wear chaps and he stood on the side of the limb that was under tension, the chain saw cut into his lower left leg, causing a severe laceration and chipping his shin bone. He required surgery to remove the bone fragments.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CORRECTION: Employers must ensure that chain saw operators wear all personnel protective equipment.

Chain saw operators must keep their bodies out of the danger zone. Operators can often position themselves to use the tree trunk as a shield against “loaded” limbs striking the legs.

Use a limb-lock to prevent the sudden release of tension wood.

Make the first cut on the side with compression pressure and the second cut on the side with tension, slightly offsetting and bypassing the first cut so that it creates a step in the limb which will prevent the limb from kicking back when it breaks.

Supplied by Forest Resources Assn.

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Mid-Atlantic Expo Slated May 3-4

Loader contests are planned by John Woodie Enterprises and Caterpillar.

Tigercat and its merchandise are always big attractions.

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housands of forest industry professionals and related vendors will converge in Scotland County, NC (some 10 miles northwest of Laurinburg) for the fourth Mid-Atlantic Logging & Biomass Expo. The event gets underway at 8 a.m. Friday, May 3 and concludes Saturday afternoon, May 4.

Scores of companies, associations, agencies and product brands will be represented at the biennial event, which formerly was held near Selma-Smithfield, NC. One reason for the new location is the exceptional site and timber stand made available by Shoeheel Land Management, according to Jack Swanner, Expo Manager. “I’ve been associated with the expo ever since the first one in 2011 and this site is by far the best one yet,” he says. “It’s pristine. The 40-year-old pine stand has been thinned twice. There’s very little understory and the site is very sandy, so rain should not be a problem. Since the stand is set to be cleared and replanted, live exhibitors will be allowed to cut as many trees as they wish. And the cooperation and assistance from the landowner and Shoeheel Land Management has been over the top.”

In addition to watching harvesting machines and attachments offered by John Deere, Waratah, Barko, TimberPro, Caterpillar, Tigercat, CSI and others, attendees

can check out at least two brands of chippers—Morbark and Bandit— not to mention trucks, trailers, vans, weigh scales, tires and other products and services.

“We still have some static sites and tent booths available but they are going fast,” notes Swanner.

A new attraction certain to pump up the excitement this year is the Lumberjack Sports competition organized and conducted by the South Atlantic Woodmen’s Assn.

After going through practice demos on Friday, experienced competitors on Saturday will compete in six different events. They will work their way through heats, semi-finals and finals involving log chopping with axes and log cutting with cross-cut saws and super modified chain saws. These gifted athletes always amaze crowds with their strength, endurance and skill.

The Lumberjack Sports event is being sponsored by Canal Wood, LLC, the largest wood procurement company in the Southeast and which has a distinct footprint in the area. “Canal’s sponsorship of this event indicates the level of excitement the local communities have about the expo coming to Scotland County,” Swanner relates. “They welcome it and want it to return every two years.”

Charity related loader contests conducted on the sites of Caterpillar and John Woodie Enterprises will add additional levels of interest. Also, the Carolina Loggers Assn. hopes to put together a Guess The Weight charity fundraiser centered around two loaded log trucks.

Children’s activities will include a giant inflated replica of Smokey the Bear, provided by the NC Forest Service, and a closely supervised BB rifle competition provided by the National Wild Turkey Federation.

Lumberjack Sports competition features super modified chain saws.

Registration at the gate is 34

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$25 per adult but pre-registration (open through April 18) is only $20 per adult. Visit malbexpo.com to pre-register and to find lodging information.

Exhibitors and brands enlisted as of mid-March included CBI/Terex; John Woodie Enterprises/Barko/ TimberPro, Caterpillar/Gregory Poole/Carolina CAT, Tigercat/CTW Equipment, Bullock Brothers Equipment, John Deere/James River Equipment/Morbark, Bandit, Ditch Witch of the Carolinas, Forestry Mutural Ins. Co., Carolina Freightliner, H&H Freightliner, ATG Tire, Cutting Systems, Virginia Loggers Assn., Commercial Credit Corp., HattonBrown Publishers, Carolina Loggers

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Assn., NC Forestry Assn., NC Forest Service, Southeastern Agency/ BITCO Insurance; Lilley International, American International Distributors, GCR Tires & Service, MaxiLoad Scale Systems, Royal Oil Co., Benchmark Tool, Transource, Olofsfors, Chambers Delimbinator, Colony Tire, Loggershop, Nokian/Timberland Tires, Pinnacle Trailers, Tractor Tracs, Triple T Truck, Diesel Equipment Co., Black’s Tire, and Schaeffer Mfg. To download an exhibitor guide, visit malbexp.com.

Sponsors of the expo are the Carolina Loggers Assn., NC Forestry Assn. and Hatton-Brown SLT Publishers.

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CLA Annual Meeting: Blue Ribbon Event

Younger logger panel, from left: Zack Myers, Jason Tew and A.J. Keating

By DK Knight WILMINGTON, NC hen it all came to an end late Saturday night, February 23, it’s likely that 99% of those who participated in the annual meeting of the Carolina Loggers Assn. (CLA) chalked it up as a blue ribbon event.

Add it up: record participation from attendees and sponsors, a lively kick-off reception, an information packed program, a Q&A logger panel, numerous awards presentations, hilarious entertainment, fundraiser auction for two charities, and good food, all coalescing around the organization’s new and enlivened leadership and direction.

The meeting was themed ‘Your Voice Matters: One’ and unfolded with new CLA Executive Director Ewell Smith’s vision for the organization, which he summed up in merely five words: positive, possibilities, faith, action, and experi-

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ence. He pointed to the state’s impressive forest industry economic impact ($32 billion annually) and described the highlevel marketing accom★ plishments of a consortium of Gulf Coast seafood interests in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, contending that CLA has even greater potential to do likewise in the forest sector. He challenged his organization’s membership to “begin owning your story.”

He listed several recent and new developments that are helping move CLA forward, including Logs For The Cause disaster relief efforts, new CLA logo and magazine (Carolina Logger), a pilot tire program through Michelin, the Pro Trucker driver program, and lobbying in Washington in tandem with the American Loggers Council. “We’re looking for ways to bring value to our members; we want to focus on solutions, not dwell on problems,” he said.

Smith turned his microphone

Forestry Mutual presented its 2018 E.K. Pittman Safety and Logger of the Year Award to J.M. Williams Timber Co. Jimmie Williams and wife Kelsey were all smiles.

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The meeting drew record participation from loggers and vendors.

over to CLA President Chip Capps and the CLA board, members of which recognized former association president Billy Corey and thanked him for his tireless work in helping sustain and grow CLA in its earlier years.

Rouzer, Bissette, Cupp NC Congressman David Rouzer, a conservative pro-business Republican (7th District), briefly addressed the group, saying that both state and federal governments are prone to pass regulations “that get in the way of common sense,”

Michael Walters, Claybourn Walters Logging, received the Political Activism Award.

and adding, “We need to get back to God and common sense. President Trump is doing the right things. He may be unorthodox but he is right on. Our job is to preserve the American spirit and dream.” He encouraged loggers to remain conservative and thanked them for their collective faith, work ethic and contributions to their local economies.

After Scott Bissette, Assistant Commissioner of the NC Forest Service, gave an overview of that agency, Dave Cupp, President of Walsh Timber Co., Zwolle, La., described the severe problems sur-

Keith Biggs, left, President of Forestry Mutual, accepted the CLA Sponsorship Award from CLA Executive Director Ewell Smith.

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Kenny Cain, right, accepted the Humanitarian Award from CLA President Chip Capps.

Jason Tew, left, accepted the Eastern Horizon Award from Forestry Mutual’s Chris Huff.

rounding log transportation in Louisiana and how his state is implementing driver training developed by TEAM Safe Trucking. With insurance premiums skyrocketing and insurance availability dwindling, and after state police in a blitz stopped 39 log trucks and put 40% of them out of service in early 2018, the Louisiana Forestry Assn. and Louisiana Logging Council moved to try to begin changing the situation, he said. It quickly formed and funded a political action committee and last May conducted driver training for a group of 75 truck owners and drivers in one of the logging council’s seven districts. That training is being extended to all districts this year, he said.

On a more general note, Cupp told the group: “You are the new Green Deal; take advantage of it.

Develop a campaign to raise awareness about our industry. I encourage all of you to come up with a 30-second elevator speech about what you do and to share it.”

together.” He also said that studies indicate the most successful loggers focus on continuous improvement by challenging the established process, looking for ways to tweak efficiency, build and retain their teams, improve working conditions, and strengthen margins.

In a program ‘extra’ that drew lots of comments afterward, Knight also hosted a logger panel, asking operational and business questions to relatively young businessmen Zack Myers, Select Timber Services, Inc., Cleveland, NC; Jason Tew, NRFP Logging, LLC, Princeton, NC; and A.J. Keating, Summit Logging, LLC, St. Pauls, NC.

River Timber Co. Lumberton, NC; Eastern Horizon Award, Jason Tew, Princeton, NC; Piedmont Horizon Award, Chris Jordan, Chris Jordan Hauling, Mt. Gilead, NC; and Western Horizon Award, Kyle St. Clair, Moravian Falls, NC. North Carolina comedian/farmer Jerry Carroll provided after dinner entertainment on Saturday night.

This was followed by an auction that raised more than $20,000 for Log A Load for Kids and more than $5,000 for Logs For The Cause.

Sponsors of the meeting were as follows: Platinum Level—Forestry Mutual Ins. Co., James River Equipment, CTW Equipment Co., Tigercat. Gold Level—Michelin, Bullock Brothers Equipment, MHC Kenworth. Silver Level—Pinnacle Trailer, Enviva, Bandit/CTW Equipment. Bronze Level—Shealy Truck Center, J.P. Thomas & Co., Diesel Laptops, DC Heavy Hydraulics, Gregory Poole Equipment, BITCO Insurance Companies, Farm Credit Associations of NC, Carolina Cat, Bodenhamer Farms & Nursery, and Snider Fleet SLT Solutions.

Setliff, Knight

regarding markets, then talked about the logging sector’s current status and trends and suggested some steps loggers could take to strengthen both harvesting and trucking.

He said the distinctions between traditional logging companies and timber brokerage companies have become blurred in the 21st century and that the trend continues toward fewer but larger wood fiber supplier concerns. “In many respects, I believe logging will follow the farming model, meaning fewer but larger entities that are higher capitalized, more intricate, and centrally-managed. Over time, they could become the industry’s dominant supplier model,” he said.

Knight said there is no slamdunk solution to the transportation dilemma but encouraged truck owners “to do all they can to operate by the book and not give lawyers a weak or neglected area to exploit.” Likewise, he urged loggers to spent lots of time and energy on people, “creating a culture where employees are respected, trusted and listened to, one in which they share values and pull

Virginia transportation defense attorney Stephen Setliff captivated the audience with his presentation titled ‘The Sharks Are in The Water, Are You?’ in which he went through the complicated process surrounding truck accidents, driver behavior, evidence protection, investigations and the legal battles that typically follow. Declaring that “there is no such thing as a minor truck accident,” he succinctly summed it up: “You’re playing Russian roulette every day. What you get to do is determine how many bullets you put in your gun.”

DK Knight, Co-Publisher and Executive Editor for Hatton-Brown Publishers, presented an overview of the national timber harvest, pulpwood and log markets, and trends

CLA Executive Director Ewell Smith, in coat, presented Horizon Awards to both Kyle St. Clair (Western), far left, and Chris Jordan (Piedmont).

Award Winners, Sponsors CLA’s award winners were as follows: E.K. Pittman Logger of the Year Safety Award, J.M. Williams Timber Co., Apex, NC; Political Activism Award, Michael Walters, Claybourn Walters Logging Co., Proctorville, NC; Sponsorship Award, Keith Biggs, Forestry Mutual Ins. Co., Raleigh, NC; Humanitarian Award, Kenny Cain, Lumber

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The Long Way ■ Logging wasn’t his first plan, but Hardy Rhodes found his way back to his roots the long way ‘round.

By David Abbott FORDYCE, Ark. n 2013, the longrunning British ★ TV series Doctor Who marked its 50th anniversary with the special episode entitled “The Day of the Doctor.” In the final scene of that episode, the titular Doctor, at this point played by actor Matt Smith (many others have portrayed the character since the show’s inception in 1963), mused about how it took him some time and a few false starts before he finally realized where he’d belonged all

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Hardy Rhodes

along. He said, “I have a new destination. My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone’s. It’s

taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I’m going, where I’ve always been going: home…the long way’round.”

Logger Hardy Rhodes probably has little in common with a fictional time-traveling alien in a British science fiction series, but even so, he might can relate to the Doctor’s sentiment. It’s been 15 years now that Rhodes, 47, has been running his company, Hardy Rhodes Trucking LLP, and 20 since he went back to working in the woods full-time.

In fact, he’s been around logging since his earliest memories. Like many loggers, Rhodes grew up in a logging family, but unlike a lot of

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his peers, it wasn’t his first career choice. Far from it; in fact for a long time, it was his last choice.

His father, Hardy Rhodes, Sr., was a logger, as were both his uncles. He had no interest in following in the family tradition though.

“This was his love,” the junior Hardy Rhodes admits. “I wanted no part in it. I told my dad when I was 17 to stop taking me to the woods because I didn’t want to work in the woods. It wasn’t for me.”

Instead, Rhodes had a different life in mind: growing up, he wanted to be a nurse. To that end he joined the military to get his training, entering the Navy as a hospital corps-

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man. Unfortunately, he was able to serve for only a little more than six months when an injury to his right knee ended his military career. With that door closed, Rhodes went home and started trying to find a way to make ends meet.

Like Al Pacino’s iconic character Don Michael Corleone said of his family’s business in Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia epic The Godfather Part III, “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.”

Rhodes echoes the sentiment. “I kept getting pulled back in,” he says of logging. “It was already in my blood, so I knew what to do.”

Still, he didn’t fall back on the family business right away. First, he spent almost two years working at the Burlington rug mill in Monticello. During that time he married his high school sweetheart, Veronica, and started a family. Her father, Welton Green, was also a logger. Green asked Rhodes if he’d like to come run a new cutter he’d recently acquired at that time.

Needing to make some extra money to support his growing family, Rhodes agreed, and for the

next two years he manned the feller-buncher during the day while working at the rug mill at night. He quickly discovered that he had a real natural talent for running a cutter in pine plantation first thinning applications.

Around 2002, the logging job was still leaving a lot of wood on the ground in the slash pile. His father-in-law commented once, “If a man had a little shortwood truck, he could come get free wood.”

Rhodes recalls, “It tickled my

SLT SNAPSHOT Hardy Rhodes Trucking, LLP Fordyce, Ark. Email: hardyrhodes@ymail.com Founded: 2004 Owner: Hardy Rhodes No. Crews: 4, but currently consolidated into three Employees: 20 Equipment: 5 loaders, 4 skidders, 3 cutters, 9 trucks and 9 trailers Production: 100 loads per week Average Haul Distance: 40 miles Tidbit: Rhodes grew up in a logging family, as did his wife, but he wanted to be a nurse, and joined the Navy after high school to get his training. However, an injury cut that career short, and so, after working elsewhere for a few years, he eventually found his way back into the woods.

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The logger frequently duals up tires on skidders and cutters.

Rhodes uses a mix of several brands throughout the crews: Deere, Cat and Tigercat.

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mind.” He knew a man who had said he would sell his old truck for $1,500, and throw a Jonesred chainsaw in with the deal. “I didn’t have anything at this point, so I asked my mom to cosign a loan for me.” He bought the shortwood truck and started hauling extra wood on the side. It was then that he really began to recognize and become intrigued by the business opportunities presented by

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logging. “That was how I got my hands into it and really got the sawdust in my blood,” he smiles.

It was the genesis of Hardy Rhodes Trucking, LLP. Rhodes had been taking vocational-technical classes, including one on the pulp and paper business.

His teacher in that class, Linda Manis, also worked in human resources for Potlatch Corp., and recommended him for a job at that

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Weyerhaeuser Crew 1, left to right: Liborio “Libo” Herrarr, Jose Chavez, Kenneth Moore and Uriel Fajardo-Luna

Weyerhaeuser Crews 2 and 3, combined, left to right: Hugo Gomez, Adrian Valdez, Cerfin Matmmoros, Kerry Simmons; not pictured, Frederick Rainey

Potlatch crew: Sylvester Daniels, Kenneth Dailey, Billy Don Christian, Fernando Simpson

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MidSouth Forestry Equipment in Warren is the dealer for his Tigercat pieces.

company’s paper mill in Warren.

“She changed my whole life,” he says. He ended up working at Potlatch for nine years while building his trucking company.

Potlatch put him on 12-hour shifts, so that he worked 15 days and then had 15 days off. He used his days off to go back to truck driving school and finish his CDL. Then, he bought an 18-wheel truck with a pole trailer, allowing him to haul more than just short wood on his off days. He was hauling for logger Shannon Lassiter and soon added a second truck and driver, Gary Lynn Harris.

When he was 32, almost 14 years after it took him out of the Navy, that injured knee finally had to be replaced with an artificial one. His doctor warned him that if he didn’t stop the kind of work he was doing at the paper mill, which kept him standing up or crawling on his knees frequently, he’d end up having to have the other one replaced, too. Knowing that he was going to

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have to quit the mill, he decided it was time to start his own logging crew. He knew Harold Smith, the owner of Monticello-based timber dealer Silvicraft, Inc., and he knew that Silvicraft needed to put on another thinning crew, so he went to the owner and told him of his intentions. Smith agreed to back him. It took a $350 thousand investment for him to get in the business. He started with a Timberjack skidder, Timberking loader and a Hydro-Ax 411 EX cutter, along with the two log trucks he already owned.

Growth After nine years with Silvicraft, Rhodes accepted an offer to log for Potlatch. Later, he saw an opportunity to get some work with Plum Creek, but he didn’t want to lose his contract with Potlatch. So, though he wasn’t looking to expand, he decided to start a second crew just to get on with Plum Creek while continuing his Potlatch contract with the other crew. “I wasn’t trying to do it, it just happened,” he laughs. After Plum Creek merged with Weyerhaeuser, they asked if he could up production, so he started the third job. A few years later, when all of Potlatch’s land was too wet to work, he put all three crews on Weyerhaeuser jobs. However, this solution soon presented a new problem.

Because Weyerhaeuser had supply agreements to send all its first thinning pulpwood to the then-new Highland Pellets mill in Pine Bluff, Rhodes’ trucks were getting bottlenecked with only going to one mill.

Potlatch had commitments with other mills, especially the GeorgiaPacific OSB plant in Fordyce.

Diversifying again to take full advantage of all opportunities, Rhodes fired up some of the old equipment he still had and set up a fourth crew to stay with Potlatch.

That arrangement—three crews on Weyerhaeuser land, one on Potlatch—is still working out well for Rhodes. When Southern Loggin’ Times visited all four of Rhodes’ crews last year, three of them were working on different parts of the same 319-acre Weyerhaeuser block, a 17-year-old first thinning pine plantation located near

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Fordyce, a community known for having been the hometown of iconic University of Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. The fourth crew, committed to Potlatch

jobs, was working closer to Monticello. As of early 2019, however, the Potlatch crew has been consolidated into one of the Weyerhaeuser crews and all are working on Wey-

erhaeuser land at the moment. This is because of the heavy rainfall this winter; Rhodes says Potlatch doesn’t have any land for him dry enough to work.

Generally, the Weyerhaeuser crews haul pine pulpwood to Highland Pellets in Pine Bluff, and the Potlatch crew sends its pine pulp to the G-P OSB plant in Fordyce. All crews send chip-n-saw to Victory Lumber in Camden and West Fraser in Leola, and WLS Sawmill, Inc. in Benton.

The crews each average 25-30 loads per week in first thinning jobs.

Equipment The crews have equipment mostly from 2015 or newer. Crew 1 has a 2017 John Deere 648L Deere

The members of the shop crew (from left: Jonathan Green, Hardy Rhodes, Cedric Hudson and Welton Green) are a close-knit, hands-on team.

The shop team handles most repairs.

May 3-4 Is your company in?

Your competition is.

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Most of the Rhodes equipment is no older than 2015.

Riggs Cat in El Dorado has sold him several pieces.

skidder, Cat 559 loader with CSI slasher/delimber package, and Tigercat 720 cutter with Quadco teeth on the saw head. Crews 2 and 3, working together, use Cat 525 and Tigercat 620 skidders, a Tigercat 720 cutter and three Deere loaders: two 437Ds to merchandise while a 437C loads trucks. The fourth crew uses a ’16 Deere 648L skidder, Cat 579 loader and Tigercat 718 cutter.

Along with contract haulers as needed, Rhodes has nine trucks of his own: seven Peterbilt 389 models, one Kenworth, and a 2000 model Freightliner, the same one that got him started; it is used now just for moving equipment. Five of the Peterbilts run Cummins engines, 500HP, while the other two have Detroit Fitzgerald glider kits. The Kenworth has a C15 Cat engine and the Freightliner has a C12 Cat. All run on Eaton transmissions. Rhodes runs six Viking drop deck trailers, all 2015-16 models, a 2010 Pitts drop deck and a 1999 OT trailer, the one he started with. He also has a Viking lowboy.

Tires are Firestone: 24-5s and 22-5s on trucks, 30.5 on cutters with 28L on the outside when running duals, and on the skidders, 35.5 inside with 30.5 outside.

The total investment, counting trucks and machines together, is $3.2 million. Stribling Equipment in Monticello (John Deere), Riggs Cat in El Dorado and MidSouth Forestry Equipment in Warren (Tigercat) are the equipment deal-

Moore, Cameron Sargent and Cody Williams. As with most loggers these days, Rhodes admits hiring truck drivers is a challenge. “It seems like everybody has the same problem,” he says—namely, that good, insurable, reliable drivers are in high demand and short supply.

“It is a small pool and everybody is competing over trying to hire them.

My turnover in the woods is maybe 25%, but in trucking it might be 75%,” he admits.

In keeping with Weyerhaeuser’s strict safety requirements, the crews have meetings every Monday to go over safety concerns. Rhodes is proud to say that he has never had a major accident in the woods.

The only significant injury the business ever suffered was to Rhodes himself nine years ago, and it was at home. He was working on a damaged Tigercat 718 cutter, removing the pins with a 12 lbs. sledgehammer. The pin came out under such tension that it hit him, cracking his sternum, collapsing a lung and breaking three ribs. He spent five days in the hospital and was back to work in the woods in under two weeks—though he wasn’t supposed to be. He would sneak out to the woods to work after his wife left for her job, coming home before she got back. ”I figured it out after a few days, when I noticed all his clothes were dirty,” she says. His daughters actually ended up telling on him. The injury happened on a Sunday. “Peo-

ers for Rhodes. He buys his trucks from Peterbilt Truck Center of Little Rock and his trailers from MidSouth Forestry in Warren. All the insurance for the operation is through Merchant and Planters Insurance Agencies in Warren.

Operators handle routine maintenance, including greasing and changing oil regularly. Rhodes sends warranty repair back to the dealers, but for everything else he looks to his full-time shop crew in Fordyce, overseen by his father-inlaw Welton Green. Retired from the woods after 35 years in it, Green, 77, now spends his days in the shop with Jonathan Green, Cedric Hudson and Billy Neal.

Manpower Rhodes still has many of the employees who started with him 15 years ago, along with a few newer faces who have recently been added to the mix. Woods employees include Libo Herrarr, Abby Male, Jose Chavez, Hugo Gomez, Cerfin Matmmoros, Kerry Simmons, Fred Rainey, Adrian Valdez and Billy Don Christian. Another, Danny Daniels, has been with Rhodes since he first went to work in the woods.

Now almost 60, Daniels keeps up with dozer work on the roads and fills in on skidders as needed. “He’s my go-to man,” Rhodes says.

Truck drivers include Roy Smith, Wanda Owens, Derrick (DJ) Jumarcus, Fernando Simpson, Kenneth

Rhodes started his business as a trucking venture, and still runs his own trucks today.

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ple kept telling me to stop working on Sundays,” he recalls. “I guess God was sending me a message. So now we try really hard not to work on Sundays.”

Rhodes and his wife Veronica were high school sweethearts and have been married now for 27 years.

Veronica was a manager at a bank for 19 years until just a few years ago, when she came home to help with the business. “We’re partners,” she says, noting that she does all the bookkeeping, payroll and bills. Having grown up with her own father in the business, she had some idea what to expect when her husband became a logger. “Well, I knew a little bit,” she says. They have three daughters: Mia, 25, Chelsea, 24, and M’leia 17, along with a granddaughter, Haley, 1. Chelsea just finished college and is going to grad school for sports medicine.

Rhodes lives in Monticello but has his office and shop about 40 miles away, in downtown Fordyce.

Outside hangs a sign that shows an image of a log trucker outside his truck, kneeling to the cross of Jesus.

Rhodes says one of his truck drivers made it for him as a gift. He put it up as a kind of encouragement to the community, he says. He serves as a deacon at Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Monticello. The pastor, Rev. D.J. Buffet, works as a crane operator during the week. Rhodes is also a Freemason and a member of the Arkansas TimSLT ber Producers Assn.

Rhodes now operates over $3 million of equipment.

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Lumber, More Lumber ■ Georgia-Pacific starts up its first of three new southern yellow pine sawmills.

By Rich Donnell TALLADEGA, Ala. n September 2017 ★ Georgia-Pacific announced it was building a new southern yellow pine sawmill at the site of an idled plywood facility in Tallade-

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ga. That was just the beginning.

Within a span of 11 months, GP announced new sawmills at Talladega, Warrenton, Ga. and Albany, Ga. No one has had a better view of these developments than Fritz Mason, vice president and general manager of GP Lumber.

Mason, from northern California, had joined GP in 1999, after

working for Oregon-based Hampton Affiliates, an experience that included his first taste of southern pine lumber manufacturing working with Hampton’s lumber facilities in Alabama and Texas. He had moved to GP headquarters in Atlanta in 2005, shortly before privately held Koch Industries purchased publicly held GP.

Georgia-Pacific has long been known for investing in its production facilities.

In 2004 Koch had purchased GP pulp mills in Brunswick, Ga. and New Augusta, Miss. Koch was also interested in GP’s building products business, and in 2005 expressed an interest in buying it, but was turned down. That’s when Koch Industries responded with an offer to purchase all of Georgia-Pacific, and a deal was struck and finalized in December 2005.

Mason recalls that feeling upon Koch’s acquisition of GP: here is a company that has long-term vision and is known for its profit reinvestment in operations. However, when Koch Industries came in, GP had gone somewhat thin in engineering capability and human resource. One way to alter that course is acquisition of facilities and personnel, which in April 2007 the “new” GP commenced with the purchase of several lumber and plywood complexes from International Paper, including lumber plants at Gurdon, Ark. and Camden, Tex. The great recession soon hit home, but out of the gate GP began investing strongly in continuous kilns and grading optimization at its sawmills, and then in 2013 took it up a notch with the purchase of Temple-Inland Building Products from International Paper. The sale included several modernized lumber production facilities as well as a heavy influx of talented personnel.

GP also purchased a timbers mill from RoyOMartin in Alabama in 2015. And in 2016 completed a major upgrade of its sawmill in Gurdon, Ark. “We got mature enough to where we said ‘let’s start to leverage our wood products business,’” Mason says. “When we went for board approval on the Talladega project is when we jelled around building multiple mills fast.”

First up would be a $100 million, 300MMBF annual production facility at the former plywood site in Talladega.

Digging In GP had built and started up the plywood mill at Talladega in 1975.

A unique aspect of the location is that two rail lines, CSX and Norfolk Southern, service the plant. GP closed the mill in 2008 but main-

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Feeding logs from the wood yard; hog bins at back; CSX rail line in background

Logs are broken down to cants, sideboards and chips at the infeed.

tained plans to restart it, until 2016 when opting to permanently shut it down. The buildings on site covered more than 200,000 sq. ft. It had been “cannibalized” a little bit, but was mostly in place when the sawmill project began.

GP sold some of the machinery and moved out 12 million pounds of scrap metal and debris. It tore down one of the three barrel buildings, gutted the other two and replaced all of the plywood decking and a few bad joists. The 120 ft. bow trusses were all in good condition.

The wood yard for the plywood mill was cleaned down to the concrete and more concrete added in order to enlarge it. They also added a switch to improve service ability from CSX and resurrected the railroad tracks to put them back in shape.

Lots of concrete for roads was poured. They moved 70,000 yards of dirt to fill where the dry kilns and lumber sheds would be installed on the back end of the mill.

In September 2017, the week after GP announced its plan to build the lumber facility, it announced its selection of BID Group as the turnkey supplier, including the construction of the facility and the installation of machinery.

BID Group had recently come on strong in the South with a successful installation and startup of the new Biewer Lumber sawmill in Newton, Miss. followed by the new Two Rivers Lumber sawmill in Demopolis, Ala. Originally founded as a construction firm in British Columbia, BID had purchased several machinery manufacturer companies, opened a facility in South Carolina and had proven at Biewer and Two Rivers that it could build and start up a new, high production, high technology mill in a very precisely scheduled, abbreviated timeline.

BID put up the new buildings for the sawmill and lumber sheds at Talladega (bringing total square footage under roof to 300,000), refurbished the two barrel buildings, offices and shops, and put down the concrete foundations that

MBM further focuses on virtue, double unscramble and run into a talents, and incentives. All of this 20 ft. transverse laser scanner and is geared toward an individual and electric trimmer. Lumber enters a an organization’s growth and fulsorter and then moves to a highfillment. speed electric stacker.

Those characteristics or the With emphasis on safe traffic patpotential to achieve them and grow terns, five Taylor XH360L forklifts with them were what GP was lookhandle rough lumber including feeding two 220 ft. Deltech continu- ing for—either from within the company or outside of it—as it ous lumber dry kilns, with a third pulled together its staff of 140 at continuous kiln currently going in.

Talladega, including 110 hourly The kilns run on gas burners. employees. “We knew that developOther rolling stock includes six ing a team is the key to our success, Hyster H155FT forklifts for handling finished lumber, two Caterpil- so the people who were going to lar 236 skid steer loaders, as well as lead that, we had to have a high degree of confidence in,” Mason two Genie cranes and two Skyjack scissor lifts.

Dried lumber is loaded into the planer mill and runs to a Miller 6-roll planer and accumulates into a Comact GradExpert automated grader, and into an electric trimmer. Those pieces move into another sorter and to a Comact stacker. The mill operates two Signode strapping machines and Samuel ink jet grade marker and two Samuel ST10 automatic package tag systems, which print the package label and sta- On the dry end, Comact provides automated grader, trimmer, sorter and stacker. ple it to the package. says, while referring to GP RegionGP is considering investing in a centrally located filing room to han- al Operations Manager over lumber dle the cutting tools from each of its operations, Tracy Smith; and Katie Kwilos, GP Human Resource Manthree new sawmills. ager, as two who were in place at the beginning.

Workforce Culture Kwilos worked at GP mills in “Building a plant like this is not Arkansas and Texas before coming the hard part,” Mason comments. to Talladega in November 2017 to “It’s how you play the game every lead the hiring effort. A lot of planday.” ning went in on the front end so that Mason is referring to the impornot only were they hiring the right tance of a skilled workforce that’s people, but were bringing them in at operating the mill, and also the culthe appropriate time. ture that permeates the workforce, “As part of our market-based which trickles down into daily permanagement philosophy we believe formance on the mill floor. in hiring for virtue, and we want to When Koch purchased GP it hire people whose beliefs are simimeant the old GP would transition lar to ours,” Kwilos says. “We had a into Koch’s well known Marketlot of hires who were out of the Based Management (MPM), based industry per se. But they had the on principles such as integrity and core values we were looking for.” humility and self-actualization.

Indeed only a handful of the

supported their equipment, and installed and started up the equipment. BID brought some Canadian turnkey thinking to the project, with as much work as possible done in the BID shops in order to minimize the work at the mill.

Of course BID’s sawmill machinery itself had to appease GP, and with the Biewer Newton mill up and running well, GP stuck to the template. “We have tried to keep it very similar to the Newton plant,” Mason says. “We wanted the ability to start it up without a lot of experimenting.”

Lumber Manufacturing GP is going after 2x4s to 2x12s at its new lumber production facility in Talladega. To produce them the mill relies on an open market of fiber supply, much of which has been simply standing and growing since the plywood mill shut down in 2008. GP hasn’t owned timberland since it sold its Timber Company business to Plum Creek in 2001.

Locals are glad to again hear and see the rumble of about 150 log trucks daily after a 10-year absence.

Log yard mobile equipment includes two Caterpillar 988K wheel loaders, a Cat 938M wheel loader and a Liebherr LH50M material handler.

Logs are loaded on the deck to a 22 in. ring debarker. Bark from the debarker is conveyed to a Brunette Grizzly Hog station. Debarked logs continue through a metal detector and a scanner for log cutup readings, and proceed to a four-saw stem trimmer for producing 20 ft. length log pieces.

A log turner positions the log and it moves onto a Comact optimized length infeed (OLI-CS3) for rescanning and breakdown into chips and lumber with a chipping canter profiling system and large log quad circular saws.

The cant comes off the sharp chain, is turned on its side, scanned and enters a Comact 12 in. double arbor curve-sawing gang. Side boards from the OLI and lumber from the gang accumulate toward a

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existing workforce has sawmill experience. Meanwhile Franklin Castillo had no sawmill experience, but close to it, when GP moved him from his position as plant manager at the GP plywood mill in Warm Springs, Ga. to plant manager at Talladega.

Complementing GP’s culture is its emphasis on becoming an employer of choice. “We’re saying we want to be a place that people want to come to work, but are we willing to do the things that make it that?” Mason comments. “A lot of

us have come from the old school.

We have a long way to go but we’re getting there.”

One area of emphasis that quickly gets a potential hire’s attention is the emphasis on safety. “People accuse us of going overboard at times with safety,” Mason says.

“But we don’t back off of that commitment.”

One example is the flow of the plant so that there are fewer places where mobile equipment and pedestrian personnel have to interact or cross each other. The mill makes it

mandatory for workers to stand on platforms while performing machinery maintenance. It has implemented more robust controls for suppressing an ignition source of combustible dust. The mill has a very effective access button/key removal safety system at machine center gates that includes a double key reinsertion in order to resume production. The guarding around machinery is also more extensive than at many mills.

The MBM philosophy includes incentives and GP Talladega

The mill underwent extensive renovation.

GP is planning similar projects at mills in Georgia.

Fritz Mason is overseeing G-P’s lumber push. Katie Kwilos leads Talladega’s human resource program. Plant Manager Franklin Castillo likes the personnel they’ve assembled.

believes strongly in rewarding salary and hourly personnel for their “above and beyond” “continuous improvement” contributions, and the incentive amount varies.

One example is the “spot bonus,” and an example of how that works is when a GP employee came back to the mill off shift because he didn’t feel that the gang saw oil system worked correctly. He redesigned the way it worked, “championed” the way to get it done and received a spot bonus.

Certainly in its effort to become a preferred partner with the community, GP Talladega has been aggressive in its community outreach, including partnering with area schools and simply becoming a visible and active presence in many forms of community involvement.

Meanwhile the lumber production facility began commissioning machinery by the end of July 2018, hosted an official start of production ceremony the first week of January 2019, and added its second 12-hour shift in the second week of the new year.

GP is doing it all over again at its existing sawmill site in Warrenton, Ga. The new mill is expected to start up in the third quarter. A third new sawmill will be built on a fresh site in Albany, Ga. and is expected to start up at the end of SLT the year.

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INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP

As We See It: Safer Routes Mean Saved Lives

By Danny Dructor Since the spring of 1997, members of the American Loggers Council have walked the halls of Congress seeking authority to allow log trucks to haul state legal Dructor weight tolerances on Interstate highways. This would enhance public safety, save time and money, and help reduce driver fatigue.

In the 22 years that we have made that request, not one member of Congress has told us that it was a bad idea, with the majority stating that it just makes sense. There have been many special exemptions to allow such tolerances on sections of the Interstate system, but it hasn’t come without us pressuring Congress to do the right thing. In Maine, case studies have illustrated the safety benefits of this exemption. Here is an excerpt from a 2010 report from H.O. Bouchard, a large Maine logging and trucking firm. The report helped lead to a permanent exemption for Maine’s weight tolerances, which allows for 100,000 lbs. on a large

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portion of I-95.

Brian Bouchard, H.O. Bouchard President, decided to record some quantitative data. The company loaded two trucks to 99,800 lbs. and measured their performance on two routes: the conventional state road route that connects Hampden and Houlton—a distance of about 120 miles—and the newly accessible Interstate route. The driver recorded that, over the local road route, the truck passed 86 pedestrian crosswalks, 30 street lights, nine school crossings, four hospitals, four railroad crossings, and 644 oncoming vehicles. The truck using the Interstate passed zero of each. The truck confined to local roads shifted gears 192 times and applied brakes 68 times. The truck using the Interstate shifted three times and applied brakes only once. Apart from a 10gallon reduction in fuel and corresponding reduction in emissions, says Bouchard, “the avoidance of risk and driver fatigue is huge.”

If members of Congress have

acknowledged that all this “makes sense,” isn’t it time they support what ALC proposes?

As we’ve reported in the past, our efforts have been stymied by the railroad industry and lobbyists, who are resistant to any policy changes that might invite competition. However, the policies we are seeking would only pertain to products being hauled in short distances, in this case from the forest to the mill and typically within a 150 air mile radius. We are not seeking exemptions for long-haul, nor to promote competition to the railroads. This is about safety, not profits.

We will once again be in Washington this spring making visits to the Hill, seeking the cooperation of our legislators to introduce legislation that makes sense, saves lives and reduces risk. We ask that you please make us aware of examples. If you have a story that helps illustrate why this solution would result in a safer transportation system, please contact me at americanlogger@aol.com.

Dructor is Executive Vice President for the American Loggers Council, a

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501(c)(6) not for profit trade association representing professional timber harvesters throughout the U.S. For more information phone 409-6250206, email americanlogger@aol.com or visit amloggers.com.

ALC Supports Future Logging Careers Act Officials with the American Loggers Council (ALC) recently applauded the introduction of the bipartisan Future Logging Careers Act in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. The legislation amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work in mechanized logging operations under parental supervision.

According to ALC Executive Vice President Daniel Dructor, the Future Logging Careers Act extends an existing agricultural exemption, now enjoyed by family farmers and ranchers, to enable family-owned logging businesses to train their 16- and 17year-old sons and daughters in mechanized timber harvesting. (Two jobs remain off-limits: manual chain saw felling and cable skidder operation.)

The exemption would ensure the next

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generation of logging contractors and employees can gain needed on-theground training and experience under the close supervision of parents who have a vested interest in their children’s safety and in passing down the profession to the next generation.

Dructor notes that like farming and ranching, “Timber harvesting operations are also very similar to family farms with sophisticated and expensive harvesting equipment that requires young family members to learn how to run the business, including equipment operation and maintenance, prior to reaching the age of eighteen.”

He adds that the logging industry is currently facing a shortage of workers, and the Future Logging Careers

Act will help the industry meet its future workforce needs while supporting small, family-owned businesses. Dructor also thanked U.S. Sens. Jim Risch (R-Id.) and Angus King (I-Me.) and Reps. Jared Golden (D-Me.) and Glenn Thompson (RPa.), who introduced the legislation, for their support.

Mississippi Con Men Face Federal Justice Two Mississippi men charged last year in the largest Ponzi scheme in state history are facing justice now as one reported to prison in January to begin a 17-year sentence and the other goes to trial in April. Arthur

Adams of Jackson began serving his time at a federal prison in Arkansas in January, and William McHenry of Canton goes to trial this month.

Adams pleaded guilty to operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of between $85-$100 million. McHenry has been charged with participating in the scam by receiving commissions and bonuses for bringing in new investors. The scheme ranged far and wide, duping 300 investors, including U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), and also leading to some uncomfortable moments as Adams spread the money around freely, including multiple five- and six-digit donations to churches and ministries, plus another $400,000 given to the Ole Miss ath-

letic foundation.

According to the federal criminal complaint, Adams operated a classic Ponzi scheme: “Adams devised a scheme to defraud investors by soliciting millions of dollars of funds under false pretenses, failing to use the investors’ funds as promised, and converting investors’ funds to Adams’s own benefit without the knowledge of the investors.

Instead of investing his clients’ money, Adams used the invested funds for his own personal benefit and for purposes other than those represented to investors, which also included making payments due and owing to other investors, thus perpetuating the Ponzi scheme.”

The two operated as Madison

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Timber Properties out of Jackson, Miss. and falsely represented that Madison Timber was buying cutting rights and re-selling them for a profit. Their basic con was selling investments in “loans” to acquire

timber rights that didn’t exist, yet were guaranteed 10%-15% returns that were paid out of new investors’ funds.

According to federal investigators, the loans didn’t exist except in

just a few cases, and Adams perpetuated the scheme by falsifying timber deeds, creating bogus legal documents that were notarized, included forged landowner signatures and even fake “timber cruise summary” reports. As a salesman for the scheme, McHenry was charged with helping mislead investors, failing to disclose his commissions, misrepresented his ownership in Madison Timber and wire fraud.

Louisiana Festival: 40-Year Event Officials with the Louisiana Forest Festival report the event is celebrating its 40th anniversary this

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year on April 26-27 in Winfield, La. The Louisiana Forest Festival is a celebration of the regional timber industry with displays, events and entertainment saluting the efforts and economic impact of loggers and lumber producers on the regional economy.

The event kicks off April 26 with a parade and concerts by country music performers Spencer Brunson and Jesse Keith Whitley. Later, fireworks light up the skies. The festival features numerous forestry equipment displays and exhibits.

Pro lumberjack sports athletes from throughout the U.S. compete in 13 lumberjack events and six chain saw events. The festival includes food, homemade crafts, more con-

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tests and prize drawings and also children’s activities and games.

GP’s New Konecrane Keeps Trucks Moving Georgia-Pacific has just completed a multi-million dollar investment in its lumber operations in Diboll, Tex. After six months of construction, the new Konecrane is in full operation high above the Diboll skyline.

Stretching 80 ft. in width, 927 ft. in length, and 87 ft. in total height, the crane is living up to its expectations.

“It’s amazing how fast we can unload trucks with this new crane,” says Rudy Salazar, a 20-year crane operator and one of the four crane operators at Diboll Lumber.

The new Konecrane unloads trucks in one bite, compared to the previous crane that had to make two passes.

According to Salazar, the new crane benefits log truck drivers who can

deliver their loads quickly.

“The task of unloading the trucks is so efficient now that drivers don’t have long wait times. Instead I’m waiting on them. For log truck drivers, time is money. As soon as I can get a truck unloaded they are able to get back to the woods.”

Ricky Cain with Ricky Cain Logging LLC is one of the loggers who is noticing the positive impact the new crane is having on his operations.

“The new crane definitely helps the turn times because of its speed and one bite capabilities,” Cain says. “My drivers in the past would always talk about the long wait time at Diboll, but now they are coming and going.”

Cain says the real difference will be felt during the summer months at the height of logging operations.

Originally used as a military shipyard crane, and relocated to Diboll in the 1960s, the previous crane unloaded about 50 trucks a day. With innovative upgrades and increased

New Konecrane at Diboll takes a big bite.

efficiency, the crane ultimately served approximately 130 trucks daily until construction began on the new crane in March 2018. The new Konecrane is unloading up to 165 trucks each day.

The Konecrane also boasts numerous operational improvements including automatic scales that show the operator the exact weight of a load of logs and security features that prohibit operators from picking up logs beyond the maximum tonnage allowed; cameras that allow the operator to have a 360º view of the truck that is being unloaded; increased log storage capacity; lightning protection; and LED lighting for complete visibility.

delimbing contest, in which each contestant has to cut off 30 uniformthickness branches (broomsticks) that have been specially attached to a horizontal log.

Sponsors of the German Logging Championship include Aspen, Zeller+Gmelin (Divinol), Husqvarna, Stihl and Pfanner. As in previous years, it is organized jointly by Deutsche Messe and the German Forestry Council (KFW). German Logging Championship events and moderated demonstrations will be held on the demonstration area on each day of LIGNA. The event is also supported by the Lower Saxony Forestry Service and by Wahlers Forsttechnik, the provider of the Ponsse Bear harvester that will be used to move the logs into place.

Ligna Hosts German Logging Championship Arizona Project Gets The German Logging ChampiNew Ownership Group onship is back for another highoctane season at the upcoming LIGNA, May 27-31, in Hannover.

Some 100 contestants will be putting their endurance, handling skills and precision to the test in five disciplines: tree felling, chain fitting, combined cut bucking, precision bucking and delimbing. They will perform their chain saw handling skills under the watchful eyes of expert judges, who will score them on safety, accuracy and speed.

One of the big highlights of the championship is the tree-felling event. There’s no forest on the Hannover Exhibition Center campus, so the organizers have gone all out to recreate a real-life tree-felling scenario, complete with 18 m tall logs which have been set into the ground in specially cut 1.5 m deep bore holes. The tree-felling event is followed by the

Ownership of a major Forest Service stewardship contract to treat 300,000 acres in Arizona is changing hands for the second time, as the large volume of biomass generated and a lack of utilization infrastructure and markets in the state continue to pose a challenge to the far-reaching project.

Tom Loushin, owner of A1 Timber out of Chehalis, Wash., is heading up a team that purchased New Life Forest Products and the contract the goes with it. The contract is Phase 1 of the federal 4 Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) that seeks to treat more than 2 million across across four national forests in Arizona.

Started as a response to the devastating fires that hit Arizona soon after the turn of the century, the 4FRI has sought to bring once opposed organizations to the table to develop solutions to forest health and fire prevention in the state. The group has brought stakeholders from across the state together and is seeking innovative ways to address forest health issues in Arizona.

Unlike other efforts that have concentrated on individual watersheds or tracts, 4FRI has taken an unprecedented regional scope, seeking to address forest health across four national forests covering 2.4 million acres. The Phase I contract was the first of several, each covering hundreds of thousands of acres.

John Deere Marks 5000th Milestone John Deere commemorated the production of its 5,000th Forestry Swing Machine, a 2656G Log Loader, with a special ceremony at the John Deere-Hitachi Specialty Products (DHSP) factory. John Deere invited the customer who 58

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purchased the milestone unit, Bighorn Logging, for a presentation and factory tour during a signature Gold Key event.

“This is a paramount moment for the DHSP factory and our employees,” says Jarvis de Groot, DHSP product marketing manager, forestry swing machines. “Our customers are the heartbeat of the company and the reason we are able to do what we do every day. It is an honor to open our doors and celebrate with Bighorn Logging.”

The DHSP factory hosted Bighorn Logging President, Harve Dethlefs, and Vice-President, Mark Standley, as well as their dealer, Papé Machinery. The event started with an overview of the history of the DHSP factory, followed by a question and answer session. During the session, which was held in front of the factory employees, Dethlefs and Standley discussed their business and the critical role equipment plays.

Following the interview, Bighorn Logging was presented with a plaque and the 5,000th swing machine was revved up for the very first time in celebration. The day concluded with a factory tour and small reception.

Bandit Will Service Pronar Products Bandit Industries will offer select trommel screens and conveyor stackers manufactured by Polandbased Pronar.

Bandit demonstrated the Model 60 GT-HD stacker and the Model 7.24 GT at the U.S. Composting Council’s Conference and Tradeshow in Glendale, Ariz. in late January.

“This partnership is very important for Bandit because it will broaden our product portfolio, and allow us to offer a more complete line of equipment for various markets,” says Bandit General Manager Felipe Tamayo. “Pronar is one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural, compost, recycling equipment in world.

The mix of products that our companies offer blend perfectly.”

The Model 60 GT-HD is capable of moving up to 600 tons of material per hour, and able to stack material nearly 40 ft. high, creating piles of material without the need of an additional loader or operator. The stacker can be mounted on tracks, making it easy to move around a grinding yard quickly.

The Model 7.24 GT is a trackmounted or towable trommel screen that has some of the highest throughput in the industry. This trommel is capable of screening a variety of materials, including compost, urban wood waste and biomass. And operators can swap out the drum screens to meet a specific size requirement.

OSU Study Focuses On Fire On the heels of Oregon’s most expensive wildfire season ever in 2018, researchers at Oregon State University are ramping up efforts to better predict how the blazes behave, including how they generate fire-spreading embers.

A team led by David Blunck of OSU’s College of Engineering has been chosen by the U.S. Dept. of Defense to spearhead a new $2.1 million effort to study the burning of live fuels. OSU will partner with the U.S. Forest Service on a fouryear grant awarded through the DOD’s Strategic Environmental Research Development Program (SERDP).

“The DOD is interested in this because they have a lot of land, and it burns,” says Blunck, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Live fuels are basically trees that are green and living. These trees are often what torches, but historically, dead fuels have primarily been studied.”

The work will be built around the theory that there are likely just a handful of factors—such as pyrolysis, the decomposition that results from high temperatures, and the products of that decomposition— that cause differences in burning behavior when live fuels burn.

“Most live fuel studies tend to be fuel specific, controlling for variation in burning behavior based on time of year and moisture content, but with those results, it’s hard to know how new fuels will burn, or even how the same fuel will burn outside the conditions that have been studied,” Blunck says. “So it’s really better to understand what’s driving the sensitivity when you have different fuels. Our theory is that it’s just a few processes that cause the differences when you burn different live fuels, and if we can understand what they are, we can better predict how new species would burn.”

The research will provide Dept. of Defense managers with fire models that can predict ignition, burning rate and fuel consumption for mixtures of live and dead fuels, allowing them to more effectively plan prescribed burning as well as wildfire responses. It will involve a mix of lab work, modeling and field studies.

In recent months, Blunck’s group has examined the burning behavior of more than 100 trees representing four different species—Douglas fir, grand fir, western juniper and ponderosa pine—in the range of 10 to 15 ft. tall.

“That height is not very large for a forest perspective, but for testing

for wildfire purposes this is typically not done, and never for the number of trees that we have burned,” he says.

Most wildfire research, Blunck explains, involves either prescribed burns, or work in a laboratory on samples up to a size of roughly 1 meter.

“In the lab you can control all the parameters like temperature, size and moisture content, but how well do the results scale?” he questions.

“With a prescribed burn, you’re researching under actual conditions, but with the data you get it’s very hard to understand cause and effect.

There’s so much out of our control that it’s hard to know what’s driving the various phenomena.

“With trees that are about 10 ft. tall, we can bridge the scales between the laboratory and prescribed burns.

We can look at many species and start to vary the parameters we think are important. Our experiments are on an intermediate scale but have a replicate size that is not rivaled by any study I have ever found.”

In addition, last December Blunck and other researchers studied the effect of fire retardant on ember generation and found that under some conditions, trees coated

in the retardant sent off fewer embers that contained enough energy to start a new fire. This effort was in partnership with an industry sponsor, P N Solutions.

“Embers are wildfires’ most unpredictable modes of causing spread,” Blunck says. “By understanding how embers form and travel through the air, we can more accurately predict how fire will spread.”

Techniques for studying embers include infrared videography, collecting embers in trays of water and measuring scorch marks on squares of fire-resistant fabric placed on the ground at varying distances from the fire.

In Oregon last year, the cost of fire suppression for the first time exceeded half a billion dollars, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, which provides logistical support and intelligence for federal and state wildland fire suppression agencies.

The state in 2018 saw 1,880 fires burn 1,322 square miles—more land area than the state of Rhode Island.

Article written by Steve Lundeberg.

E-mail him at steve.lundeberg@oregonstate.edu.

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Double G sends its pulpwood to IP's Orange mill.

Mom Linda Greenleaf, with a portrait of her parents, who also logged

12 ➤ did business with Greenleaf’s grandfather. Greenleaf also credits banker Josh Neil with helping him get started. “He was at First Bank and Trust, and he knew mom and dad. Based on that and faith, he wrote a check that put me in business.” Neil is now at Sabine State Bank in Hemphill; Greenleaf remains a loyal customer.

That first crew started off as a group who had worked for another company, led by Greenleaf’s uncle.

Like their boss, they have come a long way. “We were a bunch of misfits and exiles who got a second chance,” Greenleaf says. “We were the guys other companies gave up on. We went from being a crew everyone said would never amount to anything, to one that now on any given day can haul on anyone.”

Double G has grown from hauling five loads a day in 2017, to 10 or 15 a day per crew by the start of this year. “We’re getting clear-cutting numbers on first thinning jobs on 11-year-old plantations.” They harvest almost entirely plantation pine pulpwood, hauling primarily to the International Paper mill in Orange, Tex. “I think since we started we’ve hauled five loads of hardwood.”

Double G offers its employees an annuity plan through Edward Jones Investments. “Edward Ramirez is the main contact person there, and 60

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Greenleaf built his shop near his home last year.

Welder Allen Y'barbo came out to help one crew with some repairs recently.

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he has been very instrumental in helping us get set up.”

The company is in large measure a family affair, with several of Greenleaf’s cousins and uncles working for him, and others who had worked for his grandfather years ago. Employees in the woods include Shaun Orchosky, Sr., Kelvin Bennett, Dalton Dunman and his dad Daniel Dunman, Darwin Bennett and David Samuel.

Crew foremen Cord Rawls, Bo Bennett and Johnnie Gore all run loaders on their respective crews.

His mom, Linda Greenleaf, and cousin, Andi Walters, are the office staff. Mechanics at the shop are Brian Martin and Greg Curtis.

Truck drivers (many of whom go by nicknames) are Trodney Finnel, Michael (Redneck) Burford, Corey Hughey, Jack Hughey, Gerald (Duke) Mitchell, Chris (Triple C) Cheatham, Mike (Holy Roller) Craft, Markeith (Bat) Cauley, and Stud (Peacock) Bennett. Greenleaf himself also drives a truck regularly, going by the handle Bossman. SLT

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A D L I N K ●

ADVERTISER American Truck Parts Around The World Salvage ATG Primex Tire Bandit Industries Big John Trailers BITCO Insurance Bullock Brothers Equipment Caterpillar Dealer Promotion Chambers Delimbinator Continental Biomass Industries John Deere Forestry Doggett Machinery Service Doosan Infracore North America Eastern Surplus Flint Equipment FMI Trailers Forest Chain Forestry First Forestry Mutual Insurance G & W Equipment Granger Equipment Hansen Auction Group Hawkins & Rawlinson Interstate Tire Service Ironmart John Woodie Enterprises Kaufman Trailers Komatsu Forestry Division Mike Ledkins Insurance Agency LMI-Tennessee Magnolia Trailers Maxi-Load Scale Systems Mid-Atlantic Logging & Biomass Moore Logging Supply Morbark Peterson Pacific Pitts Trailers Ponsse North America Prolenc Manufacturing Puckett Machinery Quadco Quality Equipment & Parts River Ridge Equipment Smith & Turner Equipment Southern Loggers Cooperative Southwest Forest Products Expo Stribling Equipment Tidewater Equipment Tigercat Industries Timberblade Timberland TraxPlus Trelan Manufacturing Vermeer Manufacturing W & W Truck & Tractor Waratah Forestry Attachments Waters International Trucks J M Wood Auction

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888.383.8884 936.634.7210 800.343.3276 800.952.0178 800.771.4140 800.475.4477 800.248.1052 919.550.1201 800.533.2385 603.382.0556 800.503.3373 225.368.2224 877.745.7814 855.332.0500 404.859.5790 601.508.3333 800.288.0887 803.708.0624 800.849.7788 800.284.9032 318.548.5977 906.229.5063 888.822.1173 864.947.9208 888.561.1115 704.878.2941 866.497.7803 888.285.7478 800.766.8349 800.467.0944 800.738.2123 877.265.1486 919.271.9050 888.754.5613 800.831.0042 800.269.6520 800.321.8073 715.369.4833 877.563.8899 601.969.6000 800.668.3340 386.754.6186 855.325.6465 770.536.7521 318.445.0750 501.224.2232 855.781.9408 912.638.7726 519.753.2000 519.532.3283 912.283.1060 601.635.5543 877.487.3526 641.628.3141 800.845.6648 770.692.0380 601.693.4807 334.264.3265

COMING EVENTS April 2-4—Kentucky Forest Industries Assn. annual meeting, Embassy Suites, Lexington, Ky. Call 502695-3979; visit kfia.org.

30-May 3—Virginia Forestry Assn. Summit, Sheraton Norfolk Waterside, Norfolk. Call 804-2788733; visit vaforestry.org.

May 3-4—Mid-Atlantic Logging & Biomass Expo, near Laurinburg, NC. Call 919-271-9050; visit malbexpo.com.

20-22—Forest Resources Assn. annual meeting, Oroni Amelia Island Plantation Resort, Amelia Island, Fla. Call 202-296-3937; visit forestresources.org.

June 26-28—Forest Products Machinery & Equipment Expo, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Ga. Call 504-443-4464; visit sfpaexpo.com.

July 10-13—West Virginia Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Canaan Resort Conf. Center, Davis, W.Va. Call 681-265-5019; visit wvfa.org.

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26-28—Georgia Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Westin Jekyll Island, Jekyll Island, Ga. Call 478992-8110; visit gfagrow.org.

27-30—Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers Summer Conference, The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, WV. Call 336-885-8315; visit appalachianhardwood.org.

August 20-22—Florida Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Sheraton Bay Point Resort, Panama City Beach, Fla. Call 850-222-5646; visit floridaforest.org.

23-24—Southwest Forest Products Expo, Hot Springs Covention Center, Hot Springs, Ark. Call 501-2242232; visit arkloggers.com.

23-25—Virginia Loggers Assn. annual meeting, Homestead Resort, Hot Springs, Va. Call 804-6774290; visit valoggers.org.

27-29—Louisiana Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Golden Nugget, Lake Charles, La. Call 318-4432558; visit laforestry.com.

September 5-7—Great Lakes Logging & Heavy Equipment Expo, UP State Fairgrounds, Escanaba, Mich. Call 715-282-5828; visit gltapa.org.

8-10—Alabama Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, Ala. Call 334-265-8733; visit alaforestry.org.

20-21—Kentucky Wood Expo, Embassy Suites Newtown Pike, Lexington, Ky. Call 502-695-3979; visit kfia.org.

26-28—American Loggers Council annual meeting, Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, Ala. Call 409-625-0206; visit amloggers.com.

October 2-4—North Carolina Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Hotel Ballast, Wilmington, NC. Call 800-2317723; visit ncforestry.org.

8-10—Arkansas Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Embassy Suites, Little Rock, Ark. Call 501-3742441; visit arkforests.org.

Listings are submitted months in advance.

Always verify dates and locations with contacts prior to making plans to attend.

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APRIL 2019 ● Southern Loggin’ Times

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