Story by DK Knight,
Co-publisher/Executive Editor
Those who make up the forest industry acknowledge the industry has a longstanding public relations problem, but apparently few are doing much of anything today to counter the negative perception. At one time, heavyweights like IP and Weyerhaeuser took the offensive by publishing magazines and buying TV time to proclaim the forestry story, but they have retreated in recent years. Perhaps they believe web sites alone are sufficient. At any rate, consolidation has thinned the heavyweight ranks and, at the same time, none of the larger TIMOs that have emerged in the last 25 years has stepped into the yawning promotional breech.
It’s true that PR campaigns can be very expensive. It’s also true they sometimes don’t work very well. And where is it written that the industry’s biggest players should shoulder most of the load? I submit that logging businesses are in a unique position to step up and effectively wave the flag. What is sorely lacking is the will to do so.
You commonly see them displayed on residential lawns and at construction sites—those marketing and promotional signs that tout the services being performed inside or on site by plumbers, landscapers, dirt movers, bricklayers, and electricians, to name a few. It seems to me that professional loggers, particularly those who buy stumpage from private landowners, thin a lot, and take great pride in a job well done, should want to emulate their building trades cousins, especially when they happen to be doing their thing alongside a public road. But this is not the case. Are loggers too timid, too modest, too lazy, too ashamed, or perhaps a little of each?
A friend who heads a state logging association tells that his group years ago developed a tastefully done logging/forestry promotional sign that incorporated the association’s logo, space for the harvester’s name and phone number, and this message: “Harvesting Nature’s Sustainable, Renewable Resource.” The signs got few takers. Shamefully, the only thing the office-bound signs attract today is dust.
The Basic Message
As fitting as job site-based promotional tools may be, a more expansive, higher impact measure would be to tap transportation gear to deliver and reinforce the positive logging/forestry message to the masses. After all, the roadways are the public’s link to the business of growing, managing, harvesting and processing trees.
It all begins with clean, well-maintained trucks, trailers and vans. Sure, it’s a challenge to keep this gear looking good but many loggers and log truckers manage to do so, despite dust, mud, and overhanging tree branches that seemingly exist only to attack shiny metal.
One example is Virginian C.K. Greene, 46, a forester-turned-logger who started logging in 2007 and does business as Virginia Custom Thinning out of Dolphin. Knowing that the condition of his trucks and trailers are the face of his enterprise, and that appearance does matter, he hires a mobile cleaning service to wash his trucks and trailers every weekend. He even has his logging equipment cleaned inside and out once a month. Says Greene: “I saw so many logging trucks that were dirty, greasy, nasty, and I said man, there’s a different way.”
Here’s to C.K., and all others like him, for his/their exemplary example and commitment to making their wheels look good, and for focusing on the big picture.
If only there was some way to make about 90% of those old, floppy, ugly, dirty, and repurposed rigs disappear, and to eliminate those grill wraps that make it appear that certain trucks are fitted with giant teeth and out to overrun grandma and her ’98 Buick.
Deluxe Messages
There are other forestry interests, including some logging company owners, who take it to another level, investing in signage, logos and such to simultaneously promote their businesses and the positive side of the forest industry. Here are some examples:
- Marketing minded Jeff Eames owns Fort Mountain Companies of Allenstown, NH, which serves multiple log, chip and fuelwood markets. You may recall that his multifaceted organization was singled out as Timber Harvesting’s 2013 Logging Business of the Year (September-October issue). All his trucks, vans, trailers and pickups, and some harvesting machines, advertise his web site, nhforestry.com. Eames’ chip vans bear this message: “Make America Stronger Use Renewable Energy.”
- Similarly, Herman Brothers Logging & Construction, Inc., based in Port Angeles, Wash., in business since 1958 on the Olympic Peninsula, posts this educational message on the chip vans assigned to its biomass component: “Bio-Fuels for the Peninsula From Sustainable Forest Energy By the Green Collar Crew.”
- D.H. Hardwick & Sons, Inc., found near Antrim, NH, logs, chips and clears land, among other things. According to Teri Hardwick, the company for some time now has been considering using its chip vans for industry promotional purposes and is drawing closer to actually doing it. Hardwick says the company is weighing messages and will likely go with a design/system that will be fastened to the back of one or more of its vans. “I’m leaning toward ‘NH Wood NH Good, Support Sustainable Forestry’ since it is mostly New Hampshire we travel in,” he says. “I will likely use some catch phrase with it, something like ‘How many ways have forest products touched your life today?”
- Diversified J. Carey Logging, Inc., Channing, Mich. uses its chip vans more to promote its various forest and land-based services, but the subliminal forestry message comes through, as does the company’s integrity and professionalism.
- Representing the Montana Logging Assn., Bryan Lorengo last October partnered with two state DNRC foresters to help educate two high school and teacher groups about wood products and forestry. He developed a stencil designed for use with log loads. When overlaid on a large log butt and sprayed with paint, this message is formed: “MT DNRC TIMBER $ALE$ SUPPORT EDUCATION IN MONTANA.” I hope Bryan and his boss, Keith Olson, will make the stencil available to MLA members.
- Based in Marshville, NC, Edwards Wood Products, Inc. manufactures hardwood lumber, timbers and pallets at multiple locations. It owns and operates 50 trucks that, along with vans that hold chips, sawdust, bark and mulch, are tastefully painted in a striking green and white scheme that resonates professionalism with a capital P.
- For years the Northeastern Loggers Assn. has produced and sold mud flaps with the message “Managed Forests Working for You.”
- Anthony Andrews, who runs Anthony Andrews Logging in Trenton, NC with his sons Garrett and Tyler, last year came up with a “Plant, Grow, Harvest”—America’s Renewable Resource” theme. The Andrews had the theme/artwork replicated in the form of circular shaped stickers for hard hats, auto bumpers, and log trailer rails, as well as in the form of mud flaps and stadium cups. The cups were given to 6th graders at a state forestry association forestry and environmental camp. His theme was adopted by the North Carolina SFI Implementation Committee, which has since dispersed it throughout the state. “So many people think of logging as destroying the forest, but it’s not. It’s a cycle,” asserts Garrett Andrews.
It makes a lot of sense, practical and otherwise, to use the rails of frame-type log trailers for promotional purposes. While chip vans offer more “mobile billboard” potential, the associated costs can soar, and chip van numbers compared with log trailer numbers are but a glimmer.
Most frame log trailers have ample space that typically is used for nothing but the manufacturer’s logo and perhaps a number assigned by the owner and/or a mill. Messages could be either in the form of oversized bumper stickers or magnetic stick-ons and could be applied in conjunction with or around federally required reflective tape. If designed as a long rectangle and lightly modified, the Andrews’ message would be a nice fit. An optional message might be: “Renewable Forests Grow Jobs.” Still another might be (in perhaps two over-and-under lines: “God-Created Renewable Wood Fiber Harvested By The Logging Team.”
By investing relatively little, loggers can help sway public opinion by creatively using tools at their disposal. It’s past time to step up and play offense, display some pride, and chisel away at the negative public mindset.