Cat-Blount Deal

The logging equipment landscape shifted yet again with the recent announcement that Caterpillar has purchased Blount International’s Forestry Div., home to some of the logging industry’s most popular, reliable and well-tested equipment lines, including Prentice and CTR.

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Spreadsheet Alternatives by Bob Lucke

In my last column I made the argument that spreadsheet systems such as Microsoft Excel are often inadequate for tracking and manipulating data of a logging business. This time I’ll consider options other than spreadsheets for handling things like load ticket tracking and compilation of business management reports, such as tract-specific production and profitability.

A number of software programs have been developed specifically for the logging industry. In general, they bridge gaps between Excel worksheets and standard accounting packages and are designed to handle specialized business rules that apply to logging contractors, such as multiple payments per load ticket, complex stumpage rate schedules and production tracking in different units of measure. Virtually all these applications are designed around a core database, such as Microsoft Access or SQL Server.

Equipment & Supplier News

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Oh., is celebrating a quarter century of truck-driver heroics with a search for U.S. and Canadian drivers who come to the rescue of fellow motorists.

Nominations for the 25th annual Goodyear North America Highway Hero Awards will be accepted through November. To be considered for this year’s award, the following criteria must be...

‘Whole Package’ Expertise by Dan Shell

Cable logging the steep, rugged, timber-rich slopes in western Oregon’s Coast Range mountains requires performing some of the toughest and most dangerous work the forest can dish out. The owners of Emerald Valley Thinning (EVT), a 12-year-old company based in the Coast Range foothills, have developed a model cable logging entity that’s up to the imposing challenge, and then some. Pre-planning, equipment skills and quality work are three of their hallmarks.

Company principals endured the trauma of losing a founding partner on the job in 2004. After a period of painful recovery, they moved forward, adding a second crew and tapping new markets. Under the leadership of logger Tracy Smouse, 53, his wife, Laurie, and their son, Travis, EVT maintains a quality-focused, safe and professional operating philosophy that resulted in a forest operator award from the Oregon Dept. of Forestry in 2006.

Larger Purpose by Jennifer McCary

When weekends roll around, you won’t find Pat Gagne under the hood of a machine or felling trees to get a jump on next week’s production. This 37-year-old father is doing what many loggers only dream of doing. He’s putting in quality time with his family and spending most weekends at racetracks, where daughter Brittany, 13, and son Lane, 9, are regular contenders in amateur motocross competitions.

That’s one benefit the manager of Gagne & Son Logging enjoys since converting to a Tigercat cut-to-length harvester just over three years ago. “I’m real happy with the Tigercat because of the uptime. I don’t have to work on it a lot, so it gives me an opportunity to do other things,” he states. “It’s like a lifestyle change. I’m fortunate I can do it that way because we spend a lot of time on the road and I can still keep my job going.”

Product Profile: Oregon 18HX

Engineer Chris Seigneur has been working for Oregon Cutting Systems Group (OCSG) since 1984. Holder of nine patents, he’d be the first to tell you that successful product improvement is the result of listening to customers’ field experiences.

A corporate culture that demands continuous improvement plays a role, too. “Our commitment to continuous improvement is central to improving results for our customers. It’s what has kept our business thriving for 60 years,” says Oregon Cutting Systems President Ken Saito.

Secure Relationship by Jennifer McCary

Working in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s rampage through southern Mississippi was as disheartening as it was challenging for Steve Mathis, 69-year-old patriarch of Mathis Logging Co. “We worked on our normal managed land that we had thinned previously. It was just disheartening to go back in there and see the timber torn up after thinning it and looking after it since we’ve been with Scotch; just to see the destruction that the storm did. It was a lot of hard work trying to get it up.”

Mathis has contracted with Scotch Land Management Service (SLMS), the non-industrial private landowner assistance division of Alabama-based Scotch Lumber Co., for more than 20 years. SLMS manages about 240,000 acres of timberland in southern Mississippi and Alabama.

Who's Next? by Tonya Cooner

No one will deny that younger generations aren’t joining the logging work force like they once did. The nitty-gritty of logging is that it involves long, tough hours, a lot of dirt and grease and dealing with often-harsh elements and up and down markets. It’s a constant mental, emotional and physical battle, and a lot of young people don’t want to put up with that. Today’s generation feels it deserves more from a vocation than what logging may be able to offer.

A 2006 Timber Harvesting survey revealed that only 7% of logging business owners are between the ages of 18-30. On the other hand, only 15% are 60-plus. Although that’s twice as many as the 18-30 group, the relatively shallow number for the older demographic confirms that many veteran loggers continue to leave the industry for various reasons.

Sept/Oct 2007 Cartoon

Weyerhaeuser Rules In Eastern North Carolina by Jim Mooney

How much control should the mill that a logger delivers wood to have over his logging operation? For some, the only factors are price and quantity of wood delivered. For others, it’s much broader.

I recently had the opportunity to investigate one of the most stringent procurement management systems I have ever encountered. It belongs to Weyerhaeuser Co. in eastern North Carolina, where the company owns 550,000 acres of timberland and operates both a pulp mill and sawmill at the coastal town of New Bern.

New Products & Technologies

Prentice’s SH-50 bunching saw incorporates innovative technology to increase productivity. It features the Strait Grip bunching finger that tucks trees into the pocket, keeping tops together and creating tight bunches. This allows the operator to bunch and control more trees before piling. In addition, structural enhancements lower operating costs. Extensive field tests, plus computer and lab stress tests, were conducted to prove the structure’s strength, reliability and longevity

Developments, Meetings

Al Falewitch, a cutting contractor in Marquette, Mich., is happy with the performance of his 2007 Caterpillar 501HD harvester, purchased earlier this year from FABCO, the Cat dealer in Wisconsin and Michigan’s UP. Falewitch likes the machine’s simplicity, productivity and durability, noting its narrow width and fuel economy, among other things. He lets FABCO handle all scheduled maintenance through a customer service agreement...

Crazy... Or Courageous? by David Abbott

It’s no secret that the logging population is getting older. The increasing average age denotes that fewer young people are becoming loggers. In fact, according to a 2006 Timber Harvesting survey, 93% of all loggers are over age 30. Considering that most people who get into logging do so at an early age, this could mean that in another 10 to 20 years, there will be significantly fewer loggers.

I am the son of a logger and, like many loggers’ sons, worked in the woods with my dad. I enjoyed it. I’m proud of my father and his accomplishments, and proud of my roots in the woods and the knowledge that I have about this too-often misunderstood industry. But I don’t think there was ever a time when I seriously considered following in his footsteps, and I am positive there was never a time when he wanted me to do so. It seems that many loggers and their sons have followed the same pattern in the last generation.

Industry News

Demand from utilities in the European Union will be driving prices of pine pulpwood upward in parts of south Alabama, south Georgia and Florida’s panhandle, according to timberlands resource specialist Forest2Market.

New wood pellet facilities in the U.S. are being built to feed European markets, and much of the demand is for wood pellets and wood chips, says Scott Twillmann, a senior analyst for the Charlotte, NC-based firm. Overseas utilities are purchasing wood pellets in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help meet their obligations under the Kyoto protocol--an international agreement to limit the release of environmentally harmful gases.