March / April 2024

UNION, South Carolina Working as a logger who started his own operation 30 years ago and has seen the ups and downs of this industry, Chad Barfield likes his current situation operating two companies offering logging, plus roadbuilding services and dozer work. At age 52, he has a clear succession plan with his son, Conner, who is itching to join the operation full-time.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

COVER STORY
  • Barfield Keeps Fleet In Top Service Shape

Owl Policy Howler

America’s relationship with its wildlife historically has been complicated, to say the least. The nation has been a global leader in wildlife protection laws, but the distant past has some dark eras: Whales by the thousands hunted to near extinction worldwide for meat, teeth and mostly blubber to use for oil. Millions of passenger pigeons were slaughtered to complete extinction so city folk could have cheap squab dinners. The Carolina parakeet vanished from the earth because fancy ladies needed fancy hats. And now, during the next 30 years the U.S. government is proposing to hammer 400,000 barred owls with shotguns to save the spotted owl from a bad evolutionary arc.

Newslines
  • Georgia, Florida Record Increased BMP Performance
  • AOL Health Insurance Now Available In Oregon
  • Minnesota Loggers Donate Labor, Equipment for Kids
  • Boise Closes Sawmill, But Invests In Facility
  • Interfor, Hampton Close Oregon Sawmills
  • Oregon Truckers Sue State For Tax Overpayments
  • Weyerhaeuser Investing In Winn Parish Sawmill
  • Tigercat Ships 30,000th Machine
  • Trucker Pre-Trip Video Available
  • Equipment Innovator Paul Bell Dies At 66
  • G-P’s Jarck An Early Pioneer In Logging Mechanization
OLC 2024 Offers New Technology

EUGENE, Oregon – Loggers from across the Pacifi c Northwest fi lled the aisles at this year’s Oregon Logging Conference on February 22-24. The event featured plenty of opportunities to promote the forest products industry and logging in particular as the region’s top logging contractors learned more about new technology while also taking in informative seminars and presentations that make them better business people and operators on the ground. Here’s what we saw at the 2024 Oregon Logging Conference, plus some of the latest products that caught our eye.

Almost A One-Man Show

Somerville, Maine – J .A. Turner Timber Products functions primarily as a subcontractor for Robbins Lumber, Inc., supplying boiler fuel chips and roundwood to that company’s flagship pine sawmill in Seasmont, Me. “We work on Robbins company lands as well as doing outside work on our own private jobs and participating in the landowner assistance program that Robbins runs,” says owner/operator Jesse Turner.

Safety Alerts
  • Chip Van Driver Injury While Rolling Up A Van Tarp Cover Weighted Down With Snow
  • High Risk While Securing A Load
Trucks at the OLC

Logging show features lots of cool trucks

Equipment World
  • New Technology Gives Logger Hauling Efficiency, Accountability
  • Wallingford’s Will Distribute HSP Gripen
  • XACTT Distributes Bigfoot CTI Systems
Innovation Way
  • Bandit Hammermill Grinder
  • Tigercat Mulching Head
  • Ecoforst T-Winch

Barfield Keeps Fleet In Top Service Shape

Articles by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Timber Harvesting

UNION, South Carolina – Working as a logger who started his own operation 30 years ago and has seen the ups and downs of this industry, Chad Barfield likes his current situation operating two companies offering logging, plus roadbuilding services and dozer work. At age 52, he has a clear succession plan with his son, Conner, who is itching to join the operation full-time.

The businesses are supported by experienced and skilled logging and roadbuilding crew members and backed by an extensive maintenance and repair effort that features a 110×50 ft. multi-bay shop facility and two full-time mechanics. The logging side routinely produces more than 100 loads a week, but it’s a four-day week.

The work schedule may be different than most loggers, but Barfield is a believer in work-life balance and making time for family and friends. As a single parent, he spends lots of time with his family and Conner, and he’s working to build a multigenerational family business for Conner to take over when he’s ready.

Unlike lots of loggers, Barfield wasn’t born into logging, with no family connection, but he’s worked at it 40 years ever since his mom would run him to the woods after school at age 13 to do odd jobs for a local logger.  After finishing high school he started his first company, Chad Barfield Logging, in 1994. He was successful, but looking back says he grew too big a little too quick. He decided to switch gears in 2000, shutting down Chad Barfield Logging in favor of a new enterprise, Barfield Bulldozing, LLC, building roads for loggers and big timber companies like Weyerhaeuser, Green-wood Resources and John Hancock.

However, Barfield seized a new opportunity to get back in logging with Barfield’s Timber, LLC, which he started in 2016. Since then he has continued to run both Barfield Bulldozing and Barfield’s Timber, both of which now have two crews each.

As if building those businesses didn’t keep him busy enough, Barfield has also been a single dad all this time, raising Conner by himself with full custody since the boy was three years old. “It’s a full-time job, man, when you’re juggling all this,” Barfield says, delivering possibly the understatement of the year.

The logger says providing for his son and his son’s future is what motivates him, and adds that Barfield’s Timber has to be sustainable and healthy, for Conner’s sake. “He wants to do it, he loves it, and I’m going to build it up for him,” the proud father says. Many small business owners don’t have a succession plan, but Barfield already has one in place.

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Spanning seven decades since its inception in 1952, Timber Harvesting highlights innovative and successful logging operations across the U.S. and around the world. Timber Harvesting also emphasizes new technology and provides the best marketing vehicle for the industry’s suppliers to reach the largest number of loggers in North America and beyond.

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