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The March TPA Magazine is PACKED full of news! We are proud to publish the Logger Survey Results from 2022. Gary Zimmer writes about Northwoods Moose and Mike Monte features Cleereman Industries in this issue as well.
The 2023 FISTA Class Schedule is published and you can find information on the 2023 Spring Celebration. If you haven't registered yet - call us today to get signed up. We have a great panel of speakers, over 35 registered exhibitors, awesome door prizes, and a great day planned for all who attend. We hope to see you on April 5th at the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, WI.
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Visit our Website: www.gltpa.org |
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From the President's Desk
Troy Brown
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“Traditional Silviculture - An Answer to Clean Air”
Sometime in the late 1990s, I was given a copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. At first, I wasn’t thrilled about the book because it is 1,000 pages of small text. It took about a year to get past the first 50 pages and two years to read the entire book.
The book’s principle is that the government’s sole purpose is to protect us from thievery and physical harm and that regulation is an economic drain. This principle has had me question regulation’s purpose for the past 20 years. For the record, I support laws and taxes that protects human rights and thievery.
Regulations are rules that are monitored by an authoritative embodiment. The first federal regulation dates back to 1897 with the Interstate Commerce Act, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission. The ICC (which was dissolved in 1995) was focused on regulating railroad rates ensuring that rebates were deemed illegal and prices were charged fairly for short hauls. This leads to the question, how effective was this regulation if there are no short lines available to us in the forest products industry anymore?
Milton Friedman, an economist, spoke out on the effect of regulations and pointed out that individuals and companies would become more accountable in our social system if consequences of misdeeds were imposed. He stated that financial accountability is more effective than regulation.
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GLTPA Director Notes
Henry Schienebeck
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Greetings,
Having been involved in the logging/trucking industry my entire life, and based on experience, it no longer seems appropriate to define logging capacity by the number of loggers and truckers available to do the work. As of late, proven again by real time market demand, logging capacity is more accurately determined by the value of delivered product. In other words, the more money paid, production levels increase dramatically with the same number of producers.
In 2020 when WI Rapids, Duluth MN, and Park Falls WI, all shuttered operations, supply, and demand dictated substantially decreased prices for delivered pulpwood. At the same time, several decisions made at the federal level totally disrupted the supply chain, sent inflation into high gear, driving the cost of doing business to extremely high levels never seen before. Petroleum related products are double the cost compared to 2020, steel prices increase routinely driving the cost of equipment upwards monthly, and readily available parts are non-existent.
Significantly reduced markets increased operating costs, and high inventories of available pulpwood created the perfect opportunity for several logging companies to either exit logging all together or reduce their dependence on what have become rollercoaster pulpwood markets. There is another group of loggers in the mix. They are the ones who have been in business a very long time and have earned their independence providing them choices. They don’t necessarily care what the market is because they are no longer bound to a payment book and have successfully freed their soul from the company store. Paraphrasing Clark Gable, “quite frankly my dear, they don’t give a damn.”
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UC Coatings has been recognized as the leader in wood protection products for over 50 years.
The recent distribution agreement with Breeze Dried™ sticks will further solidify that, and be another added advantage for our customers, and their lumber.
U-C Coatings, LLC located in Buffalo, NY and Breeze Dried Inc. of Tillsonburg, ON proudly announce that U-C Coatings will be the exclusive authorized distributor of Breeze Dried™ lumber drying sticks in the US for less-than-truckload (“LTL”) quantity orders starting in 2023. Breeze Dried Inc. will continue to directly fulfill all full truckload sales to customers in the US, and all Canadian customers.
Adding Breeze Dried™ sticks to the U-C Coatings line of wood protection products gives U-C Coatings another great way to help their customers minimize drying defects and protect their lumber. Breeze Dried™ sticks will be a natural fit with the Anchorseal® and Shade-Dri® products.
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The Only Constant is Change - Recent Logger Survey Results from Minnesota and Wisconsin |
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Authors: Scott Bowe, University of Wisconsin; Charlie Blinn, University of Minnesota; Julie Ballweg, USDA Forest Products Laboratory, and Robert Smail, Wisconsin DNR.
Study Background and History
The Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association has co-sponsored a series of multi-state logging industry studies. These studies were conducted in 2012, 2017, and 2022 to track the status and capacity of the logging sector and changes within the logging industry, an important part of our economy in the Lake States.
Is our logger population aging? What trends are we seeing in logging equipment? What business environment are loggers experiencing? What impact did the pandemic have on loggers? These are some of the questions we asked in the 2022 Loggers survey. The results that we discuss come from loggers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We asked our questions based on what they experienced during the previous year – 2021.
Industry and Owner Demographics
Results from the 2022 survey continue to track changes to logger demographics in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The average logging company in Minnesota has been in operation for 30.5 years with Wisconsin logging companies average 28.7 years in operation. The average logger age (primary logging company owner) is 54.7 in Minnesota and 55.3 in Wisconsin (Figure 1). There has been concern that the logging population is aging. There was little or no change from the previous logger survey, which showed an average age of 54 in both states. We can’t explain why owners did not age from 2017 to 2021. Maybe it is clean living and all the fresh air! Or, perhaps retirements were balanced by transitions to younger owners in the same business and an influx of some younger ownerships.
On average, each logger brings more than 33 years of experience to the profession (Figure 1). One positive note is the average age of the second or third logging company owner (for example the business partners or family members) does trend downward showing younger loggers in the company and workforce. This suggests that those companies with multiple owners will continue the business beyond when the primary owner retires
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REGISTER TODAY for Spring Celebration
April 5, 2023, KI Convention Center, Green Bay WI
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Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association
PO Box 1278, 3243 Golf Course Road Rhinelander WI 54501
PHONE # 715-304-2861
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