GLTPA's Director's Notes

Greetings,

It is interesting that as I watched my father and father-in-law, who were the same age and classmates, grow older, there was a very noticeable change in their demeanor.  They began to lose their filter and started stating exactly what was on their mind. Personally, I never considered what they said to be harsh in any way, but it was very straight forward and left little doubt about what the wisdom of years had taught them. I suppose it can be a blessing or curse, but a handful of folks whom I’ve had the privilege to meet over the years have been this way most of their lives even without the wisdom of years. I expect a couple of them are reading this article right now!

I never gave the change seen in my elders much thought until recently when I started thinking about all the issues the respective organizations have worked on continuously to resolve during the past several years. Some of those issues are being addressed through Presidential Executive Orders. Yet many, such as the Safe Routes Act, Youth Careers in Logging, seventy-five feet needed for trucks and trailers to haul with cribs in Michigan, and others have been worked on for years without resolution.

Credible forestry organizations operate on the belief that honesty, communication, and facts will provide results. However, many if not most forest industry issues get tangled up in a political web which does not always operate on a fact-based, single-issue process. There seems to be an unspoken system where forest issues which have common-sense, fact-based solutions, are used as bartering chips for passing laws which make little sense but provide favorable results to help the lawmaker further their career with certain constituents. There is no other explanation as to why additional weight loads of milk were approved in the Fast Act for interstate travel at the exact same time wood haulers seeking the same unrestricted privilege and were rejected.

Several comments have been aired recently at meetings regarding concern for loggers and their lack of desire to remain in the logging/trucking business for future revenue. This concern for loggers seemed to escalate after the loss of major pulp consuming mills in the region, and remaining markets took a downturn because of inflation and high interest rates which stymied investment. When first hearing this escalated round of comments it seemed like there was real concern for the financial well-being of the logging/trucking community. If that were true though, wouldn’t there have been some change in the last ten years or more to recognize the astronomically increased cost of doing business with a balanced income to help offset it?  Other sectors of the forest industry have benefitted from financial increases, yet the income for delivered fiber reported to GLTPA is equal to or just slightly above that received in the 2005 to 2010 era.

As has been proven, the concern about loggers is not for the logger’s business well-being. The concern for the loggers is a self-serving concern wood consumers have that there will not be enough loggers/log truckers to meet the mills’ needs for their profitability.

That is not necessarily a bad thing, but there should be no expectation that financial stability will be provided to independent contractors because of profit-based generosity at the corporate level. It has never happened, never will happen and why should it happen? If you were a wood consumer, getting all the wood you needed, would you increase your cost by paying independent contractors, which is what most loggers and log truckers are, more money just to be a nice company? No, but the company might pay its direct employees more for their loyalty. The lesson that corporate loyalty stops at the door of the corporation is a hard lesson to learn. It is a lesson that must be learned if independent contractors are to be successful.

Those who have learned it and stopped thinking about it, concentrate on what their business success looks like and will always fare better than those who keep wishing for corporate generosity, which historically, has never happened. Being independent there should be no expectation that a corporation is loyal to the point of caring about your business success. Nor should an independent business succumb to guilt when purchasers disingenuously try to invoke a feeling of loyalty that they’ve always been there for you. Business is business and decisions should be made and respected accordingly.

Leadership in the corporate business arena has a different agenda than that of let’s say, John Maxwell who is the number one people leadership guru in the world. I was listening to one of Maxwells books recently while on a plane ride back home from the American Loggers Council DC fly-in. In the book Maxwell stated that he had written a song with writers Bobby Hamite, Chris August, and James Slater. The song is titled “Get Over Myself” and the main course goes like this, “I got to find myself, to know myself, to improve myself, to get over myself so I can give myself to you.” To get the entire meaning you can Google the video and listen to it in its entirety.

Don’t misunderstand the message here as corporations have and will continue to play a role in America’s success as a country. But there is a notable separation in how success is achieved. GLTPA is not a corporation, and it is important that focus remains on everyone’s success by caring about all people and prioritizing the needs of members. Those members include loggers, truckers, corporations, mills of all sizes, rail, tribes, landowners, road commissions, sports groups and others. For that reason, the Maxwell song and video are perhaps a bit more meaningful to an organization that strives to be better for everyone it represents. Although it seems strange, people and organizations that focus on serving the needs of others automatically become better themselves even if their filter becomes a little more respectfully direct.

Until next Month,

Henry