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December 2008 Classifieds
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Bulletin Board
The Lighter Side of Logging
There was this little guy sitting in a bar, drinking his beer, minding his own business, when all of a sudden, this great big dude comes in and—WHACK!—knocks him off the barstool and onto the floor.
The big dude says, “That was a karate chop from Korea.”
Feature
Good Business by Tonya Cooner-Vots
It was indeed summertime in South Carolina. Temps were in the 90s, relative humidity was up as always this time of the year, but the woods remained dry, courtesy of a drought that’s plagued parts of the Southeast for almost two years. Steve Moran sold his tracked feller-buncher months ago, and gave up looking for wet tracts to cut—there just aren’t any to be found. Not to worry, Moran and his two crews, doing business as Steve’s Logging and S&D Logging, have plenty of harvesting action lined up to keep them busy.
When Southern Loggin’ Times visited with Moran in late July, they had just moved onto a 400 acre tract which contained 168 acres of natural seeded stands. Part of this job would be a thinning, while other areas such as the naturally seeded stands would be a final removal of the seed trees. “This tract will still be a pretty good amount of work,” Moran, 51, says, “but this crew runs well on larger tracts.”
Jones Retools by Jennifer McCary
A year ago Robin Jones, a 33-year veteran second-generation logger, was operating debt-free But excessive downtime was negatively impacting already thin margins. “I was in a position that I didn’t know what to do because times weren’t looking too good,” the owner of Robin Jones Logging Co. states. “I tried to run all this paid for equipment, but I was spending so much with the downtime and lost hauls that I wasn’t making any more money so I had to bite the bullet. I found out I can pay the notes better than I can the repair bills.”
Jones knows the loader is critical to the operation, so he has always tried to keep it on a four-year rotation. “So much goes on with the loader at the ramp. If you’ve got logs piled, you can keep loading trucks if your skidder or cutter goes down, but when that loader is down, nothing moves,” he emphasizes.
Logging To Perfection by David Abbott
Greg Hooper, 41, was born on September 10, making him a Virgo. Virgos, he says, tend to be extremely clean-conscious. It’s certainly true of him. “I’m known as a perfectionist,” he says. As his family can attest, one of his favorite phrases, in anything he’s doing, is “to perfection.” Grilled to perfection, cleaned to perfection, everything has to be done to perfection, he often says. Those high standards carry over into his logging job.
First of all, he maintains his equipment as clean as possible, and it pays off. For instance, he’s still running two 1999 model skidders with close to 8,000 hours on them and they’re not worn out or beaten up. Besides routine maintenance and cleaning, he paints them periodically. He tells his men when they start to work for him that they must keep their machine and the job site clean. Leaving the job site clean has translated into more job sites to work. Landowners notice. “When you do a good job, word spreads,” he says.
Industry News Roundup
Current Industry News
With Georgia leading the way in active, announced and prospective wood-to-energy plants, prompting Gov. Sonny Perdue to declare the state as the region’s “Bioenergy Corridor,” management and sponsors of Timber Expo Southeast have fittingly designated part of the live demo area as the “Bioenergy Equipment Corridor.” Chippers, grinders, balers, bundlers and related gear make up the targeted equipment group.
“The wood-to-energy market is moving ahead and represents a significant new market for landowners and loggers,” says Charles Burkhardt, Expo Manager. “Some plants in Georgia, Florida and Alabama are already operating and many others will be in the next couple of years. The Timber Expo is the ideal venue for all logging and biomass equipment manufacturers and potential customers to network.”
Southern Stumpin'
Looking Back by Tonya Cooner-Vots
The final days are being counted down to the end of 2008, a leap year that started on a Tuesday. It was an interesting year, good in some ways, bad in others, but MMVIII is about to wrap up another chapter in the history books—what a year it was.
January set the tone for much of the year when stocks plunged amid growing fears of a U.S. recession, fueled by the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. This was about the time that the price of petroleum hit $100 a barrel for the first time. A good portion of the rest of the year was spent monitoring these two things, because they affect so much of the rest of our lives. If the stock market roller coaster ride wasn’t that tangible, the gas thing sure was. Carpooling and public transportation saw a marked increase while costly vacations and extraneous travel took a nose-dive as people rediscovered the simple joy of being at home.