March 2025
JEFFERSON, Tex. – All evidence to the contrary, Graham VanDusen is not a logger. “I’m just a guy who happens to own a logging business,” he insists. “I like to say that we are a timber company with a logging business. The timber side of it always comes first because that is the largest source of our profit. I would not be a logging company if I wasn’t also purchasing my own timber.”
Inside This Issue
COVER: Smart Logging
JEFFERSON, Tex. – All evidence to the contrary, Graham VanDusen is not a logger. “I’m just a guy who happens to own a logging business,” he insists. “I like to say that we are a timber company with a logging business. The timber side of it always comes first because that is the largest source of our profit. I would not be a logging company if I wasn’t also purchasing my own timber.”
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': True To Trucking
In a post-pandemic economic environment marked by persistent inflation and volatile markets, freight controls everything and often becomes a major expense that bleeds into U.S. wood producers’ already limited profit margins. In addition to securing financing for a new truck—diesel fuel costs, liability insurance, maintenance and parts expenses, and retaining drivers becomes a delicate balancing act, like walking a tight rope at the circus.
Article by Patrick Dunning
BACKWOODS PEW: A Sole Divided
I should have known better; it wasn’t as if it was a surprise or any- thing. The first symptoms had ap- peared over a month before, and I had treated it with such a cavalier nonchalance. Maybe if I ignored it all, it would go away or somehow it would heal itself. But that was not to be the case. Oh, I had addressed it at one point, taking some solid action. I used a remedy that had in fact been successful in delaying the inevitable. You see, I had a divided sole.
Bradley Antill, author, excerpted from Trees, Traps and Truth
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- As We See It: The The Fix Is In!
- IP Closes Louisiana Plant
- Alabama Sawmill Comes To Life
- Enviva Closing Mississippi Mill
- FS Withdraws Old Growth Amendment
- Texas Fires Respond To Forest Management
Smart Logging
The VanDusens run their intertwined timber/logging businesses by the numbers.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
JEFFERSON, Tex. – All evidence to the contrary, Graham VanDusen is not a logger. “I’m just a guy who happens to own a logging business,” he insists. “I like to say that we are a timber company with a logging business. The timber side of it always comes first because that is the largest source of our profit. I would not be a logging company if I wasn’t also purchasing my own timber.”
A family business started by Graham’s father in the late ’70s, VanDusen Timber Corp. buys and holds all the timber purchase agreements, then contracts its own subsidiary, Cypress River Logging Corp., to cut and haul the wood. All the logging employees, equipment and trucks are under Cypress River.
VanDusen, 33, lives in Longview, but the business is headquartered in Jefferson, where they keep the fuel depot and spare trucks, trailers and machines. Cypress River fields three company logging crews, and also contracts other loggers under VanDusen Timber.
In the past, VanDusen says, a logging company could survive and profit off of production. That’s changed over the past several years. Due to rapidly increasing rates, a portion of timber profits must go into subsidizing the logging side. “If I get an 18 month timber deed, and I hold it for 16 months, by the time I cut it, my logging and trucking rates are going to be higher,” the young entrepreneur explains. “So a portion of timber profits end up funding logging and trucking. If I took my logging and trucking business and set it aside all on its own, I’d have a hard time convincing myself to continue to own that business.” The numbers wouldn’t justify it, he implies.
“But,” he continues, “We are able to continue logging because we can make money off of timber, whereas if I didn’t have the logging, I couldn’t make the money on the timber.” The two sides go together like peanut butter and jelly. “If you look at it as a whole, it’s a profitable business because they complement each other.”
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