Diversified Expansion by Jennifer McCary

Founded by forester George T. Carlisle and timberland owner Henry Prentiss in 1924, Prentiss & Carlisle has risen to premier status in the world of forest resource management, offering in-depth and fully integrated services at national and international levels. Over its 84-year history, the closely held fourth generation entity has continuously expanded its services, which now include consulting, appraisals and valuations, FSC certified timberland management, private woodlot management, marketing, accounting and timberland investment.

The company encompasses two equal but separate entities. Prentiss & Carlisle Management Co., Inc., (PCMC), the land management and consulting arm, is responsible for managing 1.5 million acres of timberland in New England, the Lake States and Canada. Prentiss & Carlisle Co., Inc. (PCCI) owns 105,000 acres of timberland and provides operational services for PCMC and PCCI clients. PCMC contracts with and supervises approximately 40 contractors, o

Lighter Touch by Dan Shell

Logging south central Oregon’s high country is tough work. There’s ice and snow in the winter and blazing temperatures, fire danger and dust during the summer. Rugged, rocky terrain and timber durable enough to survive in the arid region make the job even more challenging.

Logger Richard Lawson, 68, a partner with his brother Eugene in T.A. Lawson & Sons Logging (known locally as Lawson Logging) near Lakeview, has seen it all since he began working in the woods decades ago.

Supplying Demand by Jennifer McCary

Not since the energy crisis of the 1970s has wood energy been in such demand—albeit in a different form today. Just as he did then, John Burson, 48, saw opportunity and responded by positioning his business to supply that demand. Then, it was firewood. In 2009, it is biomass for industrial boilers and microchips for the emerging pellet fuel industry.

In that 30-year interim, the owner of Rocky Mountain Wood Co. (RMW) turned a fledgling business into a highly diversified enterprise that uses and markets the entire tree. The company provides land clearing and harvesting services primarily to private landowners and produces boiler fuel, pellet chips, grade and pallet logs, firewood, playground mulch, landscape bark and mulch and topsoil.

‘Loggers World’ Founder, Finley Hays Dies In Washington

Finley Hays, founder of Loggers World and Log Trucker magazines and a fixture in Northwest logging for parts of seven decades, died at home near Chehalis, Wash. on December 3. He was 90.

Born in Wickersham, near Bellingham, Wash., in 1918, Hays tried professional boxing, went into logging and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He became a high climber after the war and in 1955 went to work as a sales rep for Talkie Tooter.

Harvesting For Energy by Jim Mooney

While the U.S. lags behind the rest of the world in harvesting and utilizing wood biomass, significant progress is being made. For now, economics is still the driving factor in most parts of the country and few government assistance programs are available. All this may be about to change, however, as Democrats set new agendas in motion in Washington.

Future plants that could convert wood biomass to ethanol and other products may be on the horizon, but in the short-term, burning the material for heat and power production and making fuel pellets are the front runners.

New Products & Technologies

Timberblade Inc. announces that Gator Teeth are now available in all popular sizes in both carbide and steel. Gator Teeth, first introduced one year ago, use a patent pending technology that have extra cutting tips that share the cutting and last significantly longer.

Customers have also noticed fuel savings since Gator Teeth don’t drag the saw down as much and stay sharp longer. One customer no longer has to refuel at lunchtime to get through a day’s cutting.

Biomass Behavior And Forest Health

Like the unethical logger who harvests the super low-bid log, leaves the site a nightmare and gives the rest of his colleagues a bad name, I believe the biomass movement may eventually attract a similar set of personalities. These “get rich quick” types will be the ones with the notion that “cleaning up the woods” may be a fast road to a cash cow. What might they leave in their wake?

I have heard a logger or two say, “You could get in there and clean up the limbs, tops, straw and all that junk and make a killing—even in places that haven’t been logged yet.” While that’s one way to collect biomass, it’s that simple skew of the truth about biomass and the way it may be harvested that could further darken the shadow on loggers. As loggers and logging associations embrace a developing new aspect of their livelihood, the struggle for the public to see the true mission of the logger will continue, even in this brand of operation, with its cleaner air, alternative fuel and other

Industry News

Douglas County in Oregon plans to set up a test project this summer to convert forest slash and other wood waste into a No. 3 grade heating oil. The project will involve the superheating of five to seven tons of woody material per day at a site near Lemolo Lake in eastern Douglas County.

Philip Badger, president of Renewable Oil International, explained at a recent meeting that a small modular plant could be loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken out into the forest. The wood waste would be chipped and mixed with heated steel shot placed into a heated chamber. The biomass then is heated to 1,000 degrees within a second and the resulting gases are then used to further heat the chamber, which is initially heated by propane.