October 2024
Josh Dawson, and brother Jason Dawson, along with their dad James, established Triple J Logging, Inc., in Georgia 23 years ago. The company has expanded to field multiple crews and carved a niche for itself specializing in rough ground with tracked machines and bogie skidder, and working on commercial development tracts. In response to limited mill options, the Dawson family has also diversified into real estate and a family sawmill.
Inside This Issue
COVER: Growth Pains
GORE, Ga. – Communities along the I-75 North corridor between Chattanooga and Atlanta are growing, and consequently, land-conversion logging is spreading as commercial development and concrete replace once standing timber, forever. It’s a double-edged sword for loggers in the region, presenting both opportunities in the short term and loss in the long term.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Contributing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': Giving A Hoot
When I was a kid, growing up as a logger’s son, I very clearly remember my dad’s copy of Southern Loggin’ Times coming into the house each month. When I was in middle school in the early ’90s, I remember reading articles Dan Shell wrote about the spotted owl controversy. In fact, when I hear the word “owl,” those articles are one of the main things my memory triggers (along with the “Give a hoot, don’t pollute” and “How many licks does it take to get the center of a tootsie pop” ads).
Article by David Abbott
FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW: Are You the Silviculturist
While in college I became a silviculturist. It might not have been the prayer of my mother, or the dream of my father, but it happened nonetheless. I really don’t know how. I certainly did all I could to avoid it. I tried playing basketball every night of the week, and all day on Saturday. I tried eating as much pizza as I could afford. I even tried all night card games of Euchre and Pinochle, but still it happened. I became a silviculturist. That is essentially a fancy term for gardener, or another way of saying a tree farmer, or forester, depending on which social club you have been invited to speak at.
Excerpted from Leaves, Lessons, and Lordship, Bradley W. Antill, author.
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- West Fraser Closes Lake Butler Mill
- Georgia Studies Alternate Markets
- Fix Our Forests Act Passes Congress
- East Coast Port Strike Looms In October
Growth Pains
The Dawson family works on commercial development jobs and diversifies its business to stay strong.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Contributing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
GORE, Ga. – Communities along the I-75 North corridor between Chattanooga and Atlanta are growing, and consequently, land-conversion logging is spreading as commercial development and concrete replace once standing timber, forever. It’s a double-edged sword for loggers in the region, presenting both opportunities in the short term and loss in the long term.
Jason Dawson, 46, co-owner of northwest Georgia’s Triple J Logging Inc., recognizes that, as with any urban sprawl, this progress comes at a cost, but he also understands the conflicting interests that have to be balanced.
“It’s not attractive anymore for landowners to wait 20 to 30 years for little to no return on their investment,” he points out. “I’ve seen cases where landowners are selling out or converting their property to pastureland to rear cattle and getting out of the timber business altogether. That permanently shrinks our area’s available timber capacity and it’s getting to the point where there isn’t enough money on the delivered end to justify the extra cost.”
Triple J, he adds, has found ways to stand apart from the competition. “Our business has been able to stay healthy by focusing on rougher ground that’s less appealing to other crews.”
Jason established the business together with his brother Josh and their father James (that’s the three J names in Triple J) in 2001. By 2006 the company had expanded to three crews. They bought their first track machine, a John Deere 759J model, in 2014. “We were already starting to work more in tough terrain and needed something with extra traction,” he explains of that purchase made a decade ago. “This part of the country can be pretty steep.”
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