July 2022
BUENA VISTA, Georgia – Stephen Singleton, 53, has worked in the woods for 35 years, but he’s only identified himself as a logger since 2014. His career has been focused primarily on reforestation. The company he started right out of high school, Singleton Forestry Service LLC, works all over the Southeast, spraying and prepping harvested sites from June to November and replanting from November to March.
Inside This Issue
COVER: Stephen Singleton: Double Duty In Georgia
BUENA VISTA, Georgia – Stephen Singleton, 53, has worked in the woods for 35 years, but he’s only identified himself as a logger since 2014. His career has been focused primarily on reforestation. The company he started right out of high school, Singleton Forestry Service LLC, works all over the Southeast, spraying and prepping harvested sites from June to November and replanting from November to March.
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': Pumpin’ Pain
The sky seems to be the limit . . . for fuel prices. And that’s just the icing on the crap cake for loggers. Crad Jaynes, head of South Carolina Timber Producers Association, is blunt: “In my 45 years it is the worst I have seen.”
With nearly as long in the industry, South Carolina logger Bob Lussier and Alabama Loggers Council Director Joel Moon echo Crad’s assessment. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Moon says. Lussier has seen five economic downturns, but never before such a rapid escalation of costs. “Inflation rate for logging here is anywhere from 38-42%,” Crad continues. “Quite a few contract haulers have said to hell with it.”
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
Back To Back
Expo Richmond returns to Virginia a second consecutive year, making up for missing 2020.
SPOTLIGHT ON: FELLING, PROCESSING, ETC.
EDITOR’S NOTE: SLT invited manufacturers of feller-bunchers and harvester saw heads, processors and related components to submit material on their offerings.
- John Deere
- Ponsse
- Quadco
- Tigercat
- Timberblade
- Wallingford’s
- Waratah
BULLETIN BOARD
Our Best Leisure Selections From Our Not-So-Sharp Minds
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- As We See It: ALC Steps Up For Log-A-Load
- Alabama’s Ray Clark Championed Log-A-Load
- PotlatchDeltic Is Redoing Waldo Mill
- Boise Cascade Acquires Coastal Plywood
- Deere Announces New Forestry President
- Tidewater Is Opening Store In Marianna
- TEC Is Named Sennebogen’s Best
- Softwood Lumber Board Supports Wood Innovation Grants
Stephen Singleton: Double Duty In Georgia
Article by David Abbott, Managing Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
BUENA VISTA, Georgia – Stephen Singleton, 53, has worked in the woods for 35 years, but he’s only identified himself as a logger since 2014. His career has been focused primarily on reforestation. The company he started right out of high school, Singleton Forestry Service LLC, works all over the Southeast, spraying and prepping harvested sites from June to November and replanting from November to March.
Logging, he says, sort of grew out of that. It was something he had always wanted to do. “My dad was in timber management and procurement for years,” he says. “That is where the idea came from.” The elder Singleton started his career at Georgia Kraft and retired from MeadWestvaco, as the company changed ownership and names over the years. The family has also farmed. Stephen skipped college, started Singleton Forestry Service at age 18 in the winter of 1986. He also kept farming till age 25, when he decided to commit himself to forestry full time.
Eight years ago, an opening to deliver fiber to a local mill afforded Singleton the opportunity to expand his operations into logging. With help from Deere dealer Flint Equipment Co. and timber dealer Piedmont Forestry of Macon, Singleton started a second company, Southern Pine Harvesting, LLC.
Two years later, Singleton secured a position logging on land owned by REIT CatchMark Timber Trust (which recently announced a merger with PotlatchDeltic) and managed by FRC (Forest Resource Consultants, Inc.) of Macon. The crew continues to work FRC tracts exclusively. “We do no outside wood,” Singleton says. “We don’t even cut our wood that we own.” He owns about 1,000 acres spread out among several different locations, but contracts others to harvest it when it’s ready.
Singleton goes back and forth between the two companies, wherever he’s needed, and has foremen to help supervise the crews. “I am out of town a lot when we are planting pine; I live in hotels pretty much the whole winter. We cover 10,000 acres a year from here to Florida, east Alabama and northeast Georgia, about 150-200 mile radius.” He is a member of the Georgia Forestry Association as well as the Florida Forestry Association. He does a lot of tree planting and spraying in Florida, but no logging.
Stephen Singleton and his daughter Calli
From reforestation to harvesting, Singleton has a long history with John Deere machines.
A quartet of Mack/Pitts combos hauls 70 loads weekly for Singleton.
The logging crew does only clear-cuts, no thinning jobs.
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