Virginia’s Busiest Man Adam Wilbourne has a farm, buys timber, runs five crews, 20 trucks and chips. JESSICAJohnson CLARKSVILLE, Va. dam Wilbourne, 42, is no stranger to hard work. Growing up in the logging and farming community of Clarksville, Va., steps away from the beautiful Roanoke River, his father David owned and operated Triple W Logging and farmed tobacco. Triple W, now under the watchful eye of his brother, Dan, is where Adam first got his start. But, after working for the family through ups and downs over 16 years, Adam decided the market conditions were right for him to strike out on his own in 2012—and it’s been full speed ahead for Wilbourne Land & Timber ever since. Adam, his dad and brother remain close in both personal and business relationships and continue to work closely together. Wilbourne and his wife Jennifer purchased a tobacco farm in 1999, where they still live with their three children, Austin, 17, and 13-year-old twins Kade and Kinley. The couple took advantage of the government’s buyout in 2004 leading them to soybeans. After soybeans hit record high
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prices, he took the money from a profitable year of grain farming and invested in his logging company, coupled by the credit boost he got from owning 10% of the family’s logging company, as did his brother. This was a critical piece of education Wilbourne got from his father. “Dad did it to help us build credit. So, on paper I bought a skidder in ‘03, even though I didn’t have my own logging job at that point. My parents taught me a lot and instilled a great work ethic, which I contribute along with my strong faith and determination to my success. I was running bulldozers at 12 years old. He taught us all about work,” Wilbourne adds of the man. Armed with his father’s passed down knowledge, Wilbourne quickly began shopping equipment, and bought one full crew with all new Caterpillar equipment from Carter Machinery, with the exception of one skidder, a John Deere, purchased from James River Equipment. “Everyone with Caterpillar helped tremendously with getting me started—Steven Hite, Donna Ashbrook, David Tulloh and John Brewer.”
Wilbourne admits he’s got some animosity about a few things when he was first starting out on his own, and it forced his hand a bit with how he would operate his company. When Wilbourne struck out on his own, he intended to cut, as Triple W had, for a timber dealer. Unfortunately, the way the crew was able to produce, he says the dealer told him after five years of working together that Wilbourne Land & Timber had outgrown the dealership. After five years, his company, which had started a second crew in January 2014, was out of timber tracts. Allowed to finish the tracts the crews were currently cutting, Wilbourne was understandably distressed—he remembers the entire ordeal went down on a Tuesday and he and his family were leaving on a trip that Friday. “We were 25 employees, and no job. We had saved money, thankfully, Jennifer manages the money like a guard in a prison,” he remarks. “There was a timber sale on Friday. I went, I don’t have a degree in cruising or anything, but I grew up in it, so I know how to cruise a tract. I called a bid in on the tract on the
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4/16/20 5:01 PM