Uncharted Waters

By Dana Doran

It’s April 1st and the snow has already melted in many parts of the state and will soon in others. We might still have another storm or two, but that will just amount to more mud, longer road postings and a bunch of delays. Snow doesn’t help at this time of year.

The roads have been posted in many areas since early February and most if not all of our members have put their equipment in the garage for spring maintenance. This is a rite of passage for loggers in the Northeast. And as challenging as it can be to balance cash flow in the downtime, most folks know that after a very long winter, it’s time to take a break, to do different things and prepare for the next push late spring and early summer. However, this mud season is different in so many ways. It is so different that it may never be repeated in our lifetimes. As a student of history, before all is forgotten, I thought it would be helpful to summarize all that has happened in the last four weeks, not to pour salt in the wound, but to look back upon it someday if necessary. Of course, I’ve also learned it’s not valuable to repeat history but learn from it and prepare for the future.

The spring of 2020 was supposed to be a time for rest, a time for training and a time for reflection. A time when our members and their employees could get together and talk about the last winter, their struggles, their successes, the good times and the bad. A time to celebrate 25 years of the PLC and what it has done for loggers and truckers in Maine from 1995 – 2020. The month of March came in like a lamb but ended like an angry lion.

We were hearing from the membership in Aroostook County that winter was coming to a close quickly, but it was not because of the weather. Mills were full from winter harvests and many contractors were asked to shut down operations at least two to four weeks sooner than usual. While this was unexpected, it was also explainable as one major mill in Maine had not yet restarted and another was slowly being impacted by something called the coronavirus all the way over in China. While it was frustrating for many, it wasn’t anything that we hadn’t seen or experienced before in the last five years. This too would pass, or so we thought.

The PLC also had its annual legislative breakfast in Augusta on March 5th. Over 50 legislators attended and nearly 125 members and supporting members came to hear about the issues facing the industry and the ways that the Legislature could help. Speaker of the House Sara Gideon joined us and commended the PLC on its role in the legislative process and all of the good work that the organization has done to protect and improve one of Maine’s most important industries. And this also provided the perfect backdrop for the PLC to release its new economic impact study, which showed that while things have dropped off considerably since 2014, the overall economic impact of logging in Maine as of 2017 was still over $620 million to the Maine economy each year. Our work at the Legislature was also ramping up as we had four or five really important bills/issues still in play and things would get taken care of in the final five weeks of the session.

And lastly, the PLC was planning its annual spring safety trainings for the membership and over 1,000 of their employees to kick off in southern Maine on Thursday, April 2nd and our 25th Annual Meeting celebration was scheduled for Friday, May 8th at the Cross Center in Bangor.

On or around Friday, March 13th, all of that changed in what feels like a 9-11 moment, but also feels like it was years ago at this point.

In what I can only describe as a slow rolling ice storm without the downed

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CHESTER - Robin A. Crawford Sr. started working in the woods with his brothers when he was 13 years old. He had his first truck in 1965, and in November of 1969 he purchased his first new truck, a 1969 GMC 6500 with tag axle installed, and went on to build one of the most successful logging and trucking companies in Maine.

A member of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine (PLC) who joined the year the organization formed in 1995, he passed away on March 5 at the age of 74.

The PLC wanted to take this opportunity to honor Robin’s contribution to Maine’s logging and trucking industry, but also to remember the man himself. With the permission of his family and the assistance of Tammy MacEachern, office manager for Robin A. Crawford & Son Woods Co., who collected memories from the family and shared her own, we have written this article in an attempt to do both.

Robin, also known variously as, “RA”, “Bob”, “Push Rod”, “Dad”, “Uncle Bob”, “Pappy”, and “Bobby”, certainly left his mark on Maine’s logging and trucking industry. Born in 1945 in Drew Plantation, in an area where the woods business was and still is a mainstay of the economy, he grew up surrounded by logging and woods trucking. From a young age, Robin loved trucks, and that never changed.

A graduate of Wytopitlock High School, Class of 1963, it was the same year he wed Lois J. Lawrence, and they went on to raise a family and build a life and a business together.

Today, Robin A. Crawford & Son Woods Co. trucks with the distinctive “C” in the grille are a common sight on the roads of Maine, but in 1965 it was only Robin and the one truck.

From the very beginning, Robin established a reputation for hard work, honesty, and good business sense. His word meant something.

“Bob was a hard worker from a very young age and grew to be a very intelligent businessman,” Tammy said. “A loyal man that took his word very seriously, if he gave someone his word he would do everything he could do to make it happen. He never went back on his word. Bob was a successful businessman because of the man that he was.”

Over the years as he built up his trucking