Southern Stumpin’

Famously, the last two years have been good times for wood products mills, by and large. Good for them. But does a rising tide truly lift all boats? Apparently not if the wood that built the boats came from Southern loggers. While mills might be doing better than ever, their raw material suppliers seem to be doing worse than ever.

Case in point: if you’re at all active on social me dia, you may well know that Bobby Goodson, who became something of a timber industry cele brity years ago when his North Carolina based oper ation, Goodson’s All Terrain Logging, was featured on the popular Discovery Channel program Swamp Logger, has decided to cash in his chips. As you can imagine, this wasn’t an easy decision for Goodson and his family, and it certainly wasn’t his preference. But in view of the current situation, they decided that this was the best bad option left open to them.

Though they may be more high profile, I suspect that the Goodsons are far from the only logging family making such tough choices this year.

Bobby and his wife Lori were gracious enough to spend about an hour talking to me about it at the Richmond Expo in Virginia on May 20. “I’ve been doing it 37 years,” Bobby says, noting that he was a fourth generation logger; his son Justin was the fifth, and some of their grandkids were interested. “It was a legacy we worked on for generations to pass on, but they have made it so hard there is nothing to pass on. This was not when I wanted to call it quits.”

So, I wonder, why now? The easy answer is skyrocketing fuel costs. “A couple of years ago I paid $1.99 for fuel; now it is $5.50 a gallon. Our trucks are burning 68% of the profits in the fuel tank. And we are still two years away from an administration change. We knew we couldn’t survive another year or so at the rate we were losing money, so it’s better to go out when it is on our terms and some of the equipment is still in good shape. ”

But Goodson says fuel was just the last straw, not the only factor. There are more fundamental concerns: the labor shortage, for one. “We pay the highest rate we possibly can, but I can’t compete with the federal government paying people to stay at home.” And then there’s…

The Elephant In The Room

In Bobby’s estimation, it all comes back to one underlying problem: “The biggest thing that hurt us is that the mills are way too slow to react to the fuel situation,” he says. “A logging job the size of mine—and there’s a bunch of jobs bigger than mine—will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting on mills to react. And by the time they do react, it has increased again. We went through this in 2008 when it got over $4.80 a gallon. I stressed to them that I am not going through that again. I am too old, too far down the road. I’m not losing that kind of money again.”

The bottom line is that if big mill companies— especially in the context of those highly publicized record profits—would pay enough to keep their suppliers healthy, loggers could afford fuel and labor increases. “The mills have got way more resources than any logging operation and they know exactly what it costs us to operate; all we are asking for is our fair share,” Bobby says.

“When you have a $2-3 million investment and are trying to operate at a 2-3% profit margin, there’s no room to give there,” he explains. “Any business I know of—including some of the pellet mills in our industry—won’t look at anything less than 15% profit; in retail stores, it’s 25-30%. You have got to have a profit to make a business work. If you’re making a decent return on investment, when hard times come you can weather through it. But unfortunately that’s not the case this time.”

This is nothing new; I’ve heard it my whole life, and so have mill people. Goodson says it always falls on deaf ears, though. “One mill manager looked through the window and said, what do you see? Of course there were a lot of trucks lined up waiting to get in. He said as long as he sees trucks lined up, there is no trucking shortage issue, not from their perspective.”

Obviously mills, especially multinational, publicly traded corporate entities, are in business to make as much money as possible…within ethical limits. Gordon Gekko famously declared, “Greed is good” in the ’80s, but remember, good ole Gordon went to prison at the end of that movie. He was intended as a villain, not a role model. Sure, no body wants to pay more than they have to…but seems to me a company should want their suppliers, their partners, to succeed along with them. It seems like not only the proper thing to do, but the most sustainable long-term strategy as well. If I do business with someone, I want them to tell others that I’m going to treat them fairly, not rip them off.

Clearly, however, not everyone thinks this way, and hey, maybe that’s why I’ll never be a billionaire (which, if that’s the trade-off, is more than fine with me). Those with different values than mine must have a different perspective. To wit, Bobby relates a story he heard: at a meeting of a large paper company, a leader told his procurement team that if they didn’t put 10% of their loggers out of business every year, then they were paying them too much.

That’s a hell of a benchmark, if you ask me. Gordon Gekko would be proud.

Does it have to be this way? Apparently not, at least not everywhere. “I talked to a mill manager at a big sawmill in New Zealand where they actually figure in a 20% profit margin for their logging contractors,” Bobby shares. Novel concept: structuring your business so that the contractors you rely on can maintain financial viability, and figuring that in as a cost of doing business. Imagine that!

Thing is, it’s not hypothetical; that is what happens on the opposite end of the infeed, is it not? Bobby thinks so. “When the flat bed comes in to haul the paper off, that company tells the mill this is our rate, this is our fuel surcharge; nothing is questioned. But it’s not like that with us.”

Any industry requires a solid foundation, but right now, he fears, the forest products industry’s foundation is on shaky ground. “We are the foundation to this $300 billion industry in the United States. In North Carolina, it is a $32 billion a year industry, with a little over 400 loggers holding it up. Until they recognize what an integral part of this industry we are, it’s not going to change.”

Change

It isn’t just mills. Politics has a lot to do with it, he says; it affects everything, for everyone. “People need to vote for the people who will help us,” he advises. “This is a great country. If we all work together we can get something done.” His wife Lori agrees. “We encourage other loggers to get involved,” she says. “One squeaky wheel here or there won’t change. You need to come out of the woods and get active in the associations and somewhere down the line we really believe it will make a difference. Maybe the industry could turn around and be what it used to be.”

The Goodsons aren’t sure yet what comes next for them; one step at a time. “It hasn’t hit me yet because I am still busy cleaning up equipment and getting it ready to sell, but the day that last piece of equipment leaves the yard, it’s going to hit me.”

Lori says it breaks her heart because she knows how much this is going to hurt her husband. “This is an industry that Bobby loves. It’s our way of life. It didn’t have to be this way. It could have been different.”

Even on their way out, they hope to be of service to the industry. “I’m not sitting home and I don’t like fishing,” Bobby laughs. “I like logging. So we do want to stay involved in our industry, as much as they will let us, because I love it.” SLT

By Patrick Dunning

CLARKRANGE, Tenn.

The Lord’s favor has been on England Logging since its founding in 2010. That’s what owner Josh England believes. England, 37, never en visioned the day he would be using his platform as a logger to spread the gospel. In fact, there were two things he was sure of as a young man growing up on his family’s cattle farm in Sparta: he didn’t want to be a farmer and he didn’t want to be a pastor, like both his father and grandfather had been.

England’s grandfather purchased around a 100-acre farm in 1955, harvested some of its hardwood once in 1959 and never touched it again. The extent of England’s logging experience was observing his father, Gerald England, who wasn’t a logger by trade, harvest his own timber from time to time (his dad and granddad together would eventually own about 450 combined acres of farmland and timberland). The England farm primarily cultivated and harvested burley tobacco, row crops, corn and soybeans.

After graduating high school, England worked for the Tennessee Dept. of Corrections as a vocational in struc tor teaching residential wiring to inmates. He had no interest in timber harvesting. Then a spring storm damaged a small section of virgin timber on the family farm in 2009, changing England’s career trajectory forever.

“We had some timber blown down in a storm and a local logger was go ing to come clean it up, but he never got around to it so me and my dad cleaned it ourselves,” England re calls. “It was big virgin timber probably 36 in. plus. It wasn’t but maybe 10 loads of wood but in the process of doing that a tornado came through a few miles from us about one year later and blew down nearly 90 acres that joined my father-in-law.”

The gentleman who owned the adjoining property lived in North Carolina and asked England’s fatherin-law if he knew someone interested in cleaning up his 90-acre tract in Crossville. England was; he went to look at the timber and struck a deal with the man. “That was our first job,” he says. The rest is history.

First Cut

England and his dad hand-felled timber with a couple of two-stroke Stihl 044 chain saws, trimming into no larger than 8 ft. logs, and used a ’76 John Deere 4030 two-wheel drive farm tractor with a three-ft. hitch and log chain to skid wood. They used the tractor’s front-end loader to load logs into a ’92 GMC TopKick singleaxle truck. England befriended a local logger who loaned him a deuce-anda-half military winch on a three-point hitch box blade engineered to run off the hydraulics of the tractor, which allowed them to reach trees in tough er topography.

Not long into his first logging job, England began to consider harvesting timber as a career. For the next year and a half he only logged on the side while maintaining his position with the Dept. of Corrections until he step ped down to establish England Logging full-time in the latter part of 2011. England admits he was nervous to leave his stable job with the state, so at first he worked second and third shift at Crossville Tile and Stone on top of logging during the day.

The company’s first skidder was a ’70 Timberjack 225D with a 353 Detroit engine under the hood. “You could hear us five miles away,” England says. “The transmission broke down our first day using it so we had to replace the transmission. I didn’t know anything about logging and the way we started was feast or famine.”

He adds, “I got a call from a farm er in Mayland, Tenn., and to this day I have no idea how he got my number. I went and met him; he had a sub stantial amount of wood and that was the second tract of wood we did as a business. During that time my grandfather decided timber prices were on the move and wanted to harvest the timber on both of his farms. I had the privilege of cutting right where I grew up. All the places I hunt ed and fished and it was as near virgin timber as I’ve ever got to cut. It hadn’t been harvested in my lifetime.”

Loading logs with the farm tractor was rough on the machine and England knew he needed an actual loader but didn’t have a lot of money left over to invest. He says at the time he had never even sat in the cab of a knuckleboom, let alone learned how to run one. He found a mid-’80s Prentice 180C loader in foreclosure sitting in a bank’s parking lot in Spencer. The Bendix system in its starter was broken so the machine wouldn’t crank.

“Me and dad are out there looking at it, and of course I have no idea what we’re looking at,” England recalls. “All I knew is we needed something.”

A banker came outside holding the note, got a gentleman to put a new Bendix in the starter and the loader

fired up immediately. England, with limited funds, negotiated a deal to get the knuckleboom home. “I had $4,000 in my pocket, which was all the money I had at the time,” he recollects. “I told him I’d give him three (thousand) for it and he laughed. I said, ‘Sir this is all I have.’ He needed to move the piece of equipment so when I pulled out another thousand he took me up on the offer.”

England would cut and top in the mornings while his dad ran the skidder, pulling two drags at a time. They’d saw logs at the landing and haul using their GMC single axle. The truck had a five-speed plus two-speed rear end and a 366 engine. England says it was a reliable vehicle but they wanted to haul more wood faster.

The new logger came across a former logger selling his last piece of equipment, an ’87 Ford L9000 tandem axle truck, with a log bed al ready attached and a 300 Cummins. The gentleman was in the cattle business and England happened to own near 100 head; he traded a cow-calf pair for the L9000.

“It was a great truck; we ran it for several years,” England says. “That’s what got us started was those pieces coming together. What kept us going is we were cutting good wood and had to market it, which was a learning process. Took us a while to cut all the timber my grandfather had on both his farms. The first three years we had plenty of wood and didn’t have to look back.”

Call To Ministry

England grew up in rural White County with three older sisters, a stay-at-home mom and dad providing for the family.

“The most important things growing up in our life was faith, family, then farming,” England remembers. “Mom stayed at home most of my childhood and took care of us, haul ed us all to school. Always for certain with Dad, though, no matter what needed to be done on the farm, we were always at church on Sunday.”

England became born again when he was 17 at a tent revival meeting. Two years later the Lord began dealing with his heart about preaching while attending Dripping Springs Baptist Church. Having grown up around pastors, England naturally ran from the idea. His grandfather pastored New Union Baptist Church for 27 years and his dad pastored Dripping Springs Baptist Church and Temple Baptist throughout England’s childhood.

“I was nervous and didn’t want to stand up in front of people,” he admits. “You have to divide the scripture right because you’ll have to give a great account. I was still being faithful to the church, just not the call to preach. I told the Lord I would if he’d help me understand the scripture and meet me in the pulpit. I surrendered to preach, told the church and preached my first message that Wednesday night. The rest is history.”

“Brother Josh,” as he’s known, has shepherded Mount Union Baptist Church since 2011 and has a congregation near 125 people. The church sponsors youth events, revivals and runs a bus ministry that transports between 40-60 foster children to and from youth gatherings. England be lieves logging plays a big role in allowing him to be an active pastor. “What I didn’t know then, and I want to give credit where it’s due, the Lord was allowing me to have a career that would let me be a pastor. He set this up from the beginning. I was just working; I didn’t know the greatest benefit would be working for my self,” he says. “What logging afforded me to do as a pastor is to be able to go when needed.”

Safety First

England Logging was a chain saw operation until six years ago when England’s nephew Jacob Bouldin, who was 18 at the time, sustained major injuries felling a chestnut oak with a partially uprooted tree leaning against it. When Jacob finished notching the tree and turned to exit, the half-uprooted tree turned loose and drove him into the ground while he was carrying a high top 372 Husqvarna. Jacob was pinned between the

saw’s power head and air filter and the tree, splitting his liver, breaking his leg and causing internal bleeding. “That night at Vanderbilt hospital when I went to visit him I made up my mind I was going to quit logging because I never wanted it to come to the point that I had to tell someone their family wasn’t coming home or they’re hurt so bad they can’t enjoy the rest of their life,” England says. “He made a full recovery, but I felt so bad he got hurt doing what we love, knowing firsthand how fast it can happen. I called my dad and told him I was buying a cutter.” Not even a week later England got acquainted with Ricky McConnell, sales manager at Forestry 21, who had a ’13 Tigercat 724E feller-buncher for sale. Not even knowing how to operate such a machine, England made the purchase. Forestry 21 delivered the machine and the company cut its first tree with a mechanized cutter; the change qualified them for workers’ comp through Forestry Mutual. Jacob made a full recovery in six weeks without needing surgery. His internal bleeding stopped on its own, his liver healed and he had a boot on his leg for a stint. Jacob now serves as the company’s cutter operator. Operations England Logging operates mostly flat land within the Cumberland Plateau, but go one county to the east or west and there’s a fair amount of steep ground. England knew at some point, to stay in good timber, they’d have to expand from only clear-cuts and rubber-tire machines. Two years ago he began shopping for a tracked feller-buncher and last year bought a ’16 TimberPro 735C with a ’17 Quad co 2900 intermittent head from John Woodie Enterprises, Inc., Statesville, NC. “At the time we were working a lot of steep ground and our rubber tire couldn’t cut it,” England says of the purchase. From left: Jacob Bouldin, Josh England, Bransford England (Josh’s grandfather), and Gerald England (Josh’s father) “We’ve been tickled by it. We’re able to do what we Southern Loggin’ Times l JUNE 2022 l 9

need to. Not limited to one type of ground, we can work flat or steep.”

He adds, “We still like that rubbertire machine on the ground because it’s fast, more cost efficient to run and cheaper on fuel. When we get in steep ground and have to shovel a road for a skidder to get onto steeper ground we like the intermittent head to shovel and top with. We do a lot of processing in the woods.”

England Logging has retired its chain saws entirely and leans on its fleet of Tigercat equipment to be safe and productive, despite lacking a nearby Tigercat dealer in Tennes see—their closet being Forestry 21, 285 miles south in Lafayette, Ala.

“After we bought our first cutter I learned Tigercat is the most dependable equipment to run,” England believes. “There’s a reason they’ve come so far in 25 years. They listen to loggers and make equipment that lasts. All machines break down, it doesn’t matter what color they are or the brand. What matters is who can get you back up and running and has good parts availability, and for us that’s Forestry 21.”

England Logging’s equipment inventory also includes: ’13 dual-arch 630D skidder, ’18 630E skidder, ’11 234 knuckleboom loader, ’06 John Deere 700J dozer and ’06 Prentice 280 loader.

Engine oil (Mobil Delvac) is changed every 250 hours in woods equipment, and hydraulic oil every 2,000 hours. Hydraulic filters are changed every 500 hours and greased daily using Chevron grease. England Logging looks to Philips Distribution, Crossville, and DND Auto Parts, Jamestown, for Shell hydraulic oil; they get bulk oil and tools from Southern Petroleum and fuel. Most repairs are done in the woods or at the shop of England’s friend Derrick Copeland. Forestry 21 is available to troubleshoot major breakdowns on site when necessary.

When Southern Loggin’ Times visited England Logging in March, a single crew was converting an 800acre tract into pastureland for a private landowner in the cattle industry.

England says they frequent stands that have been high-graded over the past 30 years with chain saws.

This gives them an opportunity to do timber stand improvement (TSI), going into places and harvesting any remaining saw logs and removing non-valuable species like persimmon and buckeye.

“We put emphasis on leaving those young savannahs, white and red oak, hard maple,” he explains.

“In removing those low-grade species, it gives the forest an opportunity to regenerate something in 40 years that’s valuable to the land owner. This gives the ground a chance to grow high valued timber.”

Markets

England Logging averages 30 loads weekly and hauls to six hardwood outlets. The company’s hardwood pulpwood goes to Evergreen Packaging, Pioneer, and WestRock in Knoxville. White oak stave logs and other grade logs are hauled to Southern Stave, Sparta. Red oak, lower-grade white oak logs and other species larger than 12 in. DBH are delivered to Plateau Pallet in Clark range, Betty Lumber in Jamestown and James Ritter Lumber in Byrdstown.

England recently sold his ’90 Peterbilt and is looking to acquire a newer used Peterbilt. He currently runs one truck of his own, a ’99 Peterbilt 379, and contracts two trucks from K&M Trucking. He works with Archie Newport on a regular basis.

When it’s all said and done England doesn’t want to be remembered for anything other than having been a good and faithful servant. He be lieves his reward is in heaven. “The Lord’s work is the most important thing in life,” the pastor proclaims. “When my life is said and done, I have logged and loved the industry and enjoy working outside through all the hurdles and hardships, but I don’t want to be known as a logger who did a good job tending to the earth. I want to be known for my love for the Lord and what he did in saving me to give me a chance to live for him and in the end, go to heaven.” SLT

By Tim Cox

BARHAMSVILLE, Va.

Dan Hockenberger didn’t start his career with any ambition of be com ing a logging contractor. His interest was in for estry, but, plans change, and he wound up in logging. His com pany, Virginia Forest Resources LLC, is based out of the office in his home in Barhamsville, a small com munity in New Kent County about 17 miles east of Williamsburg. He has two crews that operate in the region sur rounding West Point, which is at the head of the York River and home to a WestRock paper mill. He also has an affiliated truck ing business, VFR Hauling LLC.

Hockenberger is equipped with two useful tools that may distinguish him from many other logging con tractors, tools that have helped him operate his logging company: an associate’s degree in forestry and a bachelor’s degree in business ad ministration.

The future logger came to Virginia by way of upstate New York. He grew up in the Adirondack Moun tains in the small town of Jay, ending up there when his father was sta tioned at Plattsburgh Air Force Base. There was a lumber business and sawmill nearby, Ward Lumber Co. The father of Hockenberger’s best friend owned an affiliated busi ness, Bill Ward Logging. “I spent a lot of time traipsing through the woods and enjoyed spending time with the Ward family,” he recalls. He soon realized that “forestry was where I wanted to be.”

He served four years in the Ma rines, then returned home and went to work at Ward Lumber. Soon he en rolled in the State University of New York 1+1 program in the College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He took core classes at a local com munity college his first year, and his second year took forestry concen tration classes at the New York Ranger School in Wana kena, where the college’s forest tech nology pro gram is located.

After earning his associate’s de gree in forestry technology, Hocken berger came to work in Virginia as a tech nician for a forestry consulting com pany in 1995. He continued his edu cation by taking night classes at Averett University’s satellite busi ness program in Richmond and earn ed a bachelor’s degree in business ad minis tration. He left the forestry con sulting firm after nine years to work as a procurement forester at a saw mill, a position in which he “felt at home working directly with the log ging crews,” he recalls.

Happenstance

“I got into the logging business out of happenstance when the sawmill I worked for went into bankruptcy,” Hockenberger says. After returning to work in 2012 following the Christ mas and New Year’s holidays, the mill employees were told the com pany was closing.

“I had three contract logging com panies that I worked with in my role with the sawmill and felt I could keep them going through this un cer tain period,” Hockenberger recalls. The first thing he did was call on the Smurfit-Stone (now WestRock) pa per mill in West Point to ask if they would take him and the three logging companies on as a supplier, and they agreed.

The sawmill that closed eventually was bought by a capital investment group and reopened, and a couple of the logging contractors working with Hockenberger went back to harvest ing timber for the mill. “I was at a crossroads, trying to decide whether to go back to work for them or to try to keep things going on my own.” He pulled some funds out of his 401(k) retirement account to buy some tim ber. “With some success buying and cutting timber and hav ing a few log ging companies and clearing contrac tors running their pulpwood through my company to the paper mill, it be came clear to me I could make a go at it.”

Starting Up

In 2014 Hockenberger was ap proach ed by Paul Gibson, a fourth generation logger and former con tractor, about starting a crew. “After some thought, I decided we were a good match for making this happen,” Hockenberger says. “He came to work for me as the foreman on the job.” Paul’s nephew, Chris Allen, also came on to run the loader; he is now running the other crew.

“I am fortunate to have good peo ple working for me that know how to run things in the woods,” Hocken berger says. “It is a collaborative effort between me and everyone on the job. You have to respect and trust your people to do it right. At the same time, you need to have people who are willing to listen to your ideas and buy into doing it the right way.”

Hockenberger spends most of his time scouting timber to buy, pre par ing bids and overseeing the business. He works with a few consulting for esters and also directly with some landowners. “My experience on the consulting side of the business gives

me the unique perspective as to what the land owner’s expectations may be,” Hockberger says. “I treat this side of the job as if I was still in the consulting role. I look after my own logging operations as I would if they were contracted to log my client’s property.”

He also has the role of “putting the jobs to bed,” Hockenberger says. “I feel this part of the job is important to ensure landowner satisfaction. Log ging has a huge impact on the land scape. For some landowners this is the only time in their lives that they will have a logging operation on their land. We take pride in making the job as clean as possible and en suring all roads are left in the best possible condition and all best man agement practices are addressed.” His wife, Colleen, does the com pany’s books and payroll and some other administrative tasks. The com pany has an office in Bar hams ville in New Kent County, where the Hock en bergers live. A shop in King and Queen County that belongs to Gibson is used for servicing equip ment and trucks, and the company also uses a lot just outside West Point—the site of a future shop and office—for spotting trailers and parking trucks.

Southern Loggin’ Times visited Hockenberger at a job in New Kent County—53 acres of mixed hard woods and pine. The tract belongs to John Poindexter, a Texas business man who in recent years has been buying up land and old homes in New Kent and neighboring Charles City County and restoring them to landscapes of the 1800s. For this job Hockenberger’s crew leaves about 40 trees per acre, creating a savanna-like landscape for pasture and wild life management. The site has pro duced about 70% sawlogs and 30% pulp wood. The work in cluded chip ping the laps and slash into boiler fuel for WestRock and Dominion Energy, a power-gen erating utility company.

Working on the job was a crew equipped with a 2021 John Deere 843L-II feller-buncher, ’18 Tigercat 610E skidder, and a ’20 Tigercat 250D loader. The company’s Mor bark 3036 whole tree drum chipper also was on the job. The foreman is Chris Allen, who operates the loader; Ben Tomes runs the cutter; and Walter Wise mans the skidder.

The second crew, which launched in 2021 and is supervised by Gib son, was at work on a job in a neigh bor ing county, equipped with a 2016 John Deere 843L feller-buncher, 2022 John Deere 848L-II and ’21 John Deere 748L skidders, and a Weiler K560 loader. Gibson operates the loader, Quinton Woods the cutter, and Kenny Green the skidder.

Hockenberger plans to use the Tigercat 610E as a spare skidder after buying the 2022 John Deere 848L-II.

He also keeps the crews equipped with good board mats and steel bridges. “I want to take on anything anyone wants to throw at us any time of year.”

The crews normally work on sep arate jobs. Hockenberger also con tracts with another company, John son’s Logging, headed by Linwood Johnson, to do most thinning jobs. Johnson’s business, along with his brother, J.T., and his company, JT Johnson Logging, were featured in SLT a few years ago. Linwood bought his brother’s job last year, and they are now operating together as Johnson’s Logging.

Hockenberger’s affiliated busi ness, VFR Hauling, is equipped with five tractor-trailers—three Western Star, one Mack, and one Kenworth—and currently employs two drivers. Drivers include Charles Cowden in a 2020 Western Star 4900, and Jeff Leigh in a 2006 Ken worth W900. Two more drivers haul wood for the second crew: James Phillip drives a 2002 Western Star 4900, and Mi chael Walker drives a 2005 Western Star 4900. Hocken berger also relies on three other truck ing contractors to haul his wood. He has a mix of Pitts, Fon taine and Big John log trailers while he uses trailer vans and box trailers that have been modified to haul chips. Hockenberger is looking for more trucks as he wants to ex pand his trucking business.

Operations

Hockenberger’s company nor mally works within about 50 miles of West Point. “We rarely have to haul more than 60 miles,” he says. Beside sup plying pulp to WestRock, the com pany supplies several saw mills in the region. Mill cus tomers include Clan cie Lumber Co., Charles City Timber and Mat, Carlton-Ed wards Lumber Co., O’Malley Tim ber Prod ucts, Stella-Jones, and Leslie P. Rigsby Lumber. Another market is James River Timber Export. Hocken berger also harvests timber for Blue Ridge Lumber, which has a log yard and dry

kilns in King and Queen County.

The feller-bunchers can handle a 26 in. diameter tree. “Bunching heads are more versatile,” Hocken berger notes, as they also can be used for thin ning pine plantations. Never the less, he is planning to buy a “tower head” cutter in the future for harvest ing large timber. Unusually large trees are felled by hand. For that work the company uses an as sort ment of Stihl 460 and 461 chain saws as well as the new 462C model. “Those suckers hum,” Hock enberger says.

Hockenberger prefers to invest in new equipment. Most of his ma chines are still under warranty. “I don’t like downtime,” he says. “Even with new equipment you have down time, but you have good support from the dealers and service depart ments.” He deals primarily with James River Equipment, which rep resents John Deere, as well as Tigercat dealer Forest Pro and Carter Cat for Weiler.

Crew members perform routine maintenance on equipment. Gibson, who used to do mechanical work at his shop, services the machines for his crew, and Allen takes care of the equipment on his job. They also do maintenance on the trucks, and some times the drivers take them to a shop for service. “That’s been one of the biggest challenges—having trucks worked on,” Hockenberger says. Parts are scarce, and repair shops are full of trucks with waiting lists.

Most employees are certified un der the Virginia Tech SHARP Log ger training program. In addition, on a rainy day Hockenberger will review with the crews the latest safety updates and recommen da tions from his insurer, Forestry Mu tual, and various trade organi za tions. Forestry Mutual also sends a chain saw safety specialist to meet with them annually to provide a re fresher on safety and to perform a safety audit. Hockenberger shoots for each crew to produce 40-50 loads per week, and that is what they typi cally average. On an occasion when both crews worked on the same job, they produced 170 loads in one week and 120 in another.

He was restricted by quotas with some mills, not unusual for this time of year because the mills typi cally take some downtime in the spring for maintenance. Also, some sawlog markets had higher log in ventory than usual coming out of winter. “But I have enough mar kets,” Hock enberger says. “We spread every thing out. We try to send what they want, the way they want, so during quotas they’re still taking logs from us. I understand,” he says, since he used to work in procurement.

Like other loggers and just about everyone else, Hocken berger is not fond of the price increases for fuel earlier this year.

“I don’t like ’em. Nobody likes ’em.” WestRock is helping by paying a fuel surcharge. It’s a

“double whammy”—higher prices for off-road diesel for the ma chines and also higher prices for on-road fuel for trucks. Hocken berger has noticed his bottom line has been shrinking. “One thing you can do is keep jobs closer to your markets so you’re burning less fuel,” he notes, and he also tries to lay out job sites in such a way as to reduce the drag distance for skid ders.

Hockenberger works 60-70 hours per week. In addition to scouting timber and preparing bids, he works on the roads when a job is done, moving mats and cleaning up. For those tasks he has a John Deere 550H dozer and John Deere 329 skid steer.

A member of the Virginia Log gers Assn., he also is an active member of the Virginia Forestry

Assn.; he has served as treasurer of the latter organization for the past three years and currently is vice president-elect.

Hockenberger enjoys deer hunt ing in the fall, notably bow hunting. It’s his favorite time of year, he says. He also has a KTM 890 Ad venture motorcycle that he enjoys riding on off-road (gravel road) trips.

His plans for the future include investing in a cutter with a center post head for big timber and ex panding his trucking operations so he has enough vehicles to haul his wood. SLT