Generosity vs. Greed

By Dana Doran

On May 4th and 5th, the PLC will celebrate its 28th year representing Maine’s timber harvesters and haulers at its Annual Meeting in Bar Harbor. The membership had such a good time there last year that we are planning on a repeat performance. I hope that all of you can join us this year to learn, celebrate and thank the people in your life, have a little fun and raise money for the kids.

Our Annual Meeting theme in 2023 is to recognize and say thanks to the family members that support your businesses day in and day out. You all have the good fortune to do such honest work that provides for so many people across the state. However, it would be impossible to accomplish any of it without the support and guidance of your family members. Let’s say thanks to all of those family members that do so many little things, but don’t get the credit they truly deserve.

Also this year, we are expanding our Annual Meeting from one day to two because of the generosity of one company and one family who knows no other way than to help those who need it the most.

Duane Jordan, President, Elliott Jordan and Sons, PLC Board member and 2nd Vice President, has provided an opportunity on May 4th for his family to give back in a very special way.

As most all of you know, the Hanington Family (Hanington Bros., Inc.) brought the Log A Load for Kids program to Maine in 1993 to help kids with serious health issues. In the first year, they donated the value of a load of logs ($750) to the children’s hospital in Bangor. The PLC took the reins from the Haningtons in 1995 and the rest you could say is history, but not without the unwavering support from the membership.

Today, the PLC is supporting two children’s hospitals through our various activities: Annual Meeting, two golf tournaments, Heritage Days in Greenville, sales of Christmas Ornaments and incredible donations from the membership each and every year. In 2022, with the help of our amazing members and partners, the PLC raised more than $244,000 for Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital

(Portland) and Northern Light Eastern Maine Healthcare (Bangor).

The PLC’s Annual Meeting has taken on a life of its own with the silent and live auction. In 2022, we raised a staggering $144,000 in one night, which was $50,000 more than the year before.

Scott Madden, President, Madden Timberlands and former PLC Board Member, who has been known to rattle a few cages to get people like Senator King and Congressman Golden to spend more money at the auction than they intended to, reminds me every year, “Can we can keep this up?” I shake my head and say, “I have no idea, but somehow I know that it will get done.”

People come to the Annual Meeting knowing that they aren’t going to get a deal and they feel empowered to make sure the record gets beat once again. $2,500 for a whoopie pie, $1,000 for a rock, or $12,000 for a one-of-akind rifle is not about wanting and getting a material possession, it’s about doing what’s right for others. Being generous so that others can live a little longer, giving the shirt off your back if you could and knowing that someone in your life had or will have a child in need at some point is what it’s all about.

If you haven’t been to the Annual Meeting before, put it on your calendar and join the effort to make miracles happen for others.

On May 4th this year, Elliott Jordan and Sons of Downeast Maine, in the small little hamlet of Waltham, is upping the ante to dig a little deeper and do what’s right for the kids. The PLC’s fundraising efforts for Log A Load will likely surpass $2 million raised in 2023 and I think Duane and his family would like to do their part to nudge it over the edge.

Duane and his family are blessed to live in one of the most beautiful parts of Maine. Over the last thirty years, they have committed their lives to logging, but have also invested in their community in so many other ways. Elliot Jordan and Sons has made a commitment to their family and to the families that are supported by them, doing whatever it takes to keep their employees working and moving forward.

Today, they’re not just loggers, but earthwork contractors, blueberry farmers and renewable energy generators. If logging could be their only craft, it undoubtedly would be, but unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way. Like so many of you, they had to diversify to make a living.

On May 4th, Duane has invited everyone to spend the day with his family, learning about their business, learning about their investments and giving back for Log A Load for Kids.

At 9 am in Bar Harbor or 10 am in Waltham, we will board coach buses and start our journey. Duane has planned a special day to see his operations in the forest, on the farm, in the wind and the sun. Along the way, folks can network, socialize and reflect.

At the end of the day, we will meet at Duane’s house for a full Downeast Lobster Bake with all the fixings. We will also be blessed to hear from our friends at the children’s hospitals and learn how everyone’s generosity over the years is making such a difference.

This entire day will be donated by Elliot Jordan and Sons. From the transportation to the beverages, to the lobster and everything else that is provided for the day. 100% of the proceeds will be added to our total which is donated to the hospitals.

This is an incredible act of generosity on behalf of Duane and his family, but it is also emblematic of the generosity of loggers and what they do every day. Our only hope is that others feel the same way and give back however they can for the kids. If only those you work for could have the same mentality when it comes to doing the right thing for those in need, whether its kids or logging families.

In early March, at our Legislative Breakfast, we released the results of our tri-annual Economic Impact Study that we produced with the help of the University of Maine. This is the third release of the study since 2016 and the results are quite staggering. As of 2021, logging and trucking contractors in Maine employed over 3,000 people directly and were indirectly responsible for the creation of an additional 2,500 jobs. This employment and the investments that contractors make contributed $582 million to the state’s economy.

However, in the last four years (2017-21) as a result of mill closures, curtailments and inflation created by the response to COVID 19, the data is quite clear that Maine has lost 30% of its harvesting capacity. In just four years, the industry has shrunk from an annual economic impact of $620 million to $582 million and total jobs have been reduced from 9,000 to 5,500.

As I ponder the results, I often think about the response to all of the negative conditions by those you work for. In 2021 and early 2022, it was essentially a head in the sand approach. Yes, there were a few mills and a few land management companies that went above and beyond to do the right thing, increase rates and make sure that wealth was distributed more equally. However, a majority used the lack of market competition to gouge many of you with the business-as-usual mentality, which has been been based upon greed from years of similar activity.

That mentality is what drove 30% of the capacity to the sideline. Contractors had enough and decided it was time to park equipment, sell equipment or move in another direction. The, “you made your bed and now you have to sleep in it,” phrase became very common in the summer of 2022 as the blame could be laid directly at the feet of those who went too far for too long.

In late summer and early fall of 2022, it became apparent that capacity was a major issue and drastic action was required across the board. From discussions with members, it appears that there was quite a shift in attitude by pulp mills, sawmills, land management companies and landowners at that point in time. Rates for wood delivered and for service contracts went up across the board.

Many of you were thankful for this type of investment because it looked like real recognition of the issue and a response that was not just necessary but justified. However, very few were willing to reinvest in new equipment, in bringing back parked equipment or hiring new employees until these increases were sustained for a long period of time. The general sentiment was to wait and see if rate increases were long term and something that they could count on.

The majority of those who increased rates have been true to their word and this bodes well for a more balanced future. However, as you well know, it only takes one rotten apple to spoil the bushel and it appears there is more than one rotten apple.

In November 2022, a ship landed in Searsport with 30,000 tons of hardwood chips. Those chips came from Canada and were destined for a Maine pulp mill. Wood chips have never been imported by ship in the history of paper making so this was quite a surprising move. The justification we heard for this was that the logging capacity isn’t available and desperate times require desperate measures.

This act of desperation seemed odd since this was a singular event, would become the only shipload of chips delivered to this mill and it only satisfied about 6-7 days of wood consumption.

Equally as odd was the fact that we heard that the cost of these chips per ton was upwards of four to five times as much as they paid locally for roundwood. If wood was in such high demand by this paper mill, wouldn’t they try to incentivize local deliveries by increasing prices for an

Doran Continued from Page 11 16 extended period of time or make long term commitments that contractors could count on to reinvest? Wouldn’t this be cheaper in the long run than paying four to five times the market rate for fiber?

What was equally disturbing was the fact that this same company lowered the price of purchased roundwood and biomass from local suppliers just two months later. The reason given, there was an oversupply of wood and therefore, they didn’t need as much and needed to lower the price.

This is a head scratcher to me since just two months prior, they were so desperate that they needed to import fiber from a foreign country at an exorbitant cost. Was the process to import really about a shortage of fiber, or was it intended to send a message to Maine contractors that they are expendable and asking for too much money will not be tolerated? I’m not trying to put words in their mouth, but something smells funny.

Secondly, the same company that imported the chips and then dropped the price because of supposed oversupply, is now contemplating company employed logging crews (see image below). Let that sink in for a minute as you digest the other point. You can’t make this stuff up.

And adding insult to injury, because one leader from Canada, loaded with wood chips, landed in Eastport, ready to off load fiber for another one of those desperate mills. Again, the math and logic doesn’t pass the straight face test if you ask me. If there was actually a commitment to ensure Maine contractors could pay higher wages to employees and reinvest in their equipment, I bet those very same mills that decided they were in such dire straits that they needed to pay four to five times the going rate for six days of wood, could get that supply all day long.

Coming back to where I started, greed and generosity just don’t mix. On the one hand, we have loggers that are willing to do anything for their communities, the families they support and children in need. On the other hand, we have mills that can’t or won’t be generous to the folks they need more than anyone.

As we move toward mud season and look forward to celebrating 28 years as an organization in Bar Harbor, give this some thought. Maine loggers are not just stewards of the land, but stewards of their employees, their families and their communities. Will our mill partners prove that they can be just as generous as loggers?

Enjoy a breather over the next few weeks and I look forward to seeing you in Bar Harbor on May 4-5 to be generous and recognize all those folks who helped you get this far.

GUILFORD – Late this winter, Thomas Douglass brought his oldest son, Trafton, with him to a harvest site for a couple of hours one Saturday afternoon where his logging company, Thomas Logging and Forestry, was operating.

Thomas will tell you he has very good processor operators, much better than he is, but sometimes he’ll run a machine himself to fill in where needed, and this was one of those days.

His son sat in the jump seat in the back of the cab of the big Rottne machine, and being four years old he had a lot of questions about which trees were being cut and why. He even found the operator’s manual and spent time paging through it learning about the processor and how to fix it if it broke down. On the final log of the day, Thomas put him in his lap, fed the log through, and let him press the saw button.

“He hasn’t stopped talking about it since,” Thomas laughed, adding he is looking forward to bringing Trafton to the Loggers’ Expo in Bangor in May. “He’s going to be all over it. He’s going to want to be in every cab of every machine. He asked me again today if he was going to come cut wood with me, I said no, you have to go to daycare, and he said, but I want to cut wood.”

Many loggers have similar stories about their own children, and many can recall experiences in their own childhoods that set them on the path to logging as a career. Being in the woods, operating the machines, figuring out which trees to cut and seeing