Southern Stumpin

By David Abbott • Managing Editor • Ph. 334-834-1170 • Fax: 334-834-4525 • E-mail: david@hattonbrown.com

Here Comes The Sun...?

Hindsight is supposed to be 2020. But now, fatality rate of 0.0017%, or 1.7 deaths per 100,000 to, and I think they have been looking forward to 2020 is in our hindsight. You might be think- vaccinated people. Measured by the same standard, the in-person get-togethers again.” ing, Dave, it’s May; you’re more than a few Covid-19 would have a fatality rate of 1.8%, or The timing looks right: Governor Ralph months late in pointing this out. Shouldn’t this 1,800 deaths per 100,000 infected people, a thou- Northam recently announced loosened restrictions, have been said in January or at the latest February? sand times higher than the vaccine, if indeed those allowing sports and entertainment venues to operProbably, but I resisted. While others proclaimed, reported numbers are more or less accurate. Of ate at expanded capacity starting Saturday, May “Good bye and good riddance 2020, welcome course these are just rough figures, but mathemati- 15th, a week before Expo. Governor Northam 2021,” I said, not so fast, let’s just wait and see. I’m cally, our odds appear much better with the vaccine noted in his announcement that Virginia’s vaccinanot one to believe in jinxes but I didn’t want to than with the virus. tions are up while the Commonwealth’s Covid-19 speak too soon. Heck, 2021 could be even worse; cases are down. Masks and social distancing will what do viruses and wildfires and all the rest care Show Must Go On still be required, but generally, people have good about an arbitrary page flip on a calendar anyway? reason to feel safer.

But now, more than a third of the way through Another hopeful indication, and specific to our As of late April, Moseley reported 1,100 registhis not-so-new-anymore new year, I have to admit, industry: Expo Richmond is finally happening. The tered attendees, which is on track with the 2018 it looks to me like there are positive signs…knock 37th East Coast Sawmill and Logging Equipment Expo at the same point. “We have a large number on wood. Hopefully nothing happens to make me Exposition is slated for Friday, May 21 through of attendees who register the day of the event, hisregret writing that between now and when this hits Saturday, May 22, at the Richmond Raceway torically,” she points out. “So we are encouraged your mailbox. But there are several hopeful signs Complex in Richmond, Va. The biennial event, by those numbers with the governor’s new orders that have me feeling cautiously optimistic. Noth- previously held in even-numbered years, was origi- taking effect.” The new rules will allow them to ing’s perfect, and there are always new challenges nally scheduled for the first weekend of May 2020. have up to 10,000 people outside, a max number to face, but that’s normal, and that’s what we want: Due to the pandemic, it was at first rescheduled for that exceeds Expo’s normal attendance. normal. Feels like maybe we’re on the way there. October last year and finally moved to this year. For indoor exhibits and registration, Expo uses

On the pandemic front, the vac- four buildings; organizers are placcine seems to be working. Here in ing exhibitors in the two largest Ala bama, we reported 998 Covid- buildings. The governor’s cap (30% 19-caused deaths in one week at the capacity or 500 people, whichever is end of January; by the end of March higher) will allow them to accomit was only 99 deaths a week, and modate 1,000 people inside the has continued to decline since then. buildings. They’ve also moved regNationwide, we saw about 1.2 mil- istration to the opposite side of the lion new coronavirus cases weekly Raceway to alleviate the crowds in in January; that’s been cut by 75% the interior buildings and keep more to about 300,000 new cases a week people outside as much as possible. two months later. It stands to reason “Jamie and I have been working that as more of us gain resistance, hard on trying to figure out how to the virus has fewer places to go. spread out our exhibitors in order for

Something close to 200 million everyone to get maximum exposure Americans, and more than half of all and not have to wait in line to get in adults, have received at least one the building,” Moseley explains. vaccine, according to CDC, and Expo is back in Richmond this month. She likens the logistics to solving a more are getting it every day. About Tetris puzzle. 100 million are supposed to be fully vaccinated To my knowledge, this is the first sizable gather- The number of exhibitors is down slightly from now, close to a third of us, including me, my wife ing in our industry since March of 2020, when 2018, she admits. They had 280 exhibitors then and our parents. everything started shutting down. “I think some- and, as of late April, 205 now. Some exhibitors

Some have felt perhaps understandable trepida- body sooner or later has to do it,” says Expo Chair- who would be coming from Canada can’t make it tion, but so far, no one has turned into zombies that man Jamie Coleman. He and Lesley Moseley, down due to travel restrictions there. “It is still a I know of. Some have experienced negative side Executive Director of the Virginia Forest Products work in progress because I have people wanting effects, even reportedly fatal side effects for a rela- Assn., have been working hard to organize the more booths or new exhibitors calling up,” Mosetive few, but much less so than for the virus. event. “I think it’s a good time to have an expo,” ley says. “We’ve been getting two or three calls or Roughly 33 million people have had Covid-19: Coleman continues. “The hardwood industry is in a emails a day of new exhibi tors wanting to sign up, 200 million vaccinated is six times as many vac- good place right now, so are the pine sawmills, so it is a constantly changing map.” cines as viruses. Of those 33 million who tested pretty much any aspect of our industry. People The VFPA board is planning to hold back-topositive, 586 thousand have (allegedly) died from have been cooped up for a year or longer; they back Expos, this year and in 2022, to get the schedthe virus or from complications arising therefrom. want to get back out.” ule back on its normal rotation, Moseley reports. Of 200 million vaccinated, roughly 3,500 have Ron Jenkins, head of the Virginia Loggers Assn., “We are just really excited to have the Expo and (allegedly) died since having been vaccinated. If all concurs. “I think we are moving in a good direc- to finally have it happen,” Moseley sums it up. All of those deaths were caused, directly or indirectly, tion,” he says. “More people are getting vaccinat- in all, Expo this year feels like a light at the end of by the vaccine, or from complications arising ed, so I think it is looking very positive. So many the tunnel. I plan to be there and I hope to see some therefrom (that’s unclear, but let’s assume so for loggers in Virginia really just want to get out, get of you there as well. discussion’s sake), then the vaccine would have a with people, enjoy the time together like we used Excelsior! SLT

Getting It Right

■ Army Ranger/Special Forces turned timber buyer turned logger, Russell Scott runs three crews.

By Jessica Johnson

MARIANNA, Fla.

Running a logging business wasn’t always what Russell Scott, 53, set out to do in life. First he served in the military, both in the Army Rangers and Army Special Forces. When he finished his service, he returned home and while in school, the chance to buy timber popped up. He formed his own timber brokerage after a while, and as his company grew, the need to get standing timber cut and hauled grew with it. While he had some great contractors, it just became a little more of a headache than he wanted, so he stepped out in the early 2000s and started his own harvesting operation, a small crew with four trucks. That crew expanded into a second, and then a third. Now Coastal Forestry Services operates three four-man crews and keeps 15 trucks rolling daily.

Scott says he likes having company logging crews because it helps him keep a little better control of how the wood is being cut and marketed. He still purchases standing timber for two of the crews, while the third contract cuts for Coastal Forest Products’ Havana plywood

Kyle Broughton with Russell Scott and Ben the dog

Coastal Forestry Services is incredibly proud of the work they do, as well as owner Russell Scott’s service to the U.S. as a Ranger.

While all bunching and skidding is handled by John Deere iron, Scott likes Barko loaders to handle the wood flow at the ramp.

Equipment is rotated every three years or so...

…Scott would rather make payments and have warranties than payments and breakdowns.

mill. Flexibility has been a key for Scott’s company, which is why he’s stuck to not only purchasing his own wood but also keeping a crew on a contract.

“It’s a game every day either way you want to toss it,” Scott says, but 2018’s Hurricane Michael made everything that much more of a challenge. Having wiped out a large chunk of not only the area Scott’s crews work, but also the area they live in, the storm is still keeping everyone on their toes. It makes it tougher, he says, because of the new learning curve crews have as they move farther and farther away from where they had been working for a generation. The crew used to work comfortably within about a 50-mile radius of the shop, and about 50 miles from their primary markets of Coastal ➤ 12

9 ➤ Plywood, Georgia-Pacific, minds, one crew typically finds Spanish Trail Lumber and others. itself working strict plantation pine Now Hurricane Michael has pushed thins. Clear-cuts are sized between the boundaries of that radius out, up 60-70 acres. Thins get on the bigger to 80 miles. slices, 150-200 acres.

“It makes it tougher for us because of the distance we have to travel to try to keep production,” he adds. “It’s a new ballgame for us.” Each crew averages between 15-18 loads per day, shooting for 75-85 loads per week of mixed tracts. While Scott prefers to clear-cut, as it’s easier on the machines and the Operations

Typically, the crews are not bogged down too much with separations, although Scott admits the loader men, who also act as crew foreman on each job, can get a little bit of headache when they have six or seven different stacks at the ramp at one time. “It can get interesting,” he admits, “but that’s about how that bounces sometimes.”

One big frustration for Scott is making sure loaders are filling trucks with the right products—especially lately as truck driver shortages are hitting highs he’s never seen before. Weather will always reign supreme in terms of challenges for loggers, but dealing with mills is a close second and Scott’s crews are not immune. “They always throw a kink in it,” he believes, “A lot of time it is last minute. We have trucks en route to the mill and they say, ‘Hey we aren’t taking any more of that product today.’”

What’s worse now is with the truck driver shortage, and persistent wet weather, Scott says the mills are hollering for wood that they just can’t get, not because the logging crews are doing anything differently. That creates a different kind of challenge.

Crews

It can be stressful having crews spread out as far as 70 miles apart, and other times as close as across the street. One thing that helps Scott alleviate that stress is his right hand man, and stepson, Kyle Broughton, 31. “We’re a good team,” Scott says. The younger man has been knocking around the logging woods for 20 years alongside him, but didn’t officially join the Coastal Forestry Services team full-time until seven years ago. Of his responsibilities, Broughton says his biggest is “making sure we’re doing what we need to do; that everything is rolling like it should.” He also does all accounting and payroll for the company. Even though keeping everything moving is one of Broughton’s greatest challenges, it’s also one of his greatest points of pride.

The employees doing what they do day-in and day-out is impressive, their boss says; it keeps the company moving forward and staying consistent so landowners and mills know they can be counted on. Without the employees, Scott says, the company would be nothing, and he adds that reliability and doing things well is what keeps landowners coming back time and time again for their services.

“The guys I work with on a daily basis are very knowledgeable in what they are doing,” Scott says of his 32 employees. “These guys are running very expensive stuff, they know how to work it, how to produce. It’s just one big family. Everyone looks out for everyone else.”

The woods crews have some turnover, but most of the four-man teams have been together for a while, and Scott has a few eight and 10-year employees in the roster. Scott credits the lack of woods turnover, at least recently, to COVID-related stuff and people not wanting to move around. He took the pandemic seriously, ramping up on masks and hand sanitizer when it first got bad in the spring and summer of 2020, consistently wiping down anything and everything they could. His reasoning? Health and safety of employees,

but also, he figured there were enough battles to fight; he didn’t need a crew shutting down because someone got sick. “We stayed on top of it pretty hot and heavy.”

Trucking

Truck drivers have been, and always will be, a problem for Scott. Finding good drivers, and getting them on insurance, has been the biggest headache of the last three years—recently especially. To combat the issue, Scott has started a training program.

For two weeks a prospective driver will ride with one of Coastal Forestry’s best drivers, practice and be critiqued. If they pass muster, Scott will drug test them, send them off for insurance verification and put them in a truck. If they don’t, it’s a handshake and no hard feelings. This has helped get more drivers, but doesn’t even begin to take the entire amount of pressure off.

BITCO writes all insurance, including health insurance available for everyone who wants it. Brough ton says the company has to have at least 70% participation in order for the program to be cost-effective, and though, like everything, the cost has continued to rise, Scott says it’s too important not to have it. He adds, “It is there if they need it.”

Each crew has a safety meeting about once every three weeks on one or two hot topics, on a rotating schedule. “It seems to work,” Scott says. “It gets everyone thinking about safety.” Broughton and Scott try to stay on top of it, saying it’s a big deal to them as a company, and they are grateful to have had no accidents in the last decade.

Equipment Lineup

Equipment is mostly John Deere, purchased from Beard Equipment, though Scott likes the build of the Barko 595B loader, so he has two (a 2020 and 2021) purchased from Knight Forestry on his ramps. The third crew uses a 2019 John Deere 437E loader.

Skidders and feller-bunchers are all John Deere. Each crew uses two skidders, the smaller 648L (or

L-II depending on the crew) and a larger 748L (or L-II). Year models range from 2017, the oldest (a 648L and 748L), to 2021, the newest (a 648L-II). Scott has two 2020 643L-II feller-bunchers and a 2019 843L-II.

He likes sticking with John

Deere because of the service he receives from Beard Equipment.

“Beard has two locations that are in our area,” he explains, referring to the Panama City and Tallahassee branches. “So, it’s easy to get a part, and always very easy to work with, pretty much Johnny on the spot. It’s all expensive but

Beard is reasonable.” Of course he takes advantage of 0% financing offered by John Deere.

He sings the praises of Knight

Forestry as well, saying they’ve always accommodated his needs with the Barko loaders.

The rotation schedule is a fairly strict three years, mainly due to warranty. He elects to run machines just one year past their warranty, even though he has a 8,000 sq. ft. shop in Marianna staffed by two full-time mechanics. “You’re still going to have wear and tear on the machines, either way,” he says. “I am not going to make payments and work on the machine. I am going to pick one of the two.” He’d rather have wear and tear and mechanics focused on preventative maintenance than machines down.

Of the 18 trucks Coastal Forestry

Services has, 15 are Kenworths, the others Macks, all late models.

Trail ers are mostly Magnolia, with some McClendons mixed in. This helps with stocking parts; instead of needing a bunch of different things, or 40 air filters, the shop stocks just a few sourced from the

Kenworth dealer in Dothan, Ala.

Scott’s rationale with the machines carries over to the trucks: you can either keep changing parts and working on them or you can step up and get something newer with more consistent preventative maintenance instead of constantly fighting breakdowns. SLT

Rising Above

■ Logger Dustin Durham may be young, but he prefers methods from the old school.

By Patrick Dunning

PICKENS, SC

Dustin Durham, 31, is a new dog with old tricks. He founded his company, Dustin Durham Logging, LLC, in 2014, when he was just 24. This good ole’ boy is staying true to his roots; his father, Steve Durham, logged for 20 years and instilled in his son a hard to come by work ethic at a young age.

“When I was little, my brother and I would go to work with him almost every day, sit in the loader cab with him and do anything we could as kids, which wasn’t a whole lot,” Durham remembers. “I always took an interest in it; never did anything but fool with trees.”

Steve started logging in the ’70s, and the younger Durham says that in those days his dad could go door-to-door and find someone willing to run a chain saw. Reliable help doesn’t come as easy these days. “People don’t want to work like they did back then,” he laments. “If I’m going to have any help 10-15 years from now I’m going to have to let someone get on a machine and learn.”

Following his exit from the logging aspect of Dustin Durham, owner, Dustin Durham Logging, LLC

Durham swaps between the loader and feller-buncher throughout the day.

the industry, Steve started a smallproduction sawmill to process pine and hardwood lumber. He did that for seven years before making the leap to Prater’s Creek Tree Service, which specializes in dangerous tree re moval. He’s owned and operated Prater’s for the last 15 years.

After graduating high school, Durham began helping at his dad’s tree removal business before having the same idea his father had once had. “I always wanted to log,” he admits. “So I thought to myself, I’m going to start logging.”

Clean Slate

A young man with a vision, Durham purchased a Bobcat skidsteer loader, Franklin cable skidder, and a tandem truck to do local jobs in the area until he had the re sources to expand his operation. He later added two trucks, a ’06 Peterbilt and ’07 Freightliner, both with homemade trailers, as well as a late ’90s model 548G-II John Deere skidder and an old knuckleboom loader to compensate for increased demand.

When Southern Loggin’ Times crossed paths with Dustin Durham Logging last November, Durham was clear-cutting 23-year-old plantation pine on a 40-acre private tract owned by DeWayne Nix in Pickens County, seeking 8 in. DBH and thicker logs. The stand featured a bit of hardwood undergrowth in its bottoms and some 10 in. ply logs with a lot of chip-n-saw and pulpwood. Durham says he buys 90% of all the timber he cuts.

Durham's equipment lineup is mostly John Deere: '07 648G-III skidder, ’04 843H feller-buncher and a ’17 437E loader equipped with a CSI delimber. Dur ham favors the early 2000 model ma chines and notes some of the complications he’s had with his ’17 model loader due to DEF re quirement. “I’m old school when it comes to equipment,” he says. “The less computers I have on my

Durham Logging averages 25 loads weekly.

Durham's cowgirl daughters, from left: Elsie, Stevie and Emmy

machines, the more I like it.”

Flint Equipment in Simpsonville helps with Durham’s machinery needs. He deals mostly with Mike Mayen there. Walker Hunter & Associates, based in Columbia, provides insurance coverage.

Routine

With Jason Chastain hauling wood full time for the company, Durham swaps between the cutter and loader cab while Mitchell Patterson, fouryear skidder operator, drags logs to the landing. “Me and Mitchell are the only other two in the woods,” he says. “It’s a lot easier to cut pine be cause I can cut it with that machine, pile it up and he brings it in. I’ll cut everything I can and go back with a chain saw and get what I couldn’t with the cutter.” Most of the time the crew leaves a couple piles of wood laid out for the following morning to get a head start on the first load of the day. “Whatever he’s got pulled up to the yard that evening I’ll load the truck with the next day and then I’m back down there cutting,”

Durham says.

Durham’s approach to woods equipment maintenance is a tested method he bases more on feel, not hours of operation. “Instead of keeping up with the hours, I’ll pull everything into the shop every three months,” he says. “I check and make sure the oil is good all the time and grease the turntable and cutter head every other day, and grease every other machine once a week.” Durham prefers

Mobil Delvac engine oil across the board and changes truck oil on 8,000-mile intervals.

Durham Logging averages 25 loads weekly and hauls hardwood and top logs to his distant cousins’ business in Pickens, Durham’s

Hardwoods, Inc. Pulpwood goes to

Capps Brothers in Easley or their wood yard in Landrum, depending on which one Durham is closer to at the time. “This is the most pine we’ve been on in a while,” he says.

“I usually stay in predominately hardwood stands because it’s more money and it’s what I like cutting.”

From left: Mitchell Patterson, Jason Chastain, and Dustin Durham, owner

Family First

Everything Durham does is for his family; he’s a proud dad of three little girls: Stevie, 2; Elsie, 4; and Emmy, 6. The family found out this past February their oldest daughter has leukemia after she caught a stomach bug and developed a bad cold along with a swollen liver that made her wince when touched. Dur ham and his wife, Stephanie, have been by her side through intense chemotherapy treatments every step of the way. “She’s a trooper and has done phenomenally well though,” Durham says. “If there’s anything to be grateful for it’s that she’s going through it while she’s young.”

After several months of followups and sleepless nights, Durham says there is no sign of it in her system and that she’s moving on to the maintenance phase of treatment, otherwise known as remission. “There’s nothing like little girls,” Durham smiles. “Emmy loves horses and is pretty good at riding them for a six-year-old. She’s a little cowgirl.” SLT

Big Foot Print

■ Thinking outside the box helps Schwab brothers Chad and Richard manage M.A. Rigoni.

By David Abbott

PERRY, Fla.

It seems that for many family businesses, the third generation is where things start to go off track. The first generation is hungry to succeed; the second generation saw what it took to get that success, appreciate it and work to build on that foundation. By the third generation, it can be easy to take success for granted and start to coast.

That doesn’t appear to be a likely outcome at M.A. Rigoni, the multifaceted logging concern where brothers Chad and Richard Schwab stepped up two years ago as the third generation of leadership. There’s no taking anything for granted here and there sure isn’t any coasting. As Chad puts it, “We purpose to work.” His brother adds, “Our dad taught us two things that can never be taken away: faith and work ethic.”

In January 2019, their dad, Rodney Schwab, and his longtime partner Gary Brett handed them the reigns. Brett retired and Rodney stepped down from a management role, though he still maintains a majority share, sits on the board and works on one of the crews. “He’s probably the highest paid loader man in the state of Florida,” his sons joke. As for Brett, Richard reports, “He told us a few months ago he should have retired first in his career.”

Company founder Matt Rigoni hired Rodney in 1972 and Brett in 1980. When Rigoni retired in ’95, Gary and Rodney formed a partnership to buy their boss out. Growing up in the company, Chad and Richard learned a lot from Rigoni. “He was Italian, I mean a Chicago Italian, and if you ever heard him speak to you in Italian, you knew you were in trouble,” Chad says with a fond laugh. “He was a great, great guy.”

Even though there’s been no one named Rigoni at the company in over 25 years, and even though it’s now entirely Schwabs running it, there’s no way they’d ever re-christen it as Schwab Logging or anything of the sort; that name, Rigoni, may well be their most valuable asset, they believe. “I started buying wood in 1993 and I didn’t have a forestry background,” Richard relates. “I knew logging but nothing about buying timber. But out of the gate, because I represented M.A. Rigoni, I’m buying wood, instead of taking years to build up a reputation. We will never get rid of the Rigoni name. We have Schwab Brothers Hydraulics and we’re satisfied with that.” (See sidebar for more on that.)

At Rigoni, Chad is President and Richard is Vice President, while at Schwab Brothers Hydraulics, LLC, the roles are reversed. But those office titles are just formalities, effectively meaningless. It makes no difference to these brothers which is which; they are equal partners.

For the record, though, Richard jokingly likes for people to know, Chad is the older brother; they’re 14 months apart (ages 50 and 48, currently).

Brothers Chad, left, and Richard Schwab, right, are in charge at M.A. Rigoni.

New School

Richard came out of the procurement side and Chad from the production side. “We still haven’t given

up our roles there but we have reduced them a little bit and replaced ourselves with other people,” Richard says. “But we are learning that this job, at this level, is more running a business: looking at those numbers, the insurance renewals, the not-fun stuff. Sitting with an insurance consultant trying to keep it within the budget and trying to adjust your budgets from that and realizing you’re not going to be as profitable as you were last year because you got a $60,000 increase in your trucking insurance.”

The brothers are convinced that it’s generally a good idea to bring in people for the next generation who have worked outside the family business first so that they can bring in fresh perspectives. The brothers learned from their predecessors, but since taking over they’ve kept learning to do some things differently from how Rigoni, Brett and the elder Schwab taught them. Chad describes their approach as proactive. “We try things we wouldn’t try three years ago. We are not going to jump into something blind but we are hungry and we want to look at new ideas, new ways of doing things to make our business and our people better.”

For instance, they were trained by their dad and Mr. Rigoni: if you think you might need something, get two of it; and hold on to things you don’t use, just in case you ever need it. “An old school logger mentality would be, you have a log truck and you drive it till the doors fall off,” Chad says. “We just got rid of the frame of a 1986 chipper. We had parts in here for that, and we haven’t run that chipper in 10 years.”

Richard adds, “This company hasn’t run a piece of Franklin equipment since the late 1990s, but a year ago we found Franklin parts in here, lots of them. There was a lot of stuff bought just in case. In the shop there would be $10-15,000 worth of brakes. It kills your cash flow. All that is eliminated today.”

Chad notes that times have changed: “A lot of stuff you can get next day now, so you don’t have to have all that stuff on the shelf.” He admits there are still some things they need to keep extra, key parts that take longer to replace, but in general they want to keep excess inventory to a minimum. “You can’t afford it today. It’s overhead, and it’s overtime sometimes. If you think you might need three mechanics one day but you really only have work for one mechanic, you still got those other two you’re paying just because of that one time you might need them. You have to cut all that out to make it work.”

Rigoni hauls mostly chips these days. Each of the five Rigoni crews is outfitted with the same three-machine Tigercat setup.

Tigercat dealer Tidewater is a great partner for Rigoni, the Schwabs say.

Maintenance, Machinery

From the Schwab Brothers diesel shop (see sidebar), the Schwab brothers have learned how to more efficiently run the Rigoni repair shop. The diesel shop, they point out, is, and always has been, run as a business instead of a cost of doing business. “Our mechanics work 40 hours a week and go home,” Richard says. “There’s no stand around time. You can’t afford the overhead.”

Chad adds, “Those guys in the shop do good work but a lot of times we just didn’t have a whole lot for them to do, so it was a dead cost.” They’ve now reorganized things. The Rigoni shop has one head mechanic and a junior mechanic in training. A third moved to Schwab Brothers Hydraulics as an on-site service guy who visits, among other customers, each of the five Rigoni woods crews once or twice a week to handle greasing and servicing—air, fuel and oil filters and all the sampling. In between his visits, operators handle greasing and changing chipper knives. All Rigoni trucks and trailers go to the Schwab Brothers diesel repair shop, while chippers and woods machines come to the Rigoni shop for repairs.

Each crew is identically outfitted with Tigercat (620H skidders, 720G cutters, 234B loaders) and a chipper, one of each per crew. They have three Morbark 4036 chippers, three Morbark 5048s and a 3590 Bandit XL, five in regular use and two spares. Tidewater in Thomasville and Maxville does all the service work needed. “They do a great job and they are very, very good partners of ours,” Richard says.

The Schwabs have been working towards getting on a three-year program of rotating out and trading in equipment. “It gives you warranty and reliability and cuts your payment just about in half,” Chad explains. “A used piece of Tigercat equipment today, if it is in good shape, brings about half the value of a newer one. That’s one reason we love Tigercat. Now if you are talking four or five year old machines then of course the value is not there as much.” The sweet spot for maximizing the use of a machine balanced with optimal trade-in value is around 6,500 hours on a three-year old piece, Chad estimates.

The last time they bought a brand new chipper (two, in fact), was 2013; both, 5048 models, are still in use today. Chad recollects, “We paid $550,000; today that machine is $800,000 with a Tier 4 motor on it.” They recently rebuilt the motor and put a new chute on a 2010 chipper; it cost about $70,000 to rebuild,

“W e haven’t been one-dimensional in many years,” Richard says. “We were raised not to be and have taught everyone under us to be flexible. We try to keep as much diversification with our footprint as we can, and we have a huge footprint today.”

As Chad says, “We take pains to find ways to make profits on more than just the logging itself.”

One of those ways: the brothers started their own separate company, Schwab Brothers Hydraulics, LLC. Richard conceived the idea when a master distributor for Vitillo hose came to a Southeastern Wood Producers Assn. meeting. During the presentation, Richard kept thinking to himself that he could help the young man by sharing his many industry contacts, and by incorporating the product in the Rigoni shop.

Later, he saw a history of John Deere at an ALC meeting. Back when Deere got started, Chad explains, clay would stick to the cast iron steel from which plow blades were made, so farmers in the Midwest would constantly have to stop and dig the clay off. “John Deere came up with the idea of taking a piece of polished steel, and the clay would just fall right off of it. He used an old crosscut saw blade that he got from a logger.”

Richard had an epiphany: “I realized that the forest industry was the catalyst that made John Deere who they are. Deere went to his local tree cutter and said, ‘Do you have an old cross cut saw blade I could borrow?’ And I’m sure that good old logger gave him something off the scrap pile and never gave it another thought. Because that’s what loggers do every day: we put our boots on to help people.” A light bulb went off for him: “Why would I give somebody all my contacts and not be in business with him? Why give it away when I can be a partner? So we started Schwab Brothers Hydraulics to sell hydraulic hose out of our shop. We took a net cost, and made it a profit center.”

It’s another way they found to think outside the box. Speaking of boxes, Schwab Brothers Hydraulics offers, along with hoses, the patented Compact Hose Assembly Device, or CHAD box. Chad stresses he had nothing to do with naming it and wasn’t even in the meeting when Richard and his son-in-law Ryan Wood, a Marine fond of acronyms, came up with this one. There is no word yet when they’ll develop another product they can name the RICH, but it would seem only fair.

Each CHAD is assembled on a Camlocker box from American Aluminum and features an air-over-hydraulic crimping machine, crimping dies, air powered rotary saw, cutting discs, spec chart and storage for extra fittings.

“Some of our customers might be two hours from their job site to our place in Perry,” Richard notes. “They can buy hoses from NAPA, but at double the cost we would charge.” With a CHAD, they can quickly replace blown hoses in the woods, saving potentially hours of downtime. And it’s not just for loggers in Florida; the Schwabs have also been showing it to their industry friends all over the U.S.

Another opportunity to diversify beyond the box presented itself soon enough. A local mechanic and close friend of theirs was preparing to retire and wanted to sell to them. “I had never thought about owning a diesel repair shop, not one time,” Chad admits; he didn’t think he was interested. Richard initially had a similar reaction, but they agreed to give it some thought. The repair shop owner gave them five years of his financial records, which they showed to their accountant (Richard’s wife Jennifer). She looked it all over and told them, “For what he wants for that business, the land, the shop, the whole thing, we would be fools not to take it.”

Chad recalls, “We looked at it long and hard, and prayed, which is central to every decision we make.” They made the deal, and that business is now the Schwab Brothers Hydraulics repair shop. Note that it is not the internal company repair bay for M.A. Rigoni, but a separate business serving dozens of local companies. Once again, Richard says, “We have turned dead cost centers into profit centers.” SLT

Located in Perry like M.A. Rigoni, American Aluminum makes the Camlocker boxes for each CHAD; Ryan Wood, center, inspects a batch before they head out to the woods.

after 19,000 hours of use.

Keeping chippers maintained, knowing when to repair and when to replace, is crucial, as is keeping viable spares to use when there’s a breakdown. Richard says it again speaks to that old logger’s mentality with which he and Chad were raised: run it till it breaks. But, he says, “You can’t run a chipper till it breaks. When it breaks it is going to be major. We had a catastrophic breakdown on one chipper and it took six weeks to get the part. Thank the Lord we had a spare.”

Hauling

Roughly 30 trucks haul Rigoni wood, about half of them contractors. Company-owned trucks are mostly Kenworth with locking rear ends; this was one of Gary Brett’s ideas the Schwab boys have kept. “We haven’t changed anything that Gary set up,” Richard says of the trucking component. “That was his

legacy he gave us, the ingenuity and knowhow to know which specs we need for trucking.”

Chad says that, while they might restrict turning somewhat, the locking rear ends allow trucks to pull out of the woods amazingly well. “We had a truck driver tell us he had never seen trucks pull out of the woods like that. That was Gary’s idea and we will not go away from that, never.”

Hauling chips exclusively, Rigoni’s trucks pull both dead and live floor vans from ITI, Peerless, Pitts and Pinnacle. Schwab Brothers Hydraulics put the wet kits on the trucks. Combined, the five crews average 300 loads a week.

They haul in both Florida, where the weight limit is 88,000 lbs., and Georgia, where it’s 84,000. They don’t use scales at all, trusting loader/chipper operators to know. If they’re loading to haul in Georgia, they stick to the lower weight.

Two crews are based in Perry, Fla., and others in Danella, Williston and Lake City. Each crew pulls from the local labor pool and works tracts in the range of where they are based. For instance, drivers hauling to GRU live in the Gainesville area, near Mayo, Lake City and Ocala. Rigoni used to supply fuel efficient company vehicles for drivers with a long ride to get to their trucks. This perk had to end when DOT let them know, in a “nice way,” they say, that the commute counts towards truck drivers’ allowable daily driving time if it is in a company vehicle.

Markets

While many loggers across the Southeast log with a little chipping on the side, Rigoni does the opposite. Most of the mills they deliver to are 75-100 miles away. Two primary markets for Rigoni are GRU (Gainesville Regional Utilities) and Enviva in Waycross. Enviva is 110 mile and Gainesville 175 miles. PCA is also a good partner.

With forester Rett Sumner, Rigoni now buys all its stumpage, much of it from the Langdale family of companies in Valdosta, Ga., a town near the Florida/Georgia line that should probably be renamed Langdale. “We have been really blessed to be affiliated with Langdale,” Richard says. “It’s a great mutual relationship.” Chad agrees: “We couldn’t ask for a finer partner or better people.” At Langdale Forest Products and Southland Forest Products—another of the many Langdale companies based around Valdosta—Chad says, “The leadership today is very progressive. They have some younger guys in there who are very wise with the decisions they’re making and they seek out wise counsel from the guys who have been there before.”

Most loggers don’t prefer working with big corporate entities, Chad points out. “They feel like they’re against them, not for them. With Langdale, I feel like they are for me and want me to succeed because they know what I do for them is important for them.”

Chad’s sons Reese and Tanner manage a crew and Trevor works in the office (younger son Fletcher is in high school). Richard’s son Cole helps develop new business and buys timber. His daughter Julianne is married to Ryan Wood, director of sales/marketing for Schwab Brothers Hydraulics; Wood has been instrumental in marketing CHAD. Richard’s other daughter Caroline is a political consultant in Tallahassee; all the politicians she represented in 2020 won their elections. Richard’s wife Jennifer is Rigoni’s CFO—the numbers person who really makes it work, he says—while Chad’s wife Dana is the event coordinator for CMO; “She puts that whole project together,” her husband brags.

Core Changes

The company has had to be flexible, reinventing itself more than once and rolling with the punches

The crews average 300 loads weekly.

of changing realities. “You start off Monday morning with Plan A, by the time Friday gets here, you’re working on Plan AAA; you’ve been through the whole alphabet, A to Z, twice,” Chad says. “How often do you have to reinvent yourself? It’s almost daily.” And there have been a few major shifts over the years. “Since the ’80s and ’90s, these mills have been divesting themselves of their procurement teams and buying gatewood,” Richard says. “Then they expect loggers to buy their wood and they really don’t understand that you need to keep some back to pay for your timber dealership, plus your performance bonds and everything else.”

In some cases, the brothers attest, they got paid more for timber in the ’80s than they do today. This is a common claim loggers all over make. It begs the question: How do loggers survive at all, let alone thrive, as some seem to do, if the cost of everything has doubled or more, but the pay rate is essentially the same as 30 or even 40 years ago?

“We have to find different avenues and get creative,” Chad answers. “The Lord blesses us with that creativity, He opens doors for us and He closes doors for us, and sometimes it leaves us standing back asking why.”

Case in point: about five years ago, for the first time in company history, Rigoni was fired from working on a particular land base. “They cut our crew that was moving 100 loads a week,” Richard reveals. “It was a sucker punch to the gut to get fired, after doing something for so long, without any notice or consideration to loyalty. The good news is it was one of those divine interventions we couldn’t see coming. Because today, everybody is fired from that land; we were ahead of the curve.” It forced them to start buying their own wood. “We had to reinvent ourselves and we got ahead of the competition, because we already had those markets established. The next year we made more money with that crew moving 65 loads a week than we had been making moving 100 loads a week.”

Chad adds, “When they let us go, we were baffled because we had just won logger of the year for the U.S. through FRA. We know we are one of the best in the business, not to brag, but what we do, how we do it, our standards and ethics, we know who we are. And for that to happen, it was a blow. That will knock the taste out of your mouth, but God opened another door for us right behind that and it turned out to be more profitable.”

Safety

“For our safety meetings, if we want to gather here at our base of operations, sometimes that is hard to do because you have people coming from all over,” Richard acknowledges. Just recently, they

started doing virtual safety meetings, using a smart phone app developed by FRA, called THATS (Timber Harvesting And Transportation Safety). Each crew, as well as truck drivers and Schwab Brothers Hydraulics employees, can participate in the meetings remotely, a double benefit in the age of pandemic and social distancing. The app preserves a record to prove that all of them had an hour of safety training every month.

“When you pull that app up it gives you a list of topics you can talk about,” Chad explains. “It’ll know each individual that is there, it will list all their names. Let’s say we had a guy at five of the safety meetings and we discussed climbing safety and jumping safety; it registers that he has been a part of that training. Let’s say that guy jumps off a tractor and twists his knee. When OSHA comes in, we can say he has had this training, he knew better than to do that, and here it is right here in black and white. So that helps us out in that way too. It is going to be a great, awesome tool for us.”

One thing they inherited from their predecessors is a relationship

with insurance consultant Rosselle Consulting, and Richard says that is probably the best money they spend every month. “Mr. Rosselle and his son-in-law Jimmy Cino used to work for the insurance companies and know the policies inside and out,” the younger Schwab explains. “Rosselle is a risk management guy, so he looks at our company and tells us what insurance we need. He then shops for me all the different companies that will provide that coverage.”

Rigoni does business with Bitco agency Stoutamire-Pavlik & Associates, Inc. in Monticello, Fla.; Ryan Pavlik is the agent. “But Ryan doesn’t sell me a bit of insurance unless Rosselle says it’s ok,” Richard says. They also run driver candidates past the consultant before hiring. And if there is a claim, Rosselle knows what the insurance company is supposed to do and ensures that it gets done. “He even goes to court for you if necessary,” Richard says. The monthly retainer fee they pay him is worth every dime, the brothers wholeheartedly agree.

Rigoni is very active on behalf of the industry beyond the scope of its own business. Usually the point man on the PR/political front, Richard sits on the boards for a number of organizations, including Florida Forestry Assn. and Southeastern Wood Producers Assn., and he represents SWPA on the American Loggers Council board. At ALC he is also on the search committee for Danny Dructor’s replacement this year, and he chairs the biomass committee. At Forest Resources Assn. he chairs the public policy committee and is on the THATS app committee. He also serves as President of TEAM Safe Trucking.

Beyond logging, Richard serves in a state government agency as Vice President of the Suwannee River Water Management District governing board. One of five such bodies in Florida, it controls water resources in 15 counties. Former Governor (and current Senator) Rick Scott appointed Richard to this position in 2016, and Governor

Ron DeSantis reappointed him.

“Our passion, and who we are, we were trained in school to make a difference not just for our little kingdom but to make the world a better place,”

Richard says. “Our company spends a lot of time and money being involved with making policy for the industry nationwide.

But I see that as an investment for loggers everywhere.”

It’s also good for business; there is a lot of value that comes to Rigoni from all that they do in the political sphere and in state and national associations, with meeting people and bringing back new ideas—Schwab Brothers Hydraulics being one example. “I wouldn’t put a price on it,” Richard says. “The commitments I have with all these organizations, you would be surprised how much business value I get out of that. I’m out developing new business.”

Both men are very active in their churches, serving as elders, helping make policy decisions and even preaching sometimes.

They are in different churches, though; Richard laughs, “You can’t do everything together.

We’re with each other six days a week, we need Sundays off.”

Another way they give back:

Rigoni sponsors and hosts Combat Marine Outdoors weekend fishing and hunting trips for veterans and their sons. COVID concerns prevented it in 2020 but they plan to do it in 2021 for retired Marines since active duty are restricted.

Avid outdoorsmen, they donate various fishing and hunting trips to fundraising auctions at various organizations in which they are involved, such as at the ALC annual meetings. The Schwabs and Brett have also been involved in missionary work in

Nicaragua periodically; in fact, in his retirement, Brett was on a hurricane relief mission in

DeRidder, La., when Southern

Loggin’ Times visited last

November. SLT