Coal To Timber - Studer Management Services

Coal To Timber
■ Tennessee’s Studer brothers translate their mining experience into logging success.
By Matt Tripp
DUNLAP, Tenn.
o one has
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ever accused
Jim and Randy Studer, partners in Studer Management Services, of being your average loggers. Career coal miners in the
hills of east-central Tennessee, neither had any aspirations to become
involved with timber harvesting
until 1998. They were too busy
running the family’s surface mining operation, which their father
and uncles formed in 1939. Then
government regulation tightened
its stranglehold on the mining
industry.
“The environmental issues
began to take such a toll on mining,” Randy says, “it basically
went south, leaving us trying to
figure out what to do.”
At the same time, Jim owned
900 acres in the area and had some Brothers Jim, left, and Randy Studer credit their success as loggers to their mining experience.
timber he wanted taken down. It
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SEPTEMBER 2004 ● Southern Loggin’ Times
was then Jim put two and two
together. “He wondered, ‘Well,
why can’t we do it?’ And things
kind of took off from there,”
Randy recalls.
In June 1998, the Studers
formed SMS and began cutting
timber for Boise, which had just
purchased a large amount of timber from J.M. Huber Corp.
It wasn’t long before the accolades came pouring in. In 2002,
the Studers were named Tennessee
Forestry Assn.’s Logger of the
Year, leading to a nomination for
the Forest Resource Assn.’s
National Outstanding Logger of
the Year in 2003.
Part of this rapid success can be
traced to the Studers’ mining experience. “When we started researching the logging industry,” Jim
says, “we were surprised by how
many loggers don’t have a business model.”
Not only do the Studers have a
business plan, but the two broth-
ers—Jim is 51, Randy is 50—have
also devised an exit strategy to
implement once they decide to retire.
Operations
SMS now cuts primarily for private landowners, although it does
contract with Bowater on occasion,
sending sawlogs to Albertville, Ala.,
and pulpwood to Calhoun, Tenn.
Crews include two cut-to-length
sides and one conventional side.
“Bowater requires each job have
at least one foreman and one Master
Logger,” Randy says, “but we’ve
put so many people through the program through the Tennessee
Forestry Assn., we’ve actually got
two Master Loggers on each crew.”
Larry Elliot is foreman for the conventional crew, while Roger Linnville and Todd Seibers handle that
duty for the cut-to-length sides.
When Southern Loggin’ Times
visited, SMS was on a 1,000 acre
tract in Piney, just north of Dunlap.
All three crews were select-cutting
the tract, which was slated for residential development by a firm in
Atlanta. Sorts were approximately
half Virginia pine, half mixed hardwoods.
“The hardwood is typical Plateau
hardwood,” Randy says, “which is
not real big. The majority of it is
pulpwood.” Pine logs were headed
to Brainerd Lumber Co. in Chattanooga, and also to Jim Barna Log
Homes, Oneida, Tenn.
Production for the conventional
side was averaging 1,250 tons per
week, while the cut-to-length crews
were at 450 to 500 tons per week
per crew.
Randy says larger tracts are
becoming harder to find and
because of this, he and Jim made
the decision to convert two of their
conventional crews into leaner,
more efficient cut-to-length crews.
“The cut-to-length system has
helped a lot with our timber procurement,” Randy says. “Customers
tell our forester, Ben Meyers, it’s
more attractive because of less
damage. Local people will now
send us bids or want us to bid on
particular tracts.”
According to Jim, the move to
cut-to-length was based on longterm sustainability. “The whole concept of cut-to-length is to recover
more sawlogs,” he says. “If you
compare it to treelength just straight
up, cut-to-length is more expensive.
What we’re geared towards is a
higher quality log.”
Randy says his cut-to-length side
is currently booked a year in
advance and has several jobs lined
up in the immediate area.
One project the Studers are particularly proud of is a 30 acre harvest of 50-year-old pine for the University of the South in Sewanee,
While their familiarity with Cat’s mining line initially led them to its forestry division, the Studers have branched out to John Deere, especially with their cut-to-length sides.
A 7,500 sq. ft. shop lets Randy keep a healthy inventory of spare parts.
Quality BMP work, such as this log bridge, is stressed by SMS.
Tenn. “We spent five weeks down
there working for them,” Randy
says, “and everyone there seemed
happy with our work.”
SMS also uses its expertise in the
timber industry in another way. Since
1999, the company has managed a
5,000 acre tract for Livy Hill Hoover,
a McMinnville resident whose property dates back to the original colonial land grants in the 1700s.
“We do some timber harvesting
on it,” Randy says. “There’s a hunting club on the land, so we do
wildlife cuts and things like that.”
A Studer specialty is wildlife
habitat development for deer, turkey
and quail. To do this, SMS will
develop irregular harvest lines and
patch clear-cuts to establish food
plots and nesting cover. Islands of
timber left in larger cuts provide
cover for quail and travel corridors
for deer and turkey.
“SMS tailored a logging plan to
benefit the game over the long term,”
Hoover says in a letter endorsing the
Studers’ nomination for the FRA
award. “Throughout this process,
valuable features have been added
such as gravel roads, gates and posted property lines. There is no sign of
the litter problems of the past, a sign
of the quality ethics SMS passes onto
its employees.”
Iron Lineup
When the Studers entered the logging industry, they naturally gravitated toward Caterpillar equipment
from Chattanooga’s Stowers
Machinery, after working so long
with Cat’s mining line. SMS runs a
Cat 325 tracked feller-buncher with
a 22 in. Balderson sawhead and
recently purchased a Hydro-Ax
711EX with a Hydro-Ax head from
its contract cutter. Skidders,
equipped with ESCO grapples,
include two 525As and two 525Bs in
addition to a John Deere 648GII the
company picked up after buying out
a local logger. A Cat 320 loader, a
Pierce Pacific delimber on a Cat 322
carrier and a Prentice 410E loader
round out the conventional side.
The first cut-to-length operation,
known as the Timberjack crew, runs
a Waratah 620 processing head on a
Timberjack 608S harvester and a
Timberjack 1410 forwarder.
“The processor takes a lot of the
guesswork out of harvesting,” Randy
says. “Because it’s a computer, we
can plug in the length and top size
we want, eliminating the sawhand
entirely.”
Randy says whatever is left goes
for pulpwood. “With pine, there is
absolutely nothing left of that tree.
Well, except maybe the needles.”
SMS’ newest cut-to-length crew,
known as the Deere crew, includes a
John Deere 753 harvester equipped
with a Waratah 622 processing head
and another Timberjack 1410 forwarder from Nortrax Equipment in
Chattanooga.
According to Randy, SMS typically buys new equipment, but also
shops the bargain list, avoiding anything with high hours on it. “Our
Timberjacks were both demos,” he
says. “They had something like 200
hours on them. I can deal with that.”
Total investment value is “greater
than a couple million dollars,”
according to Jim.
SMS contracts almost all of its
trucking to individual contractors.
The company owns three trucks: a
1987 Peterbilt, a 1985 Kenworth for
hauling lowboys and a 1986 Kenworth dump truck. It also owns 18
trailers—16 Pitts and two shop-built
Southern Loggin’ Times
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SEPTEMBER 2004 ● 9
trailers purchased from a former
contractor.
“At one point, we had three trucks
on the road,” Randy says. “Between
my mechanic and myself, maintaining all of the woods equipment we
had plus three trucks plus 18 trailers,
it was too much.” He says when SMS
had all three trucks running, there
was at least one in the shop every
week with maintenance issues.
“It’s actually cheaper for us to
own the trucks,” he says, “but in the
long run you’ve got to be realistic
about things. Your can’t take care of
everything.”
Road building is handled by three
dozers: a Cat D8K, a Cat D6D and
Dresser TD15. A Gallion motor
grader and Cat 950 loader round out
SMS’ road building side.
Chattanooga’s The Tire Center
provides tires for SMS’ equipment,
although Randy says the company
isn’t loyal to any particular brand.
“We’ll stick with one particular
tread design, a real deep tread good
for wear,” he says. The latest purchase included 20 new Yokohamas.
In-woods equipment runs on General and Firestones. “We did try to
cap the tires on our heavy iron,”
Randy says, “but that didn’t work out
too well. Nobody does full caps anymore, they just cap the bars and that
doesn’t work. They’ll just rip off.”
Maintenance
Much of SMS’ maintenance
work is dictated by where the
equipment is when it needs servicing. “For the heavy equipment, if
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we’re moving to another job and
something needs work, we’ll bring
it in,” Randy says, “if only just to
look at it.”
He says smaller equipment is
brought in if the crew knows there
is something wrong with it. “Anything else, if it breaks down in the
woods, we go fix it.”
SMS owns an F-750 service truck
equipped with an Auto-Crane and a
fuel and lube truck that goes out to
each machine daily to assist operators with any routine maintenance.
The company also employs a contract mechanic with his own service
truck.
SMS uses Texaco oil, with sampling done by Caterpillar. Randy
says the sampling has paid off. “We
never actually lost an engine,” he
says, “and some of our equipment
has more than 11,000 hours.”
Randy says SMS won’t rebuild
engines and sends that work to the
dealership. “We’ll just call Cat or
Deere,” he says. “We don’t have the
time or capability to do that kind of
work.”
One windfall from the Studers’
mining experience is the 150x50 ft.
shop, which previously belonged to
the mine the Studers worked for.
“We built the shop in the 1980s
for the mine,” Randy says. “When
the mine shut down, the 50 acres of
property, shop and offices came up
for sale a couple of years ago and
we bought them. The shop has been
a real asset, because we can keep all
our parts in one central location.”
A Caterpillar software system
allows office administrator Jeanie
SEPTEMBER 2004 ● Southern Loggin’ Times
Lambert and her assistant Jennifer
Johnson to track everything from
hours logged to scheduling oil
changes.
“I used to track all of the maintenance we did,” Randy says. “Then
my computer crashed and we lost
all of that information. I haven’t
been quite as diligent with that
since, but Jeanie keeps up with it.”
The database also allows SMS to
track costs for each logging side,
which it does monthly. “We know
what each job is doing all the
time,” Randy says. “Every bit of
that attitude came from mining,
because we had to keep track of it.
It’s just as easy to continue doing
that now, if not easier since we
have less equipment.”
People
Finding qualified employees can
be an issue at times for SMS,
although Randy says the company
has very little turnover. “Most
everyone we’ve hired has stayed
with us, but it is getting harder to
find people,” he says of the company, which employs 16. “Last winter,
I was looking for a mechanic and
never found one.”
Randy says his philosophy is to
find someone that’s good and to do
everything you can to keep them.
“Don’t let them get away,” he says.
Although the company prefers
applicants with experience, SMS
will train someone to work in
woods if necessary. “After all,”
Randy says, “when we started, we
didn’t know anything about log-
ging either.”
Safety
Coming from the mining industry, safety runs hand in hand with
daily operations. “We were really
ahead of the curve,” Randy says.
“Mining, naturally, is heavily regulated.” He says the operation was
inspected at least twice a year for
safety.
“Obviously, the logging industry
isn’t regulated like that, although I
think it will be in the future,”
Randy says. “But we just brought
that same attitude to the logging
industry. It’s a dangerous business.”
All SMS employees attend a
monthly safety meeting arranged
by Meyers, the forester. “Meyers
goes out to each crew and feeds
them lunch,” Randy says. “In
return they get to take a break and
listen.”
All crew members are required to
wear hardhats at all times and headlights are used at all times on harvesting equipment. In addition,
every piece of equipment has a
repeater radio in it, for communication up to a 30 mile radius should a
problem arise. SMS encourages its
employees to have the attitude they
are not only taking care of themselves, but are taking care of everyone around them. “If everyone
thinks that way, it should be acciSLT
dent-free,” Randy says.