The
Christmas Tree Czar
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by Tom Nugent As the co-founder of the Oregon-based Holiday Tree Farms, Inc. – the world’s largest supplier of Christmas trees, with more than one million shipped each year – Hal Schudel built an immense agricultural enterprise that’s often described as one of the most successful “start-ups” in the history of modern American business. Now, at the tender age of 91, Schudel looks back on an amazing life that saw him rise from being “a poor farm boy” at the height of the Great Depression ... to his current status as America’s legendary “Christmas Tree Czar.” Describing his personal philosophy in a single sentence, Schudel will tell you: “It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’m very grateful for all the good things God has given me.”
hey were sitting beside a flickering campfire in the heart of the forest-covered Blue Mountains. Harold Lester Schudel (B.S. ’40; MSC ’41) lifted his steaming coffee mug and took a long, satisfying swallow. The blazing slabs of yellow pine at his feet sent up a shower of dancing sparks, and a hoot owl screeched once ... and then twice ... somewhere deep in the evergreen forest of northeastern Oregon. It was a November evening in 1954, and Hal Schudel – the former agronomy major at UNL – was sitting beside his buddy Paul Goodmonson and speculating on what the future might bring. All day long, the two pals had been roaming through the Blue Mountains in search of Oregon’s wandering herds of elk. Carrying 30.06 Winchester rifles, they’d crept along the tree line near the remote Starkey National Forest, looking for signs that the majestic animals might be near. Hawk-eyed and silent, the two skilled hunters had spent hours scanning the freshly fallen snow for the telltale, four-inch hoof prints of the great forest mammals, which often grow to a height of five feet and can easily weigh more than 700 pounds. It had been a long day, but their arduous quest had brought them nothing. Once or twice, the then-36-year-old Schudel (pronounced Shoo-DELL) had spotted a flash of movement among the towering Douglas firs and the soaring yellow pines. Once or twice, he’d listened to the crunching sound of animal footsteps in the heavy underbrush. But those were false alarms, as it turned out, and with the arrival of dusk the two men realized that they would not be bringing home a mighty bull elk on this day. Breaking off the chase, they’d returned to their campsite for a quick meal of fire-cooked hot dogs and beans and coffee and toasted sourdough bread. And now with a pale moon glimmering occasionally through patches of mountain fog, they were relaxing beside the campfire and talking about the unhappy fact that both of them once again faced what Schudel always referred to as the “yearly cash shortfall in the family budget.” Money was tight for Hal Schudel in 1954, and no wonder: as a struggling young agronomy instructor at Oregon State University in Corvallis, he earned a mere $2,000 for teaching several courses in agricultural science each semester. Like his cash-starved pal, Paul Goodmonson also was struggling to make ends meet. A former forestry instructor at OSU, Goodmonson had recently left the university in order to launch a forestry consulting firm that worked with timber companies, local farmers and government agencies to better manage the timber resources provided by Oregon’s vast evergreen forests. But Goodmonson’s fledgling business was still getting off the ground and he was constantly reminding his pal Hal Schudel that he didn’t have “two nickels to rub together,” and that if “money was dynamite, I’d have trouble blowing my nose!” Sitting beside the roaring campfire that night, the two men were exploring various ways in which they might be able to make some badly needed extra cash during the next few years. At one point, as they talked about their professional expertise and how they might use it to create a profit-making business together, a light suddenly flashed on in Hal Schudel’s laboring brain. NEBRASKAMAGAZINE
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