In the September/October 2018 edition of My Take, Timber Harvesting magazine Executive Editor DK Knight remembers the life and career of Pat Crawford. Knight writes, “For decades, loggers and manufacturers rooted in the Lake States region have made far-reaching contributions to the mechanization of timber harvesting. Consider the hydraulic loader, hydrostatic feller-buncher, landing processors on wheels, various types of slashers, shears, forwarders, delimbers, and portable debarkers, not to mention whole tree chippers. One former logger who will long be remembered for advancing the mechanical march was Pat Crawford, eminent founder of the Timbco and TimberPro brands that originated in northeastern Wisconsin. Pat’s life ended on August 19 at his home in Shawano. He was 92, the last survivor in a family of four siblings. On August 25, the many relatives, friends and admirers of Pat gathered at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Shawano to celebrate his standout life and numerous accomplishments.”

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Timber Harvesting magazine Associate Editor Jessica Johnson travels to Johnston, South Carolina to visit TH’s 2018 Logging Business Of The Year: Log Creek Timber. At five years old Tim Williams was the boss of the family’s peach field in Edgefield, SC, his sister Martha Sanders says with a laugh. She then points to her other brother, Reg, saying that by five he was telling a mechanic how to fix something. Fast forward a few years (okay, decades…) and those leadership skills from Tim and Reg, supported by Martha’s talents have grown their father’s logging operation to a family of companies that includes a timber procurement company employing 20 harvesting crews, 10 of which are Williams’ company crews, a trucking company with 40 power units with a dedicated dispatch and logistical staff, on-site NAPA Auto Parts store with a Stihl dealership and a variety of other diversified interests. Tim, Reg and Martha have been working in the family business since the 1990s.

Timber Harvesting magazine Senior Associate Editor David Abbott travels to Fordyce, Arkansas to visit Hardy Rhodes Trucking, LLP. Hardy Rhodes, 47, has been running his company, Hardy Rhodes Trucking LLP, headquartered in Fordyce, for 14 years, and he’s been working in the woods full-time for more than 20 years. In fact, he’s been around logging all his life. Like many loggers, Rhodes grew up in a logging family, but unlike a lot of his peers, it wasn’t his first career choice. Far from it; in fact for a long time, it was his last choice. His father was a logger—Hardy Rhodes, Sr.—as were both his uncles. He had no interest in following in the family tradition though. “This was his love; I wanted no part in it,” the junior Hardy Rhodes admits of himself as a younger man. “I told my dad when I was 17 to stop taking me to the woods because I didn’t want to work in the woods,” he recalls with a hardy laugh. “It wasn’t for me.”

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(This article was submitted by Kenworth, a PACCAR company.) Canada is the home and native land of Western Forest Products, the largest coastal timberlands operator and lumber producer in British Columbia. For years, the company, which has an annual available harvest greater than 6 million cubic meters (2.5 billion BF), has relied on a private railway and off-road trucks to move logs to its sort yards, where they then were towed by water to their seven sawmills on Vancouver Island. According to Rick Bitten, senior maintenance manager for Western Forest Products, transporting logs by rail—something the company had been doing for decades—will be replaced by highway truck hauling. The railway was used in conjunction with off-highway trucks capable of hauling 60 to 80 ton loads, which were transferred by a reload to the rail cars.

Timber Harvesting magazine contributor Wendy Farrand discusses the importance of building a safety culture. Farrand writes, “They say “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” which means a logging contractor may have the best business strategy in the world, but if the culture is weak or corrupt, it can destroy strategy in a heartbeat. So, if you have a low bar for what your business stands for, or how employees interact on the job, most certainly your crews are not producing at their maximum potential. Leaders in the woods should not leave culture to chance. Company culture is more important now than ever. Focusing on culture can improve business relations inside and outside of your business. From the inside, if you put culture first, it will have a positive impact on morale, production, communication and turnover. From the outside, a strong balanced culture can attract the best operators and support staff into your business.”

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As We See It: Steve Southerland Hired To Represent ALC In DC; Last Rites Held For Brad Massey; Carolina Loggers Board Hires Exec Director; Anthony Timberlands Purchases Watson Sawmill In Arkansas