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Vol. 43, No. 2
(Founded in 1972—Our 497th Consecutive Issue)
F E AT U R E S
FEBRUARY 2014 A Hatton-Brown Publication
Phone: 334-834-1170 Fax: 334-834-4525 www.southernloggintimes.com
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Jeremy Jones Started From Scratch
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Sherwood Padgette Exploring New Markets
Co-Publisher Co-Publisher Chief Operating Officer Executive Editor Editor-in-Chief Western Editor Managing Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Production Manager Ad Production Coordinator Circulation Director
David H. Ramsey David (DK) Knight Dianne C. Sullivan David (DK) Knight Rich Donnell Dan Shell David Abbott Jessica Johnson Jay Donnell Cindy Sparks Patti Campbell Rhonda Thomas
ADVERTISING CONTACTS DISPLAY SALES Eastern U.S. Kathy Sternenberg Tel: 251-928-4962 • Fax: 251-990-9409 219 Royal Lane Fairhope, AL 36532 E-mail: ksternenberg@bellsouth.net Midwest USA, Eastern Canada
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Logging Labor Survey Results Are In
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Logging Associations Active Members Needed
D E PA RT M E N T S
out front: Florida’s Panhandle Forestry/Chipola Timber owners, left to right, Dwayne Taylor, Barry McGaughey and David Morris, turned adversity to opportunity, bringing a business-minded approach to big-time logging. Story begins on Page 8. (Justin April photo)
Southern Stumpin’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Bulletin Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Industry News Roundup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 At The Margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Safety Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Machine-Supplies-Technology . . . . . . . . . . 44
John Simmons Tel: 905-666-0258 • Fax: 905-666-0778 32 Foster Cres. Whitby, Ontario, Canada L1R 1W1 E-mail: jsimmons@idirect.com Western Canada, Western USA Tim Shaddick Tel: 778-822-1826 • Fax: 604-264-1367 4056 West 10th Ave. Vancouver, BC V6L 1Z1 E-mail: tootall1@shaw.ca International Murray Brett Tel: +34 96 640 4165 Fax: +34 96 640 4022 Aldea de las Cuevas 66 Buzon 60 • 03759 Benidoleig (Alicante), Spain E-mail: murray.brett@abasol.net
IronWorks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
Coming Events/Ad Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Tel: 1-800-669-5613 • Fax: 334-834-4525
Bridget DeVane
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 nonqualified 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—TOLLFREE 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 ® 2014. 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 5613, Montgomery, AL 36103-5613 Member Verified Audit Circulation
Other Hatton-Brown publications: ★ Timber Processing ★ Timber Harvesting ★ Panel World ★ Power Equipment Trade ★ IronWorks ★ Wood Bioenergy
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SOUTHERN STUMPIN’ By David Abbott • Associate Editor • Ph. 334-834-1170 • Fax: 334-834-4525 • E-mail: david@hattonbrown.com
Burning Up The Road W
e always like to hear about loggers with interesting hobbies or side jobs. Most like to hunt and fish, and many are involved in their church or in coaching youth sports. Some do volunteer work in the community or travel abroad for missionary trips. We have our Harley fans, and a few are into safaris, bringing home trophies to mount on the wall. And then there are some chasing a bigger prize. Virginia’s Matt Bowling is gearing up for his fourth season in the NASCAR Whelen AllAmerican Series. He’s been aggressively making a name for himself over the past few seasons, winning the NASCAR Late Model track championship at the challenging South Boston Speedway by 18 points in 2012, and one of his races was televised last February in Daytona. Currently, Matt is entered in the Champion Spark Plugs Always a Champion Contest in order to win sponsorship for the 2014 season, so his friends in the logging community are asking people to go to the web site and vote for Matt to help him win. The ultimate goal is to find a sponsor and get on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit…eventually. Matt is the son of Tim Bowling, owner of Bowling Logging and Chipping, based in Ridgeway near the state line between Virginia and North Carolina. Bowling works in both states and is a board member of the North Carolina Assn. of Professional Loggers. Matt is currently in college, taking business classes during the day and welding classes two nights a week. In the middle of all that he also works in the woods with his father. Fridays are his days off to prepare for the weekend races.
Fast Start Matt started his career early by racing go-karts in the fourth grade (about a decade ago) before graduating to the Limited Sportsman division in 2010 and then to Late Models in 2011, when he was named Rookie of the Year. It’s been a quick rise. In 2012 Matt showed 20 starts and one win on his Virginia record, finishing in the top five 14 times and in the top 10 every time. He had starts at Motor Mile Speedway in Radford and Langley Speedway in Hampton. He won in South Boston in April, but Langley in July gave him maybe the biggest win of his career at that point in the prestigious Hampton Heat 200. He took the lead in the 148th lap and kept it for the remaining 50+ laps to take the checkered flag, leaving three-time champ C.E. Falk and his brother Wes Falk in second and third, respectively. In a post-race interview, C.E. Falk called him a “phenomenal driver.” In October he led the Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 300 at Martinville Speedway for 51 laps. Unfortunately a power steering failure caused him to fall behind with 24 laps to go. He would have been the youngest winner ever in that race, 6
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Logger's son Matt Bowling was the South Boston Speedway Late Model track champion in 2012.
but instead finished seventh. This also cost him the position he needed on C.E. Falk to win the Virginia Late Model Triple Crown. He still has his sites set on winning that one because Martinsville is his hometown. Outside the state, he competed at the Kingsport Speedway in Tennessee and Caraway Speedway in North Carolina. Overall that year he won twice and recorded 24 top five finishes and 34 top 10s out of 37 races that year. That consistency is what won him the South Boston points race, even with only one win on the track. He finished fourth overall in Virginia’s points race—only four points behind third—and 16th in the national points race, which is figured from the driver’s best 18 results through mid-September. In 2013 he won a race at Motor Mile Speedway, and at one point ranked second in the state and eighth nationally, though he only ran a part-time schedule. Matt’s No. 83 car, a Chevy Impala based on a Hedgecock chassis, is powered by a Kowalskybuilt racing engine. He still has his first sponsor,
He has competed on several tracks, including frequent races at the Motor Mile Speedway in Radford.
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Bill Lemons, in his corner, along with Blue Ridge Tire Center, Nelson Auto Group, Hopkins Lumber and Forestryparts.com. And of course his parents Tim and Diana are his biggest supporters. He’s torn up a few cars…they call it seat time…time to gain experience and learn from each race. That experience, along with any money he wins, gets him closer to his goal. At this point the money doesn’t pay the bills—a typical win paying maybe $4,000—but that money is reinvested for the next race, so at best it’s a break even proposition.
Finish Line With each race he is inching closer to realizing his goals, but Matt knows he has a long road ahead before he can earn a spot in the Sprint Cup Series. These days, he realizes, it isn’t just about talent; there’s no denying he has plenty of that. He’s only 20 but he’s competing against former national champions and beating drivers with years, even decades more experience. It comes down to money, and how much of it a driver can bring in. That means getting sponsors. So he’s working hard to win the right races, and impress the right people, all while keeping his sites set on that finish line. I know we have a few NASCAR fans out there, and wouldn't it be cool to see a NASCAR driver with a logging equipment logo on his car? And who knows, a few years from now Matt may be the next big star, so I’d encourage you to vote and help him get that sponsorship. The 15 finalists after February 2 will go through another round of voting from February 21-March 23. The grand prize winner, announced March 31, will be awarded a $50,000 sponsorship. Go to http://alwaysa champion.com/, register with your name and email, search for Matt Bowling and vote as many times as you SLT like, up to once a day.
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Efficiency Is Key ■ Panhandle Forestry grows into a major procurement and logging force.
By Jay Donnell ★ CHIPLEY, Fla. he bankruptcy of U.S. Forest Industries, Inc. in 1999 and the closure of its two sawmills left several timber buyers, procurement personnel and contract logging operations wondering what to do next. Barry McGaughey and David Morris were two of those procurement employees for U.S. Forest Industries, and both had extensive experience in corporate timber procurement for sawmills, paper mills and chip mills with several companies. But now what? In a classic case of turning adversity into opportunity, in 2000 McGaughey, Morris and comptroller Cheryl Martin formed Panhandle Forestry Services, Inc. and began working closely with many of the logging contractors that had been “set adrift” by the demise of U.S. Forest Industries. However, it was-
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n’t as if opportunity came knocking right away. As the industry oscillated through one of its oversupply cycles, the new business ran into restrictive quotas—they had a six load per week pine pulpwood quota for one mill and sporadic wood orders from other area mills. They also encountered a prevailing feedback from the area wood supply chain, as McGaughey recalls, “that we should go away.” McGaughey adds: “One primary consumer advised us that we should get out of the timber business and sell insurance or pursue other lines of interest. That attitude motivated us.” Slowly and carefully they moved forward and planted trees, did GPS work, cruised timber, did burning, bought timber and logged. “We slowly amassed a logging force the old way. We financially assumed the liability of the man we hired and helped them manage their business toward success,” McGaughey
reflects. “These contractors, many who have been with us from the beginning, are our friends and allies and an integral part of our identity.” In 2013, 15 independent logging contractors produced timber sold through Panhandle Forestry Services. Of those 15 contractors, seven of them are a part of a core that operates exclusively with Panhandle Forestry Services, which has assisted several of them in establishing independent banking relationships. “These are the bonds that instill a relationship where we work together in a collective effort and do the right thing,” McGaughey says. With the renovations of the sawmills at Marianna, Fla. by Spanish Trail Lumber and at Graceville, Fla. by Rex Lumber, the position of the company improved and Panhandle Forestry became ingrained into the region’s wood supply chain Later, the addition of the Green Circle Bio Energy wood pellet facility in Cottondale, Fla. and that opera-
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tion’s continuous increases in consumption helped to create a steady marketplace.
Company Developments Another big move early on came in 2004, when Panhandle Forestry Services hired logger Dwayne Taylor, whom Morris had pursued for several years. Taylor started in the woods at an early age working alongside his father, a third generation logger. He worked for 13 years for two area loggers and then formed D&S logging in 1995, named for Dwayne and his wife, Sherri. The addition of Taylor provided the company with a logging contractor who had a positive reputation, not to mention his extensive insight into the nuts and bolts of logging. Following years of financially backing independent contractors, McGaughey and Morris began contemplating running some of
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Panhandle Forestry Services, Inc. has 42 employees including the three owners.
From left, David Morris, Barry McGaughey and Dwayne Taylor are the owners of Panhandle Forestry Services, Inc.
their own equipment to further their “control of all aspects from stump to the mill.” The men teamed up with Taylor and created Chipola Timber Harvesting, Inc. in 2007, while maintaining D&S Logging, Inc. as the trucking arm, and continuing to operate Panhandle Forestry Services, Inc. as a timber procurement and brokerage business. The three men never hesitated in forming a separate trucking company. “If you expect to consistently deliver timber and control its destination, you have to control the trucking and the only way to do that is to maintain the trucks,” Morris says. “They complement each other—trucking pushes logging and logging pushes trucking. Logging is a production and efficiency game first and foremost.” Today D&S Logging runs and maintains 21 Mack CH613s, ranging from 1996 to 2003 models. The business uses Fleetmatics GPS tracking for their IFTA (Internation-
Chipola Timber, Inc. prefers to use Barko loaders and Tigercat skidders.
D&S Logging maintains 21 Mack CH613s and 13 of the trucks have Vulcan onboard scales.
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al Fuel Tax Agreement) reporting for three states. These quarterly fuel tax reports include mileage traveled, destinations and gallons purchased and are used to determine net tax or refund due the jurisdictions. The Fleetmatics system is also used to schedule maintenance. It alerts management and the shop of services due and scheduling. During that service, the driver is provided a spare truck and trailer to use for the day. Inspections are done on his care of the vehicle during those stops. In addition, the program provides speed and location data in the event of a wreck. Crew foremen have access to the truck location via smart phone. “Routinely running in three states, the GPS tracking has become a go-to feature we are sold on,” Morris says.
Logging Operations This huge stable of trucks can mean only one thing: there’s a lot of production going on. In 2013, Chipola Timber Harvesting’s four crews produced 399,000 tons of wood, or more than 14,000 loads at 28.39 tons per load, according to company records. Each of the four was just under or just over 100,000 tons. Other logging operations procured by Panhandle Forestry Services produced another 350,000 tons. The permanent contract logging operations include Robert Mills of Mills Timber Harvesting, Harold Boykin of B&B Logging, James Williams of D&J Williams Logging, Ezell Cole of Shady Grove Logging, Bob Crosby, Miles and Sons Logging and Cremer Wood. Panhandle Forestry employs two seasoned timber buyers, Charles Brasington and Doug Loy. They collectively purchase on the stump a high percentage of stumpage harvested by the contract logging operations and bring with them decades of related experience. The company added Amber Jimenez in 2005 to handle the wood settlement system, payment to loggers and owners. Cheryl Martin continues to serve as comptroller. Initially centering off of Taylor’s mechanical knowledge and running “half life” equipment, Chipola got up to six crews, but has now settled on four, which McGaughey refers to as their “sweet spot blueprint.” They’ve revamped their operating dynamics several times, trying to be flexible and resilient along the way. The four company crews run basically identical sets. Today the woods equipment generally ranges from several years old to new. When they purchase equipment, they buy new Tigercat skidders and new Barko loaders and look for low hour Tigercat cutters. Their pri-
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mary equipment dealers are Tidewater Equipment and Knight Forestry. For example, Crew 1 is running a 2014 495 Barko loader (operated by foreman Joey Taylor), 2012 Tigercat 720E cutter (Greg Gort) and 2011 620D Tigercat skidder (Danny Carnley). Joe Gort manages the 4000 International crew truck. Crew 2 operates a 495 Barko loader (foreman Timmy Morrison), 718 Tigercat cutter (Alvie Peacock), 620D Tigercat skidder (Jimmy Troublefield). Crew 3 includes a 595 Barko loader (Clint Barfield), 718 Tigercat cutter (Tim Forehand) and 620D Tigercat skidder (foreman Chuck Paul). Crew 4 operates a 595 Barko (foreman Dwayne Walters), 720E Tigercat cutter (Alan Walters) and 620D Tigercat skidder (Travis Foster). A 650 John Deere crawler is operated by longtime employee Billy Joe Mitchell. He handles all road building and cleanup. A 648GIII Deere skidder is also available. Firestone tires are preferred. The business purchased a shop from long-time area logger Micky Knapp, where they employ a senior master mechanic, Leve Dumas, who attends to field issues and oversees two junior mechanics, Robert Docko and Chris Suggs. They maintain basic parts and supplies, build hydraulic hoses, package filter kits for field equipment and have internet in the shop to look at schematics and to order parts. Thorough maintenance is done at 250 hours on harvesting equipment and 15,000 miles on the trucks. Getting back to the trucking end, they have installed Vulcan on-board scales on 13 of the trucks, buying one to three at a time and installing them. This process started in response to stringent monitoring and grading of payload targets on St. Joe timberland, and they soon realized that aside from the liability of overloading, the real benefit is in not being underloaded. They’ve also received a minimum of overweight fines. They run primarily the Pitts 102 Load Payin’ series and some Pitts plantation trailers. “We haul wood, not truck and trailer,” Taylor quips. The trucks are day cabs with one stack, one fuel tank—as light as possible. Finally with the advent of CSA 2010 carrier safety measurement, they pay particular attention to their overall score, their drivers and their performance. The four Chipola Timber company crews’ permanent assignments are with North Florida Woodlands (Rex Lumber Co.), operating mills in Graceville and Bristol, Fla., Spanish Trail Lumber Co. in Cypress, Fla. and St. Joe Land Co. Chipola Timber Harvesting and
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720E Tigercat cutters are on two Chipola crews, with 718s felling on the other two.
Panhandle Forestry Services contract primarily with St. Joe and its huge timberland base. On the day SLT visited, one of the crews was clear-cutting 100 acres of development land owned by St. Joe. Production runs the gamut—pulpwood, chip-n-saw, sawlogs—and is hauled mainly to Rock-Tenn in Panama City, Fla., Spanish Trail Lumber, Rex Lumber and Green Circle Bio Energy. The three owners have had to handle the many different challenges of growing a company. “One big challenge is fuel cost, though it’s down a little bit now from what it was a couple years ago,” Morris says. “Insur-
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ance has gone up, equipment has gone up and the logging rates are slow to follow. That’s been a challenge, but we’ve been able to navigate that by being as efficient as we possibly can and maybe overcoming some of those things.” The businesses combined employ 42 including the three owners. “We’ve been very fortunate,” Taylor says. “We seem to draw the better clientele. We’ve gotten to the point where they kind of seek us out now.” McGaughey adds that when they started out it was harder to find people to work because they were a new entity. “Now we try to pay at the upper end of the scale and treat
our employees fairly. We have a reputation now and we have people contacting us to go to work.” Maintaining a strong business in any economy is a challenge for the three owners, but they believe there is an obvious key to survival: “Being more efficient than anybody else that does this,” Morris says. And Taylor adds, “We feel we’re the most efficient at the size we are now.” Panhandle Forestry Services, Inc. is a member of the Florida Forestry Assn. and the Southeastern Wood SLT Producers Assn. Email: panhandleforest@bellsouth.net
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Good Fortune ■ Young logger Jeremy Jones started from scratch and weathered the storms.
By David Abbott GALLANT, Ala. t’s not supposed to be ★ this cold in Alabama. But on a cloudy day in early January, a cold snap that had hit most of the country left mounds of solid ice dotting the landscape where water normally drips from rocks along the roadside. Temperatures in the previous days had reportedly dipped down to 5 degrees in the area, with highs as low as 13. That might be par for the January course in some parts of the country, but not this far south of the Mason Dixon line. For Jeremy Jones and his crew,
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the frigid temps and icy ground provided an uncomfortable inconvenience, but not without perks. Jones, 37, owner of Jones Logging LLC, opted to start a few hours later than usual on the coldest morning. The cold caused one skidder to blow a line and the other—ironically, the newer one—would not start at first. But, on the other hand, the softer spots on the ground became much more solid, allowing them to work in places that had been problematic. The crew still hauled six loads, only slightly fewer than average. That’s been somewhat the story of Jones’ life as a logger: getting off to a rough start in bad conditions, but eventually pulling through to a good outcome.
Sleepless Nights Before landing his first job in the woods, Jones had no prior background in logging; he’s the only one in his family who has ever done it. Many of his relatives had worked in steel fabrication, but that, he says, never interested him. “It was too tedious and boring for me.” He got in the business when he was 18 when he went to work for a nearby logger, Phillip Gargus, and found that he really enjoyed the job. He worked for both Gargus and his brother, both second generation loggers, for a couple of years, and then for another, Wade Hutchens, whose son now runs a skidder on Jones’ crew. After a few years he left the woods
This 437D loader, a 2013 model just purchased from Warrior Tractor in Oxford, is the first new piece Jones has acquired.
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for a maintenance job in a plastic cutlery packing factory, where he stayed for six years. It was a good job, he says. He started at the bottom and worked his way up; within two years he was the lead man on the shift, and within three he was in management, eventually promoted to assistant maintenance manager. But it wasn’t really what he wanted to do. By March 2006 he’d decided he was ready to go back to the woods, this time on his own terms. He looked around for financing but, without prior history, he was just warned repeatedly that 90% of small businesses fail in the first year. If he was going to do this, he’d have no choice but to do it on his, he realized. He had built a
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house for himself in 2002 and used the equity from that to buy a used skidder and feller-buncher. He cashed out what money he’d accumulated in a savings account to buy a work truck and a chain saw. After being denied by larger companies, a local independent bank did lend him the money to buy a used loader. From there things were anything but smooth sailing. On his first day…on the third drag of wood…a hydraulic pump on the cutter went out, and he had no money left to replace it. He was forced to use a credit card to buy a new one. When he started, he continued to work third shift at the factory so he could devote his daylight hours to working in the woods, leaving precious little time for any rest. “It took a lot of time away from my family, and my kids were little then—5 and 2.” He kept up that marathon routine for three months before feeling the logging operation was rolling steady and solid enough to allow him to quit the factory.
A loyal John Deere man, Jones has until recently bought all his equipment used from individuals.
Timing Arguably, he couldn’t have picked a worse time to get into logging. He remembers talking to veteran loggers who told him how “stupid” he was for joining their ranks. Even two years before the overall economy hit the skids, it was already bad for loggers anyway. Quotas were tight. And in the middle of that, he was the new kid on the block with no connections. “It was hard to find tracts because nobody knew me,” he recalls. “Logging capacity was at its fullest so dealers weren’t looking for someone to cut their wood.” He might have been discouraged at times—he sometimes jokes that “I left a good job for this”—but he didn’t give up. He eventually found a timber company that would put him to work, but says he was their “redheaded stepchild” for a long time, getting only the least attractive tracts. “I cut some bad stuff,” he recalls. “If they don’t know you and they don’t know what kind of job you’re going to do, they couldn’t put me on a big job with a lot of money tied up in it, so I got the little jobs—the scrappy, rough jobs.” When he started an already struggling industry was on the verge of a near-collapse along with much of the overall economy. Then the bottom fell out, and the rest is now history. During that time the logging capacity was thinned out as many operators were forced to retire or sell out. But Jones hung on, and gradually earned his way into better tracts. “I’ve learned that if you do good work, the job looks good, you get a little better job next time, and the more wood you move, the bigger jobs you get,” he says. “The timber company has a
From left to right, Jeremy Jones, Mark Miller, Matthew McCartney, Brett Reidlinger, John Hutchens; not pictured, Perry Dodgens, Dale Arledge
Jones owns two Freightliners and hires a contractor...and "the pressure is on." The logo was on the truck when he bought it.
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pulp go to Kronospan in Ohatchee and Louisiana-Pacific in Hanceville. On an average week the crew hauls 40 loads, typically split 60/40 between pulpwood and logs, doing mostly first thinning jobs. Although Jones spends most of his time on the job site, he uses a portion of it to cruise for timber, as he tries to buy up to 40% of his tracts himself from individuals. The rest comes through timber dealers Dixie Timber in Atalla, Drennen Forestry in Cullman, or, on the current tract, Brighton Forestry Services in Holly Pond.
Bar None Jones bought the cutter used from Gulf Machinery in Montgomery.
lot of money on a big tract of wood and it has to get it moved as quickly as possible or they will be paying a lot of interest.” Toughing it out and working his way into better jobs has gradually paid off, allowing Jones just recently to purchase his first new piece of equipment, a 2013 John Deere loader.
O.J.T. It takes a while to build reputation, and he says that has less to do with production and more to do
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with merchandising. “I know that a log is going on the log truck and not going to pulpwood just to finish a load.” He says he learned from on the job experience and benefitted from an inquisitive nature—he wanted to learn everything and wasn’t too proud to ask questions. “I didn’t have a clue really what I was getting into but I was always trying to learn.” He had learned a lot while working for Gargus, and once on his own he worked with the foresters to teach him how to recognize, for instance, a grade log or a
tie log. He also went to the mills to see what they were doing. Generally specs call for 10 in. on tie logs and at least a 14-16 in. small end for grade logs. Ply logs and pine sawlogs head to Georgia Pacific in Thorsby and chip-n-saw to Southern Parallel in Albertville. Jones sends his hardwood logs to a satellite wood yard in Fairview for Elk Valley Hardwoods in Etheridge, Tenn. Most pine pulpwood goes to Resolute Forest Products in Childersburg, where the material is chipped to make diaper fluff. Some pine and hardwood
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Jones mans the loader, and from there sorts the various separations and merchandises the highest value from each stem. It helps that he’s supported by a top-notch team, most of whom have been in the woods their entire lives. Matthew McCartney runs the cutter, and serves as backup on the loader when Jones has to leave. Brett Reidlinger and John Hutchens—the son of Jones’ former employer Wade Hutchens—each drive a skidder, though Jones adds that all of his men are more than capable of handling any piece of equipment when they need to. “This
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is the best crew I’ve ever had, bar none,” he says gratefully. Company truck drivers are Mark Miller and Dale Arledge. Contract hauler Perry Dodgens has actually been with Jones the longest, almost since the start in 2006. “There have been several days when it was just me and him,” Jones says. It was a bad day one especially wet winter a few years back, just after they’d gotten all the equipment moved to a new tract, when all his employees at the time quit on the same day, enticed to work for another logger. Dodgens and another driver loaded and hauled while Jones cut and skid, and they still pulled 20 loads that week. Jones is a loyal John Deere man. All his primary equipment—2008 648H and 2005 648G-III skidders, ’06 643J feller-buncher and the new ’13 437D loader, along with ’04 650H dozer—are from Deere. Except for the cutter, purchased from Gulf Machinery in Montgomery, he’s bought most of his iron over the years used from individuals. The loader came by way of Warrior Tractor in Oxford, about an hour from home for him. For many of the parts he needs, it’s more convenient to look to nearby Snead Ag Supply, a tractor dealer in Leesburg. Other assets include CSI 4400 bucksaw and CSI 264 pull through delimber, useful for merchandising, along with a 1997 Chambers DeLimbinator, which he says works best in young pine on first thinning applications, his usual stumping grounds. In fact, the tract he was working when Southern Loggin’ Times visited was the first he’s done without the DeLimbinator, because it was heavier to oak and hickory, which he says can wrap around the drum and lock it down. He trims trailers with Husqvarna pole saws. Jones owns two trucks, both Freightliners, with a Pitts plantation and Magnolia trailers and a Pitts lowboy, all bought used from friends and industry peers. Each operator is responsible for greasing at least twice a week and changing oil every 250 hours, tracked by writing on filters.
enough of my time to it,” he says, reflecting the humility and modesty that is obvious in his mannerisms. With his wife Tammy, he has two sons, Jacob and Tyler, who play all three major sports, and that also keeps him busy. “I pick the older one up from baseball practice and go right to the younger son’s basketball game,” he says. They play at different local churches, and they’ve kept him busy through the years coaching youth baseball and football teams. SLT The ’05 648 still pulls through.
Email: jjoneslogger@gmail.com
Full Plate Jones works hard throughout the week, but he won’t work on Sundays. That’s because logging is only one of his careers. He is also an Associate Pastor of Gum Springs Baptist church in Ashville. He began his preaching ministry at age 19, before he was married, and served as associate pastor at another church for nine years, and at Gum Springs for the last two. He also does some evangelism, preaching at revival meetings. “I have to read and study to prepare for sermons, but I don’t ever feel like I devote Southern Loggin’ Times
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Still Going Strong ■ With no plans to retire, veteran logger Padgette eyes new biomass markets.
Padgette sets his landing up as a “grade-off” job, with the loaders working in tandem to separate grade logs while setting out trailers and feeding the chipper continuously.
By David Abbott WALLACE, NC fter 51 ★ years in the woods, industry vet Sherwood Padgette, 67, has been around the block a few times, and is still looking for opportunities to open up potential new markets. Last summer he met with representatives from Biochemtex, a global biofuels supplier. North Carolina Assn. of Professional Loggers Executive Director Doug Duncan arranged for Padgette and other loggers in the area to demonstrate their capabilities and send chip samples for ethanol testing to the company’s plant in Italy. Biochemtex plans to put $200 million into a new ethanol plant, under the name Carolina Cellulosic
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Biofuels, to be located in Sampson County, Padgette’s home territory. The plant will primarily rely on energy crops, but the purpose of the meetings was to test the viability of woody biomass as a supplement feedstock during lean months, when grass isn’t growing. “It may lead to something, it may not,” Padgette said at the time, in his characteristically pragmatic tone. “I hope we can do some business with them.” Padgette already supplies energy chips to Capital Power in Southport. Roughly 70% of his production goes to chips, with the rest as roundwood bound for International Paper Riegelwood and Georgia Pacific in Dudley, both close hauls. “I call it a grade-off logging job,” Padgette says to describe his style
of operation. Trailers and vans are spotted in advance of trucks, and the loaders take the grade off the roundwood and feed the chipper continuously. He runs one truck of his own and contracts up to five others, depending on distance from mills. When Southern Loggin’ Times visited, it was a 100-mile haul one-way, but that was helped by speedy turnaround times. The mills take wood 24/7, both chips and roundwood, so the truckers haul what they can in the day and the rest at night. As long as all 14 trailers are back in the woods and ready to load by 7 each morning, Padgette is happy. He has several older and three new ITI chip vans, and for roundwood, White three-axle trailers. The woods crew sets trailers out throughout the day,
leaving several ready to go at the end of their day for the truckers to pick up on their own. On an average week they pull out 60-70 loads. Padgette cuts for R&K Timber, Inc., based in Wallace. He has a good working relationship with owner W.S. Melville, who is also married into the family by way of a cousin. “He keeps me supplied in good wood and he sees that we are taken care of financially as well as possible.” Padgette realizes how lucky he is to have a dealer who is in his corner. Some dealers have so many loggers working for them they will give them bad tracts just to get them off the phone, and too many young foresters, he fears, don’t seem to have a clue what the logger is up against. Not so with Melville. He logged for 21 years, and Padgette is his only contractor. “He wants me to be successful.”
Chipping
Only one of his three Deere dual arch skidders needs to have dual tires, he believes.
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At the heart of his operation is the chipping component. He started biofuel chipping a decade ago. “We desperately needed an edge,” he recalls. He became inspired after watching another operator come in after his crew to chip the leftovers. “He had $1 million worth of equipment to come in behind me, and I realized that guy knew something that I didn’t know. I started thinking about it lying in the bed late at night.” He thought that since he was already doing most of the work, leaving limbs and tops behind, why not go all the way and process all that as well, as long as a market existed to support it. Besides increasing profitability, it also keeps him on a tract
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longer, meaning less time and money wasted on moving. And he sees it as a win-win for loggers and landowners, as it speeds along the replanting process, saving money on post-harvest cleanup. It’s all about fine-tuning the efficiencies. Speaking of efficiency, the chipper burns about seven gallons of fuel per load in pine and as much as 11 gallons in hardwood, but that’s not what he loves about it best. It’s how long it can go between changing knives. Padgette asserts, “I’ve tried all the rest and they just don’t compare with the quality of machine the Bandit is.” The particular 2590 model he bought a year ago in January is especially impressive, and even Bandit, Padgette says, is at a loss to explain it. “No one can understand why the blades on this machine stay sharp as long as they do.” With chippers he’s used in the past, including other Bandit chippers, he says it was typical to have to change knives after about 15 loads at the most. For whatever reason, Padgette claims this specific 2590 will go 75-100 loads between knife changes. In fact, the first set of knives, when he bought it, ran 113 loads before its first set change. “That’s unheard of,” he admits. “You tell people this and they don’t believe it, but it’s absolutely true.” Before, the crew changed knives two or three times a week. Now they do it every other Saturday, and even then, he says, the knives aren’t beat up or jagged. These are the same knives he’s run in the past, in the same type of wood, same conditions, same operator (Padgette’s nephew). “We can’t figure it out, Bandit can’t figure it out,” he says. “This is the only one they have seen do that. It came off the line just right. Somehow they just engineered this one just right and they don’t know how they did it.” Padgette handles his own knife sharpening on a MK 60 Michigan knife sharpener at his shop. He keeps up to five sets, with one spare set in the service truck, rotating them out between changes, although it only takes about a half hour to sharpen an entire set. He also sharpens knives for some other loggers, and notes that machines operating in worse conditions often have grooved knives, which take longer to sharpen. He prefers Simonds knives. “Simonds seems to hold an edge longer.” Like other machines, the chipper requires oil changes about every 250 hours of service, or every 6-7 weeks.
Left to right: Justin Woodcock, Jordan Lunsford, Ricky Kelly, Sherwood Padgette, Vic Padgette, Willis Scarborough
for his operation—while the price the logger is paid remains largely unchanged. “They’re sucking the life blood out of us.” The sheer greed demonstrated by some of these large petroleum companies mystifies him. “I can’t understand why (they) want all the money, and why our government is permitting them to do that. The guy comes once a week to fill up that (fuel) truck, and it’s about $7,000. That’s not counting freight fuel.” In an effort to run his operation as fuel efficiently as possible, Padgette continued to run two three-wheel Bell cutters full-time up until last summer. All too often he kept finding himself in wetter and wetter conditions, too wet too many times for the Bells to operate. That was the reason he replaced both Bells
with a 2013 John Deere 643K rubber tired cutter. He reports that it stands up to the soggy ground and does a great job.
Soggy Bottoms Last summer was very wet and unseasonably cool throughout the Carolinas, leaving mills hungry for wood. “I think their supply is dwindling fast,” Padgette said then. Two or three days of sunlight would dry off the road, he noted, but the woods were so saturated that many loggers he knows were unable to work for as long as three weeks straight. “I don’t know how they survived it. That’s the drawback to our type of work. It’s not just seasonal, it can be all year, and we get no subsidy of any kind, unlike
Efficiency Padgette laments that prices just keep going up for all the materials a logger has to buy—especially petroleum, the biggest cost component
Padgette believes in a mix of older and newer machines: both loaders are 2006 models.
farming. If we don’t deliver, no money.” Part of the reason he could keep working when so many others couldn’t is that the area was very sandy—about 60 miles inland—and thus well-drained. Besides the chipper and cutter, other machines include Prentice 384 and 310 loaders, both 2006 models, and three skidders, all Deere 648 dual arch machines, one with dual tires. He will only use dual arch skidders, he says, because of the frequent wet spots. He only duals tires on one skidder, not all three, with the reasoning that one good operator on duals can fight the stump and get it out of the mud. The other two on singles can drag it to the loader. He also keeps a Deere 653G track machine that comes in handy when conditions are extra wet. “I like Deere equipment, it’s pretty stout, the quality is there, parts are close by, anything you need overnight.” Dealer is R.W. Moore Equipment Co. in Wilmington NC. Padgette employs a contract mechanic, John Coleman, to handle most maintenance and repairs on site, using a service truck equipped with a crane. Coleman gets help from his sons when they are out of school, he notes. “He’s trying to teach them to do something besides watch TV and play games.” Along with the new chipper and cutter, Padgette just recently added two new Deere 648H skidders to replace the 648G models from 1999. “In my experience you need a balance of newer and older equipment,” he advises. “There is a fine line where it can be more economical to make a payment on a new piece rather than have parts and work on an old piece. But I still don’t think a logging or chipping job can sustain itself, with the weather and the market’s ups and downs, with all new equipment payments.”
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He says the key in finding what works for a given operation depends on the number of loads the operation can reasonably expect to produce. For instance, the ideal for his job, in his location with his markets and the type of timber he cuts, is 60 loads a week, give or take— because he can make his payments on fewer loads when he has to. “Then you can sway with the punches,” he says.
Teamwork The owner describes his crew like a ball team, working as a unit in one accord with every man depending on the other. He doesn’t mind paying them a solid wage plus production bonuses, but he says it really comes down to character. “You can pay a good man a good price, but it doesn’t matter how much you pay a sorry man, he’s not going to make you any money.” They’re not dependable because he pays well, he pays well because they’re dependable. Along with the bonus incentive, he provides them lunch every day, along with uniforms and, for many of them, transportation. They can usually meet their weekly targets and be done by noon on Friday. “They have a good
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This Bandit 2590, added last year, has been going about five times as long as normal between chipper knife changes.
thing going, and it works good for me, so it’s a win-win situation.” His nephew, Victor Padgette, runs the chipper and loader and looks after things when his uncle can’t be on site. “He is really good at what he does,” Padgette says. “All of them are.” Ricky Kelly runs the other loader and handles dropping and changing out set-out trailers, and is also skilled at small mechanical jobs. “He’s a real asset to the company, having a man of his cal-
iber.” Padgette calls Justin Woodcock a smart feller-buncher operator, equally skilled with the 643 or the track cutter, who knows how to take care of the machine and the wood. “He gets the job going, because it starts at the stump; you can’t pull wood standing up.” Former truck driver Willis Scarborough has been with Padgette a long time, so when he wanted to get out of the truck cab and into a skidder, Padgette knew he’d be reliable. Jordan Lunsford,
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the youngest and most recent addition to the team, came from a logging family. “I knew his dad, and it’s in his blood like it is ours.” He’s learning fast and, importantly, is open to learning to do things the way Padgette wants them done. “I don’t think I’m the smartest fellow in the world, but things that have worked for me real well in the past, those are the methods I like to use, and he has adapted to those.” As happy as he is with the per-
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formance of his team, he has little patience for those who don’t come on the job ready to work. “If one of our contractors hires a renegade truck driver, he can cause a lot of problems. Those are the ones we don’t keep.” He has no tolerance for foolishness on the job. “If you want to give me any reason to think you might be under the influence of some chemical or drinking, you’re not going to be here.” He makes sure the contractors conduct drug tests for all drivers, but for his own employees he has known them all so well personally that testing is not necessary. “I have had a few over the years who were that way and you don’t really need a test, you can tell. And before they hurt themselves or someone else, you have to get rid of them.” The man believes in taking care of those who take care of him. “They are all real dependable,” Padgette says. “They do not lay out.” For that reason, if they do need to be off for a legitimate reason, the boss is happy to give them the time off, with pay. One employee who had been with the company more than 30 years had to have his feet amputated, but Padgette kept paying him for more than a year after he left. “You don’t forget the
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bridge that carried you across the water in troubled times.”
Perspective It was the summer of 1963, just before his senior year of high school, when Padgette, only 16 at the time, started working in the woods with his father, logging with a horse and mule. He went full time the next year, after he graduated. They worked together for the next 20 years before the younger man went out on his own. Looking back to his early days with mules and crosscut saws, Padgette singles out the hydraulic loader as the most important advance in the development of the modern industry, noting how much it increased safety. Looking ahead, he believes biofuel is the future. “I don’t think the average logger is going to be able to make a living off of just roundwood.” Padgette believes that responsible timber harvesting is sustainable long-term. The real danger to the timber resource, he points out, is urban sprawl. “I don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about trees and timber and biofuel being evaporated from the country on account of harvesting because the majority of timberland owners are replanting.” Most
of them, he says, are responsible stewards because they have an investment and incentive, and plan so that their heirs can still have timber and profit a century from now. “And there are so many more trees per acre on a replanted acre than there are on a natural growth stand. I would say it’s 4-to-1.” He notes that he has returned to cut some of the same tracts three times in the course of his career. “Overdevelopment in the South is the only threat. Conglomerates coming in with big shopping centers, especially along coastal areas; you’ll never grow another tree there.” Still, he thinks inland replanting will overbalance and leave an abundant timber supply. His wife Shirley handles the books for him, and she sometimes gets teased when she brings her big ledger to her accountants because she still keeps track of everything on paper rather than computer. “Here comes the big book lady,” they say, but the accountant corrects them. “Don’t laugh at Mrs. Padgette, she’s always right with her work when the computers are wrong.” Padgette smiles when telling the story. “She’s never endorsed the computer and she’s happy doing it the way she does it.” They have two daughters—Greta,
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who also helps with the bookwork, and Kim, a registerd nurse. Interestingly, Greta is the personal assistant and purchasing agent for American Materials Co., making business and travel arrangements for its owner all over the world. He’s a $60 million man, according to Padgette, with his own helicopter and not one but two jets. When he goes hunting in Africa, instead of bringing back stuffed heads he brings home the entire animal in a cargo plane. Recently, the state senate appointed him to serve a two-year term on the Agricultural and Forestry Committee. After more than a half century on the job, Padgette has no plans to hang up his hardhat any time soon. “When my body starts giving up on me, that’s when I will retire.” For now, he’s still going strong, looking as healthy and vibrant as a man many years younger. “I look around at those (retired) folks who are going home, getting fat sitting around watching TV, and a lot of them it’s not long before they go to clay city. I feel like you’re better off to keep moving your body, and SLT your mind.” Email: spadgette@hotmail.com
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Workforce Anxiety ■ Survey: For many loggers, finding and keeping quality employees is an uphill challenge.
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n cooperation with the Forest Resources Assn., earlier this year Hatton-Brown Publishers, parent company of Southern Loggin’ Times and Timber Harvesting & Wood Fiber Operations, circulated an on-line survey link to 400 of its logging contractor subscribers who had provided email addresses. The list was selected to provide distribution roughly representative of logging business density in all U.S. regions. The purpose of the brief survey was to learn the extent of loggers’ concern about attracting new personnel to logging employment, what factors they feel discourage employees from seeking such employment, and to uncover what loggers consider to be good selling points for potential entry-level workers. Following a second reminder solicitation, 110 loggers—a strong 27%—responded. Responses were fairly evenly distributed among the regions in proportion to current logging demographics. Labor issues have vexed some loggers for years, and today, even with a persistently high unemployment rate, the problem continues for many. Survey results indicate that anxiety about obtaining qualified, motivated employees is a strong but not universal concern, and that concern varies somewhat by region, and even within a region. For example, it is a near universal matter in the West but not as universal in the South, perhaps with the exception of Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, where oil and gas industry employment opportunities are significant.
Summary Question 1: Are you having difficulties, or do you expect to have difficulties, in attracting qualified logging employees? 78 respondents— 71% yes, 29% no. Only those who answered yes were asked to proceed with the rest of the survey. Question 2: Please identify up to five reasons from the following list that you find it difficult to attract qualified logging employees. 1) They don’t like the long hours or work schedule. .................................48 2) I can’t compete with “welfare” or unemployment benefits. ..............40 3) The necessary skills are difficult to acquire. .........................................39 24
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4) They don’t like physical, outdoor, all-season work. ......................34 5) I can’t promise them work will be steady. ..........................................34 6) Other employers offer better pay for similar skills................................30 7) Drug or alcohol problems sideline possible applicants. ...................30 8) Applicants don’t see opportunities for advancing.............................30 9) Logging work has low prestige locally................................................14 10) Potential workers find the rules and procedures unattractive.............10 11) Potential workers don’t want to stay in (or come to) our community. .5 The survey invited respondents to write in “other” reasons, some of which follow: A. Better benefits with large companies. B. Living and working in a national forest, I cannot promise work availability when the federal government controls what, when, and how logging is to be done, not to mention the usual “red tape” and “hoops to jump through” to get jobs going. C. (Consuming mill) has cut our money so much we just can’t compete with other jobs. I have 15 employees; they need more money and insurance. D. The cost of insurance. E. 90% of all employees that I find or work in the logging industry have a drug or alcohol problem. If loggers in my area gave a drug test, then there would not be very many employees to select from. F. The older workers are getting too old to hold up to the everyday grind, and the younger people want to be inside on a video game or computer instead of on a piece of equipment that they have to maintain and work on. G. The paper mill and all the sawmills were shut down over 12 years ago and there are no workers left with logging skills. H. A young worker can find better pay and benefits as a common laborer at a union job. I. How do you encourage anyone to get into a industry that is marketdriven, and we cannot compete in the cost of raw material (stumpage) compared to areas with warmer climates or 3rd world countries advancing themselves? We haven’t seen the
majority of our large paper mills reinvesting for the long haul; just enough to run for today. J. Truthfully, our business has become increasingly financially strained in the past 12-24 months. We are in our 7th year of working at the same cut and haul rate. It is unfeasible to continue much longer. Thus, while we know it is difficult to attract qualified personnel, we will not be attempting any recruiting for the foreseeable— possibly permanent—future. Fortunately, we feel we will be able to apply our business and operational skills elsewhere, outside of the timber and wood products industries. Question 3: If you were promoting your business as a great place to work, what would you single out to tell a potential employee? A total of 59 provided a write-in response, some of which follow: A. You can work as many hours as you like. B. Steady work all year. C. Stay at home work, good wages, medical insurance, and great outdoor recreation opportunities. D. Seeing the beauty of nature every day and knowing that the trees you harvest are improving the forest by enabling new growth. E. That an employee would have the opportunity to advance and possibly have his own business, if he would learn the logging skills and was business-minded. F. The physical and mental benefit of working outdoors all day. The satisfaction of working with a team and getting a job done. The pay is more than factory or store work and comparable to construction work. G. Positive work environment. H. I try to keep my equipment updated, which helps in being able to get employees I. If they will work every day, and do what’s right, they can make good money. J. As long as you are self-motivated and willing to work, you work on your own, learn many mechanical skills. K. Company has been in operation by the same family for over 30 years. L. Steady employment, challenging, rewarding beyond monetary benefits. M. That we treat our employees like family, so we try to promote a
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very safe workplace. N. I’ll treat you like I would want to be treated, and I will not ask you to do anything that I have not done or would not do myself or put you in any unnecessary danger, but do remember we work in a dangerous environment. O. To be honest the way the logging industry has changed, you can’t promote your business as being a great place to work. The mills and timber companies are out for what is going on now and not out for the future, so there are not any new young loggers getting into the business. I’m trying to hang on myself, being one of the last new young loggers to start up a business, but the mills are constantly pushing me out and not giving me a chance. If you want a good survey, ask the mills and the timber companies what are they doing to actually promote the need for young people to get into logging, where they can actually hire good employees. I would love to see their answers to that. To attract new people to logging, you have to start from the top down, and us loggers are on the bottom, picking up the leftovers and trying to survive. P. I can’t honestly say my place is a great place to work, with so-so wages and few benefits. Until the owners can make a profit to pass along to their workers we are not going to be able to train and keep good workers. Q. Our pay is good for the area we work in, and we have excitement. R. Lots of overtime, good benefits. S. Once you obtain the necessary skills to perform your job function, you’re basically your own boss. Meet your production goals and maintain your equipment would be your only concern. T. Logging provides individuals with rewarding work, constantly changing work locations, and opportunities to interact with a lot of different individuals and situations. U. We are on the cutting edge of forest technology and practices. However, this makes our work more expensive. Since wood consumers seem to place a higher emphasis on dollar cost per ton rather than safety, efficiency, and quality of harvest, I would discourage any potential employees from seeking work in the SLT wood products supply chain.
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Pulling Together ■ Industry observer underscores the benefits of loggers’ associations. By Jimmie Locklear
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re you an active member of a loggers’ association? Note the emphasis on the word active. I hope your answer is yes. Unfortunately, for many loggers, the answer is no. I hope you will take a few minutes to really think about why being an active member of your state loggers’ association is Locklear vital to the success of your logging operation. Let’s consider the wisdom of some successful people from years past: “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”—Henry Ford “None of us is as smart as all of us.”—Ken Blanchard “Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”— Vince Lombardi “We must all hang together or most assuredly we will hang separately.”—Benjamin Franklin I believe Ben Franklin’s quote best addresses the business environment in today’s world. Loggers need to work together! A few loggers working together can have an impact, but the larger the group the greater the impact. I came to understand this fact more back in 2006 while attending the 12th annual American Loggers Council meeting in Kalispell, Mont. Keith Biggs, President of Forestry Mutual Insurance Co., and I left that meeting
with a self-imposed mission to help develop a loggers association for North Carolina. It was very obvious to us that without a loggers association, our North Carolina loggers would have very little impact on decisions made by politicians at both state and national levels. Those decisions could greatly reduce the ability of NC loggers to succeed or even survive. Danny Dructor, Executive Vice President for the American Loggers Council, states, “The ALC serves as a central hub on national issues that are impacting the timber harvesting industry. With logger representation from 30 states, we have the ability to communicate with our membership, and provide advocacy in Washington, DC.” Since that 2006 trip to Montana, Keith Biggs has “stepped up” Forestry Mutual’s commitment to supporting loggers’ associations within Forestry Mutual’s five-state service area. Forestry Mutual also provides support to the forestry associations within these states. Both the loggers’ associations and the forestry associations in these states are vital to the success and survival of the forest industry. The benefits of being an active member of your state’s loggers’ association extend far beyond the political influence on laws, guidelines and requirements imposed by government agencies. Many loggers’ associations use their collective buying power to save money for members when it comes to buying fuel,
parts, tires and many other services. I cannot stress enough the importance of being an active member of your state loggers’ association. Attend annual and district meetings whenever possible. You may be surprised by the benefits available to help increase your profit margins. Last year active NC loggers helped secure a sales tax exemption for certain products. Without their collective effort, that tax exemption could have been permanently lost. (See adjacent e-mail text from Doug Duncan, leader of the NC Assn. of Professional Loggers). An even greater benefit may be hearing firsthand about new products and new markets that will take the forest industry into the future. And networking with your peers can enlighten you about nagging machine issues or truck problems, state DOT weight enforcement practices, emerging local ordinances or requirements, etc.
Government laws, guidelines and regulations will always confront any business, and logging is no different. But strong associations can help fight to keep more expensive and unnecessary regulatory proposals from becoming law. Compliance with government regulations can be difficult and costly, but having the ability to influence regulations through political means is invaluable. Loggers’ associations need the strong support and influence from the logging community to fight these challenges. I’ll leave one more nugget of wisdom with you. Someone once said, “If you’re not at the table, you may be on the menu.” I urge you to move from being a spectator to SLT being an active participator.” Locklear, a former logger, is Business Development Manager for Forestry Mutual Insurance Co., Raleigh, NC. He can be reached at jlocklear@forestrymutual.com.
NC Sales Tax Exemption Preserved
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C Gov. Pat McCrory signed new tax legislation (July 23) at a televised event with key legislative leaders in attendance. H 998 was the lengthy and comprehensive bill that has been in debate and discussion for the last four weeks. Part way through the process our logging businesses lost their sales tax exemptions on equipment, attachments, repairs fuel and supplies. Our loggers had this exemption from the early 1980s as the 1% or $80 maximum. In 2006 we gained zero sales tax. Thanks to the hard work of allies such as the NCAPL, NC Forestry Association and other, we gained back the current zero sales tax status. It is a tribute to our logging and partner members and the abundance of phone calls, e-mails and personal contacts that were made to preserve and maintain these exemptions. Please take time to thank your NC representatives and senators who helped our hard working logging businesses and families.—Doug Duncan, NCAPL
COMING IN MAY...
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Sharp Police Officer
Sixth place: Carl Truman, 19, of LA, who won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal the car’s wheel covers. Fifth place was taken by Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pa., who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company, claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000. Fourth place was awarded Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Ark., who was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor’s beagle—even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun. Third place: Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pa. A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor was because Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Second place: Kara Walton, of Claymont, Del., who sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though she was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her A man was telling his $12,000, plus dental expenses. Go figure. friend and neighbor, “I just The crown jewel went to Mrs. Merv bought a new hearing aid. It Grazinksi, of Oklahoma City, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor cost me four thousand dollars, but it’s state of the art. home. On her first trip, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise con- It’s perfect.” “Really?” responded the trol at 70 MPH and calmly left the drineighbor. “What kind is it?” ver’s seat to go to the back of the rig to The quick reply: “Twelve make herself a sandwich. Not surpristhirty.” ingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Grazinksi sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her— are you sitting down?— $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed its manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.
Red Neck Van
If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could be as sharp as this policeman. He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the police officer’s credibility. Q: “Officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene?” A: “No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away.” Q: “Officer, who provided this description?” A: “The officer who responded to the scene.” Q: “A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?” A: “Yes, sir. With my life.” Q: “With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?” A: “Yes sir, we do.” Q: “And do you have a locker in the room?” A: “Yes, sir, I do.” Q: “And do you have a lock on your locker?” A: “Yes, sir.” Q: “Now, why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same officers?” A: “You see, sir, we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.” The courtroom exploded with laughter, and a prompt recess was called.
2013 Stella Awards The “Stella Awards” are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued a McDonald’s in New Mexico, where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. These are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S., the kinds of suits that make you scratch your head. Seventh place went to Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Tex., who was awarded $80,000 by a jury after breaking her ankle while tripping over a toddler who was running in a furniture store. The owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.
Two-Man Attack
It’s Hell To Grow Old
A Startling Development
Long before 30-ton track-type feller-bunchers and fax machines emerged, and before personal protective equipment became the norm, gritty workers took down trees with crosscut saws or early vintage chain saws. In this case, it was the latter—an unidentified two-man model—that was just right for this massive cypress. Since no smoke was present, the saw, cantankerous as they were, may have stalled when this photo was made.
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Shortly after a British Airways flight reached its cruising altitude, the captain announced: “Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain. Welcome to British Airways Flight 293, non-stop from London Heathrow to New York. The weather ahead is good, so we should have a smooth uneventful flight. So, sit back, relax, and.....OH MY GOD!” Silence followed. A long moment later, the captain came back on the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain again. I’m so sorry if I scared you. While I was talking to you, a flight attendant accidentally spilled coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my trousers! From the back of the plane, an Irish passenger muttered: “Oh yeah? You should see the back of mine!”
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INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP As We See It—SFI: The “Striving” Continues After 20 Years By Danny Dructor
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lmost 20 years ago, in 1994, a small group of professional loggers took a bold step and formed an organization called the American Loggers Council (ALC). Dructor
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The coalescing issue that drove them to action was the rollout that year of the Sustainable Forestry Initiatives® (SFI) Program. While the consuming side of the industry was designing a far-reaching program that
would have a direct impact on logging businesses, it neglected to ask what loggers thought about the program and its operational fallout. These early leaders of the American Loggers Council thought that it was time that loggers had a national, unified voice on SFI and other issues.
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The ALC drafted this mission statement: “The American Loggers Council is a national organization representing independent loggers, formed to enhance the logging profession, provide a unified voice on logging issues, and cooperate with public, industrial, and private timberland owners to further sustainable forestry practices.” One of the primary goals of the strategic plan for the ALC is to enhance the professionalism of logging. This includes taking a proactive stance on issues of industry concern, building up relationships between mills and loggers, and improving the public’s perception of our industry. For the past 20 years, the ALC has promoted logger training and education programs to not only help loggers better understand the relationship that exists between their operations and the environment, but also to help positively influence the public’s perception of sustainable timber harvesting operations. Unfortunately, a few rogue operators continue to log, generally in a lower tier, and chose to ignore both statutory and voluntary regulations. Yet they are allowed to deliver their products to SFI® participating mills, and get the same pay as those who meet program standards. It’s hard for those who are “getting it right” to compete with those who are not even trying. There are costs associated with the performance measures of the SFI® program, and for the most part, those costs are still being absorbed by timber harvesting businesses. After two decades and several SFI® program standard revisions, there is still discussion about the allowable maximum amount of wood fiber procured by SFI® participants that can be sourced from untrained loggers. Most logging businesses had one to two years to get into compliance with the new Logger Training and Education requirements before they were told they might not be able to deliver their products. Industry has had 20 years to try and reach 100% compliance, yet it still wants to include language in the standard revision process that would allow participating companies to “strive to accept” no more than 5% of their fiber from untrained loggers. This gives mills an out if they are not meeting the percentage of the standard. What would happen to your business if you merely “strived” to get your business in compliance with OSHA regula-
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INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP tions without ever actually doing it, or if you simply strived to meet DOT regulations while hauling overweight loads? It is past time to level the playing field. Competing with loggers who are not in compliance with the SFI-required logger training and education program, or who are not following federal and state-mandated policies, yet are still being
offered a home for their production at an SFI® program participant (mill), is unacceptable to those getting it right. If this situation is allowed to continue, those who do not abide by the laws and regulations that govern the forest industry will set the bar for the rest of us to compete against. Then, the sustainability of our industry could falter, and the public’s perception
of our industry will take another negative blow. After 20 years of “striving,” SFI program participants should be getting it right. Danny Dructor is the Executive Vice President of the American Loggers Council, a non-profit 501(c) (6) corporation representing professional timber harvesters in 30 states. For more information, visit www.americanloggers.org or phone 409-625-0206.
Georgia Power Nixes Biomass Conversion Georgia Power plans to file a request with the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to decertify Unit 3 at Plant Mitchell in Albany, Ga. and cancel a proposed conversion of the coal-fired unit to biomass. The company stated that after extensive review and analysis, the conversion would not be cost effective for its customers. If the request to decertify the 155 MW unit is approved, it will be retired by April 2015—the compliance date of the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) Rule. Since proposing the conversion to biomass in 2008, Georgia Power has worked to assess the project in light of new EPA regulations, as well as changing market and economic conditions. In addition to increased capital costs and costs related to environmental compliance, multiple other factors, such as the recent economic downturn and lower natural gas prices, have significantly reduced the project’s value and benefits for customers, according to Georgia Power. The company also considered switching the unit to Powder River Basin (PRB) coal or natural gas, neither of which proved viable.
NC Loggers To Weigh Future Market Options North Carolina loggers and their allies will consider expanded future market opportunities when they gather for the annual meeting of the NC Assn. of Professional Loggers February 28-March 1 at the Marriott Myrtle Beach Resort and Spa in Myrtle Beach, SC. Keynote speaker at 11 a.m. March 1 will be Joe Melvin, Director of Business Development for NC’s Southeast Rural Economic Development Partnership. For meeting details and hotel information, visit ncloggers.com or phone 919-271-9050.
Logging Cost Indexes In Works For South, West In a project funded by the Wood Supply Research Institute (WSRI), researchers at the University of Georgia are endeavoring to validate what they describe as the UGA Logging Cost Index, built on accumulated data provided by logging companies in the South. At 34
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INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP the same time, they are collaborating with researchers at the University of Montana to lay the groundwork for a Logging Cost Index covering the western U.S. Timber Harvesting & Wood Fiber Operations is partnering with the universities in these efforts. The University of Georgia in late 2012 began reporting a quarterly Logging Cost Index through Timber-Mart South, a regional timber market resource updated quarterly. Based on data aggregated from actual operating cost information voluntarily submitted by southernbased logging companies, the index
tracks cut-and-load costs over time. This more time sensitive and more useful quarterly index replaces Mississippi State University’s (MSU) annual logging cost index, which dated back to 1995 and included data reported through 2006. The UGA team calculated its quarterly index backward in time and compared results with those of the previous MSU annual index. The two tracked very closely over time, but more work is called for. “Since that annual index was not reported after 2006, we did not have recent cost data against which to compare our index values,”
states UGA’s Dr. Dale Greene. “We collected cost records from participating logging contractors only for calendar year 2011 to establish the appropriate breakdown of logging costs into major cost categories. We now need to ensure that the changes reported quarterly by the UGA Logging Cost Index through 2013 are equivalent to the actual changes incurred by logging contractors.” Greene also indicates the most recent logging business sample from the South may not be as representative on a production-weighted basis, pointing out that researchers
J.M. Wood Auction Co.’s Brenda Wood Remembered
intentionally solicited participation from larger, higher production companies to generate the initial index. While validating the southern data, WSRI would like to expand the methodology to other regions, beginning with the West, and perhaps eventually to the Lake States and Northeast, according to Greene. Timber Harvesting & Wood Fiber Operations is partnering with the researchers as they use an on-line survey to collect some of the data needed for these comparisons. The parties invite and encourage logging firms to participate, emphasizing that all submitted information will
the leading provider for ag, forestry, real estate and construction auctions in the Southeast. The Wood family traveled extensively from Texas to the CarThe following apt, sincere message was posted on the web site of J.M. olinas, making friends and lifelong customers along the way. Wood Auction Co. in late December: “It is with a heavy heart and great The company evolved to specialize primarily in logging equipment and sadness that we tell you, our extended auction family, of the passing of construction auctions. As well, banks became clients, and appraisal servMrs. Brenda Semmes Wood. We lost a friend, a boss, a mother and a ices were added to the list. With Brenda Wood at the helm, clients found tremendous leader in the auction industry, as well as the home. She will J.M. Wood Auction Co. to be trustworthy and easy to work with. Meanbe dearly missed by all who knew her.” while, the second generation of the family began learning the business. Wood, 65, the able president of the family firm, based in Montgomery, By 1995 J.M. Wood was the largest logging equipment auction company Ala., was memorialized December 27 at St. James United Methodist in the U.S. Eventually, it opened a second location in West Columbia, SC. Church in Montgomery. She died December 22 after a prolonged illness. Brenda Wood had developed a deep affection for loggers and logging Her family requests that contributions in her memory may be made to the equipment dealers, and the feeling was mutual. church, located at 9045 Vaughn Rd., Montgomery, AL 36117. “She was a special lady who had a special touch,” says Johnny Ward of A Montgomery native, and great-great granddaughter of Confederate W&W Truck & Tractor, Moncks Corner, SC. “She made doing business Admiral Raphael Semmes, Wood earned a home economics degree at with J.M. Wood a real pleasure. We’ll miss her in so many ways, but she Auburn University. She was a member of Montgomery’s St. James left the company in good hands. I expect that Bryant, Russ and Kim and Methodist Church. the rest of the team will carry on the tradition.” Wood and her husband, Malcom, founded J.M. Wood Auction Russ Wood tells that his mother loved to cook, and was good Co. in 1973, building it one sale at a time with hard work, integriat it: “She would cook ‘Sunday Dinner’ at the office before ty, thoughtfulness and honesty. As Brenda told it, before Malcom every auction and have all our employees and their families died in 1990, he urged her to give up the company, but knowing here to eat with us…a big meal before the long hours of the she was not one to be deterred, suspected she would stubbornly auction.” go ahead; so he instructed her to put $50,000 of their life’s savThe company finished 2013, its 40th anniversary year, with ings into the business, saying: “If you lose it, walk away.” Relymore than $100 million in auction sales, ranking it among the ing on the firm’s solid reputation and surrounding herself with largest privately held auction firms in the country. Today Bren“people I could trust,” Wood and her team held on, overcame tri- Brenda Wood elevated da Wood’s three children, Bryant and Russ Wood and Kimberly als, and grew and expanded the business, which developed into J.M. Wood Auction Co. Wood Cox, continue to operate the company.
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INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP be treated with strict confidence. Visit www.surveymonkey.com/s/ LogIndustrySurvey
Two Biomass Facilities Come On In South Carolina EDF Renewable Energy and utility company Santee Cooper recently dedicated two new biomass generat-
ing facilities called the Pinelands Biomass project. The two 17.8 MW facilities are located in Allendale and Dorchester counties in South Carolina. The Dorchester facility achieved commercial operation on November 1; Allendale November 19. “Santee Cooper was the first utility in the state to deliver electricity to all our customers from new renewable resources 12 years ago,” says Lonnie
Carter, Santee Cooper’s President and CEO. The produced energy is sold to Santee Cooper under a 30-year power purchase agreement. The woody biomass facilities, with a consistent wood demand, will bring significant economic benefits to both counties by contracting with the existing trucking and wood supply industry. Additionally, the two facilities have created more
than 250 construction jobs and 38 full-time positions.
Forestry Group Honors Logger James Wilson Throughout his career in the logging industry, James Wilson of Rison, Ark. has always looked for opportunities to increase efficiency—operationally and financially—and help others do the same. Arkansas Forestry Assn. (AFA) honored Wilson with its Logger of the Year award in 2013 during the group’s annual meeting in Little Rock. After receiving a forestry degree from the University of Arkansas at Monticello, Wilson worked as a forester and equipment salesman before joining the family’s logging business in 1990. When the Logger and Education Training program started shortly thereafter, Wilson became one of its earliest supporters and proponents. “He was one of our first ArkPro Loggers,” says George Lease, director of the Logger Education and Training program, who nominated Wilson for this honor. “His support of the forest products and logging sector in our state has been exemplary.” Today, Wilson uses his wealth of experience and connections to help the logging community as a partner in River Ridge Equipment, a new company that rebuilds and refurbishes John Deere skidders and skidder parts.
Arkansas Forest Industry Donates $500,000 To LAL Log-A-Load for Kids of Arkansas, a group of volunteers from the Arkansas Forestry Assn. and the Arkansas Timber Producers Assn., recently donated $500,000 to Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH). The funds will benefit the hospital’s new Emergency Dept. (ED), which the forestry group pledged to support in 2008 and which opened in 2012. The ED is the only one in the state that provides comprehensive care for the sickest and most injured pediatric patients. “Children from every community in the state visit ACH and many of them come through the ED,” says logger Mike Pennington, a longtime LAL volunteer. “We all know patients and families who have been touched by this wonderful healthcare system.” The Log-A-Load program began in Arkansas in 1993, and since that time has raised more than $6.75 million for ACH. 38
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AT THE MARGIN
Do More; Join The Safety Culture By Chris Dixon, Forestry Products Division Operations Manager, Ring Power I have worked with professionals in many industries and have learned one valuable lesson that applies to all: Whether you are a business owner or employee, it is your responsibility to live and breathe safety at
work, at home and in public. Especially in our business, we need to do more. It is time to join the Safety Culture. Be a leader and keep others out of harm’s way. Tell your team you care about their safety and
the impact on their families if they are hurt. Discuss with them and subcontractors what you expect as it relates to safety. Make the time to consider the safety aspects of a task. Make it a daily routine to check that everyone made it home safely. Empower others to recognize and resolve unsafe situations without hesitation, embarrassment or fear of retribution.
I see these unsafe situations every time I am in the woods: Loads not strapped down correctly, debris hanging off the trailer, personnel standing just feet from the loader as it works, dull chainsaws, no personal protection gear, leaking flammable fluids, and so on. It’s our duty to stop an unsafe situation, even if the person is not our employee. I was at a concrete recycling facility where the crusher operator, the ground man, and the supervisor were looking at a problem with a conveyor. The ground man had his hand inches from the moving belt. I immediately moved him away from the machinery and asked the operator to shut down the equipment. I took the man aside, put my hand on his shoulder and explained to him that his job was not worth his life or a disability. I also explained that he was violating his responsibility to be safe on the job. He looked me in the eye, shook my hand and gave me a heartfelt thank you. On another occasion, I watched a skidder operator bring a drag to the landing and while the machine was still rolling, he jumped off, ran and grabbed a pole saw and started trimming a load. In those few seconds he had several “loaded gun moments”—situations akin to running with a loaded gun, safety off. He did not set the park brake or dismount using the ladder and three points of contact. He ran instead of walked and did not look down to avoid trip hazards. He used the pole saw without his PPE. I stopped him and asked why he was running around like that. He said he was new to the crew and wanted to make sure he was the hardest worker. Look for loaded gun moments, stop them and use them as teachable moments. And when, despite our vigilance, there is an accident, you must have an emergency plan that includes: Names of those on the jobsite trained in first aid and CPR, numbers for those in charge of reacting to emergencies, numbers for medical help, fire and police, and directions from the nearest emergency facilities to the jobsite. Brief your crew on the emergency plan each time you move and provide everyone with a copy. I will leave you with this daily thought: Today I will act when I see an unsafe situation. I do not want to be the one who has to tell a family their loved one was hurt or killed because I did not do everything I could to live a Safety Culture. Now go and live a safe day! Ring Power is a Caterpillar dealer in Florida.
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Ether Explosion Severely Burns Logger BACKGROUND: On a fall day in the South, a logging crew foreman was cleaning tools.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS: The 19-year-old crew foreman had been employed in logging
for approximately one year. A thirdgeneration logger, he was considered “logging knowledgeable.” His level
of safety training, including familiarity with a hazard communication (HAZCOM) program, was unknown. He was wearing a hard hat. UNSAFE ACTS AND CONDITIONS: The crew foreman was using ether spray from an aerosol can to clean dirt and grease off wrenches and tools that were lying on the folded-out side door of the service truck. He apparently ignored or was unaware of the explosive nature of ether fumes. He had just stopped spraying ether on a tool when a co-worker approached him and, for unknown reasons, flicked his cigarette lighter. The lighter did not ignite, but it emitted sparks. ACCIDENT: The ether still in the air immediately “blew up” and burned the side-door “work table,” the area around the worker’s chest and even down into his pants. His clothes caught on fire, and he ran around wildly. Crew workers had to tackle him to get him to “stop, drop, and roll.” INJURY: He received thirddegree burns in numerous spotty occurrences all over his chest. He required many skin grafts, and he required follow-up treatments that were expected to extend well into the future. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CORRECTION: Be aware that ether spray products (diethyl ether) for use as a starting fluid are very dangerous. The volatile hydrocarbons are very explosive. Ether should never be used as a cleaning agent. (Note: Some individuals working on tires have used ether and fire in a very dangerous manner to pop a tire back onto a rim—the explosion causes the beads on tubeless tires to expand and fully seat the tire on the rim. This maneuver is like courting death.) Never smoke, use flame, or create a spark close to a volatile chemical. Employers must develop and implement a hazard communication (HAZCOM) program that includes container labeling and hazardous chemical recognition training for all employees, and they must provide a material safety data sheet (MSDS) for each chemical used on the job. MSDS’s list known hazards of the product being used. All hazardous products on the job must be used for their intended purpose only. Supplied by Forest Resources Assn.
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MACHINES-SUPPLIES-TECHNOLOGY Horizontal Grinder
The all-new 5710D horizontal grinder from Peterson is powered by a Tier IVi Caterpillar C27 engine making 1050. At 88,500 lbs., the 5710D is designed for operations that require frequent moves between jobs without a special permit. An optional transportation dolly allows the Peterson 5710D to be easily moved and then set up for operation within minutes. With a feed opening of 60 x 40” combined with Peterson’s high lift feed roll, the 5710D can readily reduce a wide range of material including stumps.The 5710D utilizes Peterson’s Impact Release System that can be set in the detent mode to provide consistent product sizing or switched to the floating anvil mode for a primary reduction where accurate sizing is less critical. The floating anvil mode provides a high production primary reduction with more protection from contaminated feedstocks and reduced fuel consumption. The 5710D’s new generation of controls includes Peterson’s high production Adaptive Control System and a fully adjustable feed system that can be optimized for a wide range of materials. Another major innovation
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includes Peterson’s Impact Cushion System. Urethane cushions allow movement of the compression roll/anvil housing pivot shaft, cushioning impacts due to contaminants in the feed material. Shear pins above the cushion and a sensing circuit that stop the engine help protect the shaft from catastrophic damage in the event of a severe impact. 5086 Visit petersoncorp.com.
Loader/Processor
The successful 880 logger from Tigercat has a new junior companion. The 875 logger is a 36 000 kg (80,000 lb.) carrier with two boom options for loading or processing applications. It is equipped with the new Tigercat FPT 6.7 L Tier 4i engine, producing 210 kW (282 HP). Designed for extremely fuel efficient operations, the 875 is equipped with variable speed cooling and Tigercat’s unique closed loop energy recovery swing system. The twin swing drive system provides powerful swing torque and reduced gear tooth loads for excellent performance and reliability in demanding processing applications. The new F7-150 heavy-duty forestry undercarriage provides a stable base of operations, improving
performance and operator comfort. The operator’s cabin is very spacious with excellent all-around visibility. Floor windows provide a clear view of the tracks. The engine compartment is open and spacious. Access to daily service points is very convenient and major components are readily accessible. The engine and hydraulic components are shielded and compartmental9756 ized. Visit tigercat.com
without the need for additional chip accelerating devices, and overall machine production is unaffected. 7648 Visit banditchippers.com
Multi-Purpose Machine
Card Breaker System Bandit Industries now offers a Card Breaker System for hand-fed and whole tree drum-style chippers. The Card Breaker works similar to a screening system, restricting oversized material from exiting the machine. The system is optional for most Bandit drum-style chippers, creating a higher quality wood chip that is suited for use in expanding biomass energy markets. “Chips of relatively uniform size and shape are much preferred for use in biomass fuel wood applications,” says Jason Morey, Bandit Industries sales manager. “By creating a better chip, our customers can have a better product to sell on the biomass fuel market.” Bandit’s Card Breaker doesn’t subtract from Bandit chippers’ legendary throwing power; in fact, it benefits from it. Chips leave the drum at tremendous speed, with larger sized chips hitting the Card Breaker installed in the discharge. This breaks the chips down further, resulting in a more uniform chip ready for biofuel applications. The Card Breaker System functions
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Risley Equipment’s E-Clips® EZ-200 CutLine Rolly feller-buncher is designed to be the “next generation” multi-purpose track machine. It has the ability to cut, delimb and optimize logs at the stump and is known for its directional control and agility. Based on a carrier class ranging from 22 to 30 tons, it is ideal for many types of softwood and hardwood applications in timber up to 24" diameter. The E-clips offers high-speed mobility with integrated DOS™ suspension and a revolutionary full motion Flex-Trac® pad which eclipses traditional rail-based track undercarriages. This enables the EZ-200 to transform effective hydraulic horsepower to Risley’s own line of “CutLine” tools including: high speed/high torque Rotosaw; Dangle or Controlled Rolly; Dangle or Controlled Cobra; Controlled Rolly Chipper; and Pipeline (various tools and accessories).Visit 2174 risleyequipment.com.
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IRONWORKS
TOLL FREE: 1-800-669-5613 Forestry Equipment Instructor
POSITION OPEN
7195
WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE USED FORESTRY EQUIPMENT Also Used Forestry Equipment For Sale
CALL FOR INFO 352-239-1549
HOSE, FITTINGS & CRIMPERS SERVING THE LOGGING INDUSTRY FOR 20 YEARS. WE CAN SAVE YOU MONEY.
Tim Alligood Days or Nights: 1-252-341-9891
8309
3723
email: tim.cavalierhose@yahoo.com 3723
3256
The North Carolina Association of Professional Loggers, Inc. seeks a forestry equipment operator instructor. Applicant should be skilled at skidder, rubber tired feller-buncher Prentice 210 Loader, Recent new and swing loader operations. The NCAPL pump and motor ..................$19,000 operates an equipment operator training school supported by Pioneer–Gregory Poole Forest Products and CAT Forest Products. The school is mobile and located in eastern NC on live logging jobs. Instruction is provided in a production environment that stresses safety, teamwork and efficiency. This fulltime position as an employee of the NCAPL 02 Husky Brute XL345 Loader is open immediately. Applicants should also $15,000 have basic instructional abilities utilizing curriculum guides and the latest audiovisual equipment. Ability to instruct using laptops, tablets and smart phone technology is preferred. Applicants should contact Doug Duncan John Deere 643 Cutter, NCAPL Executive Director Recent new pump and motor, (919) 271-9050 43" tires ...............................$30,000 Resumes can be forwarded to 757-371-6905 contact@ncloggers.com 6318
3214
FOR SALE
IRONWORKS RATES; Space available by column inch only, one inch minimum. Rate is $50 per inch, special typesetting, borders, photo inclusion, blind ads, $10 extra each. Deadlines: By mail, 15th of month prior to publication. Place your ad toll-free 24 hours a day from anywhere in the USA (except Alaska and Hawaii) 1-800-669-5613 ask for Classifieds 8:30-5 pm CST. After business hours our automatic ad taker will take your ads.
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CHIPPERS:
HYDRO-AX 670 (8059) 2002, Cab, PRENTICE 280 (P57066) 2000, AC, 30.5-32..........................$56,000 121738 Hrs, Cab, Trailer ............CALL
SKIDDERS:
PETERSON 5000G (2G-214-661) 2001, 12981 Hrs, Cab, AC, Whole Tree TIGERCAT 726 (7260312) 1994, Cab, PRENTICE 384 (P57796) 2001, Chipper..................................$275,000 30.5-32, Saw .......................$28,000 15480 Hrs, Cab, Evans Trailer, GrapPRENTICE 384 (62951) 2006, 14430 TIGERCAT 726 (7260709) 1996, ple, Delimber ........................$28,000 Hrs, Cab, AC, Evans Trailer, Prentice 13000 Hrs, Cab, 30.5-32, Saw TIGERCAT 240B (2400945) 2003, Grapple, CTR 320 Delimber .....$44,000 ............................................$28,000 18015 Hrs, Cab, AC, 11R-22.5, Pitts
CAT 517 (05WW00419) 2004, 7877 Hrs, Cab, AC, Esco Grapple..$200,000
FELLER BUNCHERS:
CAT 525B (03KZ01130) 2003, 13077 Hrs, Cab, 30.5-32, Dual Arch Grapple, S Blade, Winch......................$25,000
Trailer, Delimber....................$40,000 TIMBERKING TK722 (A10300191) 2003, 3983 Hrs, Cab, AC, HF201 Hot CAT 553 (00HA20058) 2011, 3752 Hrs, Saw ..........................................CALL SCREENS: Cab, AC, 28L-26, SH50 Sawhead 643K DOPPSTADT SM720 .....................................................CALL DEERE (1DW643KXHA0631650) 2010, 3248 (W0962121781D07286) 2009, 1581 CAT 553C (0PGR00266) 2012, 1230 Hrs, Cab, AC, 28L-26, FD45 SawCALL Hrs, 7’ 20’’ Drum w/ 3/4 ‘’ Punch Hrs, Cab, AC, 30.5-32, SH56B Saw Plate ..............................................$206,000 ..........................................$250,000 CAT 563 (00HA19937) 2011, 1770 Hrs, KNUCKLEBOOM DOPPSTADT SM720 Cab, AC, 24.5-32, SH50 Saw ..............................................$187,500 LOADERS: (W09621179A1D07448) 2010, 248 CAT 573 (00HA19789) 2010, 3553 Hrs, CAT 529 (00PR63924) 2011, 642 Hrs, Hrs, Trommel Screen, 435/50R19 Cab, AC, 30.5L-32, SS56 Saw......CALL Cab, AC, Grapple .......................CALL ..........................................$323,000
CAT 525 (03KZ01265) 2004, 11708 Hrs, Cab, AC, 30.5-32, Dual Arch Grapple.................................$61,500
CAT 525C (052501416) 2011, 5271 Hrs, Cab, AC, 30.5-32 Double Arch Grapple, S Blade, Winch ............CALL DEERE 848H (HX614787) 2008, 4314 Hrs, Cab, AC, 35.5-32 .........$167,000 TIGERCAT 610 (6100142) 2006, 12800 Hrs, Cab, AC, 30.5-32, Dual Arch Grapple, Winch .............$50,000
SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SALE!! JOHN DEERE 648G II & III 460D $15,900 Exchange, Installed (Direct Drive ONLY) INCLUDES: 6 month warranty charge pump fluid & filters
★ RECONDITIONED TRANSMISSIONS ★
CAT 525 (1DN sn#)
$11,900 Exchange, Installed
JOHN DEERE 648G III & 460D
INCLUDES: 6 month warranty fluid & filters
$15,900 Exchange, Installed (Torque Converted Type) Add $2,500 to recondition torque converter @ same time
Also Specials on: ENGINES & AXLE COMPONENTS call for prices without installation
CAT 525B/535/545 $15,900 Exchange, Installed
TOLL FREE 1-800-251-2789 ● DIRECT 936-829-7278 ● FAX 936-829-7283
Email: apacgeneral@aol.com
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ROCKWELL, EATON, FUNK, COMMERCIAL, BULLDOG, SPICER, DURST, GEAR PRODUCT Southern Loggin’ Times CLICK HERE IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY OPTED IN!
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FINAN C AVAILA ING BLE
EASTERN Equipment
Brokerage, Inc.
252-946-9264
www.equipmentandparts.com
Office : 903-238-8700 • Shane Fuller : 903-235-1147 Jason Bruner: 903-452-5290
5569
2004 Tigercat 620C 11,422 hours; single arch $64,900
SKIDDERS
2001 Cat 525B Skidder – 30.5 x 32 tires, Cab with air, Winch, Cold A/C, Ready to work!........................$49,500
2006 Hydro-Ax 570 Mulcher – 300 hours on Recon engine, Fecon BH120 Mulching Head, Good 28L tires, Cab with air...................................$116,500
FELLER BUNCHERS
2010 Tigercat 724E 6167 hours, Cummins engine, NEW 28Lx26 tires, Tigercat felling saw, good condition $130,000
1989 Morbark 23NCL Chipper, w/ Cummins 750hp, 3-knife 75" disc, remote control operated....$79,500
2001 Prentice 280 with CTR delimber, Mounted on Pitts trailer $29,500 1999 John Deere 648GII, D/A grapple, A/C cab, rebuilt engine; winch controls with no winch, dry cylinders, pins and bushings good, dual 24.5 tires.......$44,000
2006 Cat 563 Mulcher – Fecon BH120 Mulching Head, Good 28L tires, Cab with air ..................$116,500
2011 Cat 573 Feller Buncher – 4,500 hours, Prentice SH50 Saw Head, 30.5 x 32 tires, Cab with air. .........$149,500 We are in the New and Used Business— Riley Delimbers & Slashers, Primex Tires, Stihl, Prolenc, Gator Saw Teeth, McClendon Trailers
2011 Prentice 2570 Feller Buncher – 6,200 hours, Cummins engine, 22" Waratah Head, 28L tires .......$129,500
2005 Hydro-Ax 721E Mulcher – 2,500 hours, Fecon BH120 Mulching Head, Cab with air, 28L tires. Rent to own WAC........................................$CALL$ 2006 Hydro-Ax 670 Feller Buncher – 22 inch Waratah Head, 6.7 Cummins, 34:00 tires, Low time Hydro – Stats and saw pump (2012) ..........$69,500
LOADERS
We Sell Nationwide • Our Pricing is FOB the Buyers Location in the Continental US
CALL CHARLES or visit website for full specs and details
WE WILL MATCH OR BEAT ALL PRICES ON PRIMEX TIRES!
ATTENTION LOGGERS! “Waverly Wood, LLC” of Waverly, TN is looking to employ additional logging crews to log its timber tracks; long-term employment possible. All prospective contractors must have workers’ compensation and general liability insuarnce. Also, wanting to buy white oak stave logs and tie logs. Please contact: Mike Philipi Timber Procurement Manager Office: 931-296-1455 Mobile: 615-418-0276 1501
www.eebinc.com
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2008 Cat 563 Mulcher – “NEW” FAE Mulching Head, “NEW” High pressure pump and hoses, “NEW” 28L tires, Cab with air. This machine has 0 hours since the conversion from a Feller Buncher. Rent to own WAC ...$CALL$
2002 Prentice 384, w/CTR delimber, rebuilt Cummins, Prentice 5055 grapple.......$35,900
MULCHERS & CONSTRUCTION
2014 Barko 930 Mulcher – Brand new machine, 1 year bumper to bumper warranty, 2 year power train warranty, 305 HP Cummins engine, FAE Mulching Head, 28L tires. Rent to own WAC........................................$CALL$
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2007 Timberjack 560D / John Deere 748G-III – Dual arch, 30.5 x 32 tires, Cab with air, John Deere winch, John Deere grapple .........................$69,500
Visa and Mastercard accepted
(OR IS THAT RAIN?) NEW ARRIVAL: JOHN DEERE 648GIII DIRECT DRIVE / SF (585239) THIS MACHINE IS NOT BURNED...MANY PARTS STILL AVAILABLE!
CONTACT: 478.550.2330 - Keith 478.256.4063 - Gary
FORESTRYPARTSRESOURCE.COM
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NOT PICTURED
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
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2002 Tigercat 240B Log Loader – Can be mounted on trailer with CTR Delimber or Riley Delimber, Cummins engine, Cold A/C, Ready ........$49,500
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IF YOU NEED
FOR SALE 2009 Woodsman
• Loans Against Your Existing Equipment for QUICK CASH!
770
(turned down, tax liens, bankruptcies)
919-842-2602
4330
Searching for experienced Prentice Knuckleboom Operators for our year-round Harvesting Operation in Northern, AZ
• Preferred Good Credit Plans • Rough Credit Plans
Day 334-312-4136 Night 334-271-1475 or Email: johnwpynes@knology.net
334 Drum Chipper, 440 HP CAT engine, 800 hrs. $150,000 obo
WANTED:
Prentice Knuckleboom Operators
EQUIPMENT FINANCING
• Purchases • Refinance • Start-up Business
2-Hour Approvals! Low Monthly Payments Little or No Down Payments
3723
Fax resume to: 602-278-0398 email: Luiss@southwestforestproducts.com or call: 602-278-1009 3245 602-370-8187
EUREKA! EUREKA! EUREKA!
15 Years In Business CALL NOW
985-875-7373 Fax: 985-867-1188
OWNERS HAVE OVER 30 YEARS COMBINED EXPERIENCE!
Email: coastalcapital@bellsouth.net Personal Service
We can save you money on Saw Teeth. Hundreds of satisfied A NOW C customers. Rebuilt Exchange or New. We specialize in rebuild- CCEPTING REDIT ing Koehring 2000, Hurricana, Hydro Ax split teeth and all CARDS other brands. Call Jimmy or Niel Mitchell. Quantity Discounts!
Ask For L.T. DEALERS WELCOME
1447
WANTED TO BUY
EUREKA SAW TOOTH CO., INC.
7180
To buy or sell forestry, construction, utility or truck equipment, or if you just need an appraisal, contact me, Johnny Pynes with JM Wood Auction. Over 25 years experience.
4275 Moores Ferry Rd. • Skippers, Virginia 23879 PH./FAX (day) 1-434-634-9836 or Night/Weekends • 1-434-634-9185
280
Cat 518 & Cat 518C skidders in TX, LA area Call Kent 936-699-4700 r_kentjones@yahoo.com
1328
2583
Watch videos of some of our machines on YouTube
3 John Deere 648H dual arch 2006 John Deere 648GIII—Dual skidders—2009 Torque converter arch, engine rebuilt in 2011, just in with 8000 hours; 2009 Direct drive ..................................Call for Price with 5600 hours; 2008 Torque converter with NEW engine
2004 Timberjack 460D (GIII)— 2011 John Deere crate engine with 2400 hours, new center pins, New lexan ..................................$65,000
2002 Hydro-Ax 670—New disc, 2007 Prentice 2384—Recent 2002 Hydro-Ax 570—22' Waratah new center pins, rebuilt saw pump hydraulic pump, CSI 264....$59,500 head, very straigh & clean ...........................................$50,000 .............................................$47,500
2003 John Deere 648GIII—Single 2003 CAT 525B—NEW: Turbo injecarch, Torque converter, New center tion pump & injectors........$39,500 pins, New cradle bushings, Very good 30.5 tires on rear ..............$49,500
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2002 John Deere 648GIII—Dual arch 2 to choose from................$48,000 ...........................................$52,000
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478-494-1217
3290
5312 hours, 30.5x32 tires, 5600 saw head ..........................$115,000
1997 LUBRICATION & SERVICE UNIT, New shear blades 18" and 20". Tigercat, Hydro-Ax, John Deere and Cameco. Call for pricing, availability. Discounts for multiple set orders
Office: 1-912-367-0053 • Link 46*5793 334 Cell 1-912-278-7655
trailer mounted and powered by diesel engine, dispenses three lubricants plus air and is totally enclosed. Email for pics: sixmilecreek@me.com
337-396-6565
1158
FOR SALE (4) Firestone 73 44x32 skidder tires, 70% rubber.........$12,500
601-408-55673017
6209
3664
4433
FOR SALE 2010 Tigercat 724E fellerbuncher,
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TIDEWATER EQUIPMENT CO. KEN • 803-300-7837
Call or visit our website: www.tidewaterequip.com SKIDDERS 2004 CAT 525 ......................................$30,625 2001 Deere 648GIII .............................$40,625 2006 Deere 648GIII .............................$60,000 2006 Deere 648GIII .............................$75,000 2008 Deere 648H.................................$82,000 2008 Deere 648H.................................$85,500 2003 Tigercat 630C.............................$50,000 2004 Tigercat 630C.............................$61,000 2005 Tigercat 620 ...............................$84,000 2005 Tigercat 620C.............................$66,000 2006 Tigercat 620C.............................$60,000 2008 Tigercat 620C.............................$95,000 2008 Tigercat 620D.............................$91,500 2004 Tigercat 630C.............................$61,000 2005 Tigercat 630C.............................$60,000 2005 Tigercat 630C.............................$75,000 2008 Tigercat E620C.........................$110,000 2005 Timberjack 460D ........................$57,500
FELLER BUNCHERS 2011 CAT 563 ....................................$119,900
2009 Deere 643J .................................$85,000 2007 Prentice 2470 .............................$65,000 2008 Prentice 2470 .............................$87,775 2008 Prentice 2570 .............................$88,889 2008 Prentice 2570 ...........................$100,000 2004 Tigercat 718 ...............................$46,500 2009 Tigercat 718E ...........................$110,000 2007 Tigercat 720E .............................$95,000 2010 Tigercat 720E ...........................$135,000 2007 Tigercat 726E .............................$78,500 2005 Timberking TK340......................$30,000 2004 Timberking TK360......................$61,100
LOG LOADERS 2009 Prentice 2384 .............................$85,000 2004 Tigercat 230B .............................$37,500 2007 Tigercat 234 ...............................$75,000 2002 Tigercat 240B .............................$28,000 2002 Tigercat 240B .............................$34,121 2003 Tigercat 240B .............................$48,100 2005 Tigercat 240B .............................$68,900
INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT 1997 MORBARK 22.............................$69,000 2002 MORBARK 30NCL Chipper ........................................................$105,600 2007 MORBARK 3800 WOOD HOG ........................................................$212,500 2010 MORBARK 4600XL ..................$435,000 2005 Tigercat M726D........................$169,598
MISCELLANEOUS Assortment of tires and rims for Deere/Tigercat CTR 314 and 400 Delimbers .........................................$1,000 to $18,000 Tigercat Shears and Saws ..............................................$2,500 to $20,000 Please come see us at our new parts locations: – Waycross, GA (912) 282-9284 – Statesboro, GA (912) 601-9924 – Elizabethtown, NC (910) 876-7058
View our web site for over 200 listings with newly reduced prices and pictures 2687
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RECONDITIONED DELIMBINATORS!! In addition to new machines, CHAMBERS DELIMBINATOR, INC. now has factory reconditioned DeLimbinators. These units have been inspected, repaired, and updated as needed. Call us and we will help you select a DeLimbinator for your need. WE ALSO BUY USED DELIMBINATORS Call: 662-285-2777 day, 662-285-6832 eves Email: info@chambersdelimbinator.com
COMING IN MAY... SLT’s Special 500th Issue!
Plan now to be part of this keepsake product.
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Southern Loggin’ Times will turn 500 (as in issues) next May and the editors have come up with what we believe is an appropriate way to mark the special occasion. The SLT 500 40/40 Plan has two components: 1. Since there is so much concern about current logging capacity, and the fact that fewer young people are entering the business, it’s fitting that SLT feature four loggers who are age 40 or younger and operating on their own. We want to develop a list of 40 and under top performers who are highly reputable, efficient, financially stable, active in both the industry and community—those at the top of their game who see promising opportunities going forward. From this group we’ll select only four to highlight. 2. As a tribute to the older set, who have endured decades of ups and downs in the business, we’ll create a story around many who have succeeded in the logging business for 40 consecutive years or more, touching on lessons learned, achievements, setbacks, convictions, challenges, and their vision for the industry’s future. To do this, we need the help of our treasured subscribers. Please send your recommendations to us right away, providing contact info for both you and the parties you recommend. E-mail or call David Abbott, SLT’s Managing Editor: david@hattonbrown.com or 334-834-1170. Fax: 334-834-4525; snail mail: P.O. Box 2268, Montgomery, AL 36102-2268. Thank You!
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A D L I N K ●
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Easy access to current advertisers! www.southernloggintimes.com/adindex.html Don’t forget to bookmark this link!
ADVERTISER Accu-Ways American Logger’s Council American Truck Parts Around The World Salvage B & G Equipment Bandit Industries Bob Robeson & Associates Bron RWF Carolina Cat Carter Machinery Cat Forest Products Cleanfix Reversible Cooper Forestry Equipment John Deere Forestry Todd Dossett Chipping East Coast Sawmill Expo Employer’s Underwriters Equipment & Parts Firestone Agricultural Tires Flint Equipment Forest Chain Forestry First Hawkins & Rawlinson Hydraulic & Pneumatic Ironmart Kaufman Trailers Mike Ledkins Insurance LMI-Tennessee Magnolia Trailers Manac Maxi-Load Scale Systems Mid-South Forestry Equipment Show Moore Logging Supply Nokian Tyres Olofsfors Ozark Machinery Peterson Pacific Pitts Trailers Prentice Puckett Machinery Quality Equipment And Parts Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers River Ridge Equipment Riverside Diesel/Bulldogg Rotobec USA S E C O Parts & Equipment SI Onboard/VPG On-Board Weighing Stribling Equipment Tejas Equipment Tidewater Equipment Trelan Manufacturing Vulcan On-Board Scales W & W Truck & Tractor Waratah Forestry Attachments J M Wood Auction
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912.375.9131 409.625.0206 888.383.8884 800.251.2789 601.656.7011 800.952.0178 843.623.6187 800.263.1060 704.731.7298 800.868.4228 919.550.1201 855.738.3267 423.338.5470 800.503.3373 903.824.4297 804.737.5625 800.622.7635 800.983.1971 515.242.2300 229.888.1212 800.288.0887 803.807.1726 888.822.1173 800.785.5133 888.561.1115 866.497.7803 800.766.8349 800.467.0944 800.738.2123 418.228.2018 877.265.1486 662.325.2191 888.754.5613 800.565.2525 519.754.2190 800.766.6455 800.269.6520 800.321.8073 919.550.1201 601.985.3700 877.664.6337 360.956.1500 855.325.6465 888.357.1355 855.768.6232 800.733.7326 800.638.5111 800.682.6409 519.753.2000 800.849.7725 877.487.3526 800.237.0022 843.761.8220 770.692.0380 800.447.7085
ADLINK is a free service for advertisers and readers. The publisher assumes no liability for errors or omissions.
COMING EVENTS February
May
7-9—South Carolina Timber Producers Assn. annual meeting, Springmaid Beach Resort & Conference Center, Myrtle Beach, SC. Call 800-371-2240; visit scloggers.com.
6-9—Forest Resources Assn. annual meeting, Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel, Virginia Beach, Va. Call 202296-3937; visit forestresources.org.
26-March 2—Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers Annual Meeting, Boca Raton Resort Club, Boca Raton, Fla. Call 336-885-8315; visit appalachianwood.org. 28-March 1—North Carolina Assn. of Prof. Loggers, Marriott Resort & Spa, N. Myrtle Beach, SC. Call 919271-9050; visit ncloggers.com.
March 12-14—Hardwood Manufacturers Assn. National Conference & Expo, The Hyatt Regency, Savannah, Ga. Call 412-244-0440; visit hmamembers.org.
April 2-4—Kentucky Forest Industries Assn. annual meeting, The Brown Hotel, Louisville, Ky. Call 502-6953979; visit kfia.org. 2-4—Virginia Forestry Assn. Summit, Kingsmill Resort, Williamsburg, Va. Call 804-278-8733; visit vaforestry.org. 25—Louisiana Loggers Assn. annual meeting, Location TBA, Winnfield, La. Call 318-628-7004.
10—Texas Logging Council Forestry Fun Day, Exposition Center, Lufkin Tex. Call 409-384-0016.
June 6-7—Southeastern Wood Producers Assn., Jekyll Island Convention Center, Jekyll Island, Ga. Call 904845-7133; visit swpa.ag.
July 11-12—West Virginia Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Canaan Valley State Park, Davis, W.Va. Call 304-372-1955; visit wvfa.org. 19-21—Georgia Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Hilton Head, SC. Call 478-992-8110; visit gfagrow.org.
August 22—Virginia Loggers Assn. annual meeting, Location TBA. Call 434589-1942; visit valoggers.org. 23-24—Arkansas Timber Producers Assn. annual meeting, Hot Springs Convention Center, Hot Springs, Ark. Call 501-224-2232; visit arkloggers.com. 26-28—Louisiana Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Location TBA, Shreveport, La. Call 318-443-2558; visit laforestry.com. 27-28—Florida Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Sawgrass Marriott Resort, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Call 850-222-5646; visit floridaforest.org.
September 7-9—Alabama Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Perdido Beach Resort, Orange Beach, Ala. Call 334-2658733; visit alaforestry.org. 23-25—Arkansas Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Arlington Hotel, Hot Springs, Ark. Call 501-3742441; visit arkforests.org. 25-27—American Loggers Council annual meeting, Island Resort Casino, Escanaba, Mich. Call 409-6250206; visit americanloggers.org. Listings are submitted months in advance. Always verify dates and locations with contacts prior to making plans to attend.
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