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SOUTHERN STUMPIN’ By David Abbott • Managing Editor • Ph. 334-834-1170 • Fax: 334-834-4525 • E-mail: david@hattonbrown.com
Wright Hand Man oggers all around the country have tom at Charles A. Wright Logging. “We repeated it to me again and again over start everybody in a skidder who has never the years: good help is hard to find. And been in the woods,” Vance explains. “You they’re just talking about the difficulty in pull wood from A to B and kind of learn finding skilled, qualified, and perhaps most what is going on around the job before I put importantly (and most rarely), RELIABLE you on a different machine.” men (or women, in some cases; why not?) What makes Widener different than most to run equipment. A bad operator can cost employees, according to Vance, is that he is you big time—one who doesn’t know what always looking for opportunities to learn he’s doing, one who’s on drugs, one on new things and improve his skills. This was whom you can’t count to actually show up apparent early on in his employment. from one day to the next. When a man who “Whether it is working on equipment or owns a logging company can find a crew running a different machine, from the getfull of good operators—the ones you know go he wanted to learn it all just about as you can trust to not only do the job but to quick as he could,” Vance says. “It didn’t do it right—he’s usually grateful and does take him but a couple of years and he had whatever he can to keep them. Another been in about every machine I had at the thing loggers have told me over and over: time. Five years in, he could run it all just you’re only as good as your men. as good as anybody and he was managing On the right, Alan Wright, half owner of Charles A. Wright Logging in Virginia, But to come across an employee who the job and doing a great job of it.” and on his right, foreman and right hand man Brandon Widener can (and will) not just run equipment but These days Charles A. Wright Logging run the crew for you—now that’s a real find. And was in a Sunday school class with Brandon’s moth- fields two logging crews; Vance supervises one and that’s what Virginia logger Vance Wright has er, stepdad and step grandmother; his stepdad was Brandon the other. Each job has two loaders and a found in his crew foreman, Brandon Widener. “I the teacher of the class. “I got to know him through chipper; they have enough equipment to be capable reckon the best title for him is ‘foreman,’ but them,” Vance says. He could tell Brandon was of splitting sometimes into four places. Vance he’s as much above that as anything,” Wright interested in logging, and grew convinced that he prefers not to do that; it spreads operations too thin, says of Widener. “He’s my right hand man.” would be a good employee. “He seemed like a making it more difficult to manage well. “I like to With his brother Alan Wright as his equal part- good, hard-working guy, so we gave him a shot.” stay in two places, with Brandon on one job and ner, Vance manages the companies their father Seems the logger’s early impression was accurate. me on the other. We might flip-flop around and do left them, Charles A. Wright Logging and “He’s about as hard working as they come. You are whatever we need to do to the get the work done.” Charles A. Wright Trucking. The Blackridge, not going to have to worry about him not getting One of Brandon's responsibilities is getting drivVa.-based enterprise was the cover story of the the work done or not doing whatever it takes to get ers signed up for TEAM Safe Trucking training January 2020 issue of Southern Loggin’ Times. the job done, no matter what it is.” modules. “He actually started that for us,” Vance Along with running those and other companies, The elder Wright, persuaded by his son, origisays. “To be honest, I'm not sure I could have Vance served as President of the Virginia Loggers nally hired Widener to run a skidder, as is the cus- known how to do it, but he stepped up and offered Assn. for six years; Frank Myers of M.M. Wright, to handle it for us.” It's just one example of why Inc. (a different Wright family) in Gasburg, just the Wright brothers are grateful to have him on took over that position last year. Right hand man their team. Widener has also served on the VLA board for the Outside the woods, Widener has gone to the last several years alongside his boss. races with the Wrights. Charles Wright used to Brandon Widener has been working for drive the circle track at the South Boston SpeedCharles A. Wright Logging, except for a brief way, and his sons picked up the hobby. Brandon interruption of a few months, for nearly 20 years, has joined them at the race track sometimes. A since he was in his early 20s. Company founder single dad with joint custody of his two sons, and family patriarch Charles Wright was still Widener, according to Vance, is a great dad. “He running the show back then. It was he who actuhelps coach ball for them and takes them campally hired Widener, though it was Vance’s idea. ing on the weekends.” “To be honest, I had to talk my dad into hiring Widener has been overseeing a crew for about him,” Vance admits. “He thought he was too 12 years now. Though he’d hate to lose such a young and wasn’t going to stick around. I had to key part of his business, Vance says that if the kind of push to hire him.” day ever comes when Brandon wants to strike Widener grew up around farming, not logging. out on his own, he wouldn’t stand in his way; he His father and grandfather both worked in crop wants only good things for him. “If he went on insurance for Farm Bureau. On the side, they ran his own I would do everything I could to help a farm and raised cattle, and Widener spent his him,” the logger asserts. “I wouldn’t try to hold childhood helping them out. “Now for loggers, him back one bit; I would want him to succeed. you can’t beat farm boys grown up,” Vance He knows how to log as well as anybody. Anybelieves. “They know how to handle equipment thing in the woods he knows how to do and he before you ever put them in the woods.” does it really well. Folks like that deserve more Alan's brother/partner Vance Wright represented the family SLT They knew each other through church; Vance recognition,” Vance believes. company on the cover of the January 2020 SLT.
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APRIL 2021 l Southern Loggin’ Times
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