Max Ericson Logging Is Timber Harvesting's 2011 Logging Business of the Year
By Jennifer McCary
In general, 80% of the work of a business or organization is accomplished by 20% of that group’s people. This truism is commonly called the 80/20 rule or the ‘vital few, trivial many rule.’ Among Wisconsin loggers, one of those ‘vital few’ is Max Ericson, sole proprietor of Max Ericson Logging. His leadership, integrity and tireless advocacy over a 40-year career has earned him the respect of his peers, business associates and neighbors. Put briefly, his commitment to the betterment of the forest industry and his community is legendary.
“Max is an honorable man who does what he says he is going to
do and I think that has been one of the keys to his success,” states Gary
Erickson, Resource Manager at Sappi Fine Paper North America, Cloquet, Minn.,
one of Ericson’s primary markets. “He gives back to the industry by working
hard to communicate with legislators and the public.”
The father of eight, grandfather of 28, and great-grandfather of one, Ericson is similarly committed to his family. He has been an involved citizen much of his adult life, providing unfaltering leadership and investing time and money to help provide a better life for the young people in Minong. He has served 25 years on the Northwood School Board and was president for 14 years. He takes pride in the fact that they were able to build a new school in 1994- 95, followed by an addition of six new classrooms in 2006. He served four years as Town Chairman and is now in his sixth year on the Northwood Education Foundation’s board of directors. The foundation raises about $75,000 each year for the school, primarily through a golf tournament sponsored by Jack Links Beef Jerky, which is headquartered here.
As his children and grandchildren grew up, Ericson coached Little League for 14 years and Girls Softball for four. He was one of the original organizers of the annual Minong Summer Days celebration and continues to participate in the parade and other festivities. His youngest daughter, Christy, today serves on that committee.
In recognition of his sterling leadership, lofty business ethics, exemplary service, and his resilience and success in a tough market, Max Ericson Logging has been selected as Timber Harvesting’s 2011 Logging Business of the Year. The business is the first from Wisconsin to receive the honor since its inception in 1998.
“Obviously I didn’t get anything accomplished on my own,” he emphasizes, uncomfortable with the limelight and perhaps wary of a larger than life portrayal of his business. “It has been a big team effort. Don’t say ‘Max gets everything done,’ because it is not true. There are a whole lot of people in our organization and in the industry that get things done. And there are a lot of good logging businesses in this country; many just like ours.”
Max Ericson Logging was the Lake States Logger of the Year in 2010, an honor that qualified the business to be a finalist this year on the Forest Resources Assn.’s National Outstanding Logger ballot.
Ericson, 65, points out that he’s made some mistakes along the way and has tried to learn from them. In the mid- ‘80s when the pine market fell apart, Ericson, then a contractor for Mosinee Paper, had to find a new market. He started supplying Louisiana-Pacific, but his equipment was too small to handle the mature aspen. Machine breakdowns and excessive downtime took their toll, as did some pressing family issues. By 1988, he was broke.
The folks at Louisiana-Pacific knew he had the skills to manage a logging operation and they needed wood for the company’s OSB plant at Hayward. The company arranged for an interest free, fiveyear loan for Ericson to buy the needed equipment and start back up again.
The logger accepted the lessons that experience provided. As he has grown, the grateful businessman has focused on staying fiscally strong and always being a man of his word.
“That is the legacy that you leave behind,” he remarks. “First you have to be honest and you have to keep your word. If you can’t do those two things, not much else matters. All of my employees know how I feel about that. I keep my word to them, and they help me keep my word to everybody else.”
Standout Leader
A long-time member of the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Assn. (GLTPA) and its predecessors, Wisconsin Professional Loggers Assn. and Michigan-Wisconsin Timber Producers Assn., Ericson is an active GLTPA board member and recently completed a two-year term as president.
Henry Schienebeck, Executive Director of GLTPA, has this to say about Ericson: “Max is one of kind. One of his biggest assets is the ability to use his awesome sense of humor in a respectful way to bring out the best in others and all situations. He’s the type of person who identifies an issue, states the facts in a common sense manner, never loses respect for the other person, and has fun doing it. Most people use people and love things but Max is the type of guy who loves people and uses things.”
Ericson cites the Right to Practice Forestry legislation in
Wisconsin, which passed in December 2005, as perhaps the most significant
association accomplishment in which he was involved. That law does not allow
local townships to pass ordinances that prevent loggers from being able to take
care of the forest, he explains. Another GLTPA success is the recent passage of
a 98,000 lb. six axle weight law, though in his view, there are some kinks
still be worked out in the meaning of some terminology used in the bill.
The logger notes that some legislators who voted for passage of the weight law are no longer in the legislature, so getting the meaning clarified by law will basically mean they have to start over educating lawmakers about the forest industry and getting their message out.
“Unfortunately, a politician doesn’t have to know anything,” observes Ericson. “He just has to have a lot of people who believe in him.” So it is a continuous cycle of educating and re-educating legislators about the industry and its needs. And it is one of the reasons Ericson is so committed to carrying the message and being the ‘squeaky wheel’ that gets noticed at the capitol.
Ericson also serves on the executive board of the Forest Industry’s Safety & Training Alliance (FISTA) and is a fully trained FSC-certified Master Logger. Last year he was instrumental in developing and adopting an FSC chain of custody process so that FISTA’s Master Loggers can take the necessary steps to become FSC-certified Master Loggers, if desired. Like the Master Logging program, it is monitored by FISTA, which audits the loggers. FISTA, in turn, is audited by FSC.
“Max is respected as a leader and an innovator,” observes Don Peterson, FISTA Master Logger Program Director. “He went out of his way with the county foresters to get benefits for the Master Logger Program.” For example, he worked with Washburn County to get concessions for Master Loggers, similar to the way the state treats them. Now Master Loggers in the county no longer have to pay upfront for a performance bond and they have extended the due date for paying for harvested stumpage to 30 days from the billing date.
He is also actively involved in the annual Log-A-Load for Kids Benefit Harvest that is used to promote logging’s public image and educate today’s youth about the industry while generating funds to benefit Wisconsin’s children’s hospital. (See sidebar below.)
A Day With Ericson
When Timber Harvesting visited Max Ericson Logging it was just weeks after the July lst storm, and a subsequent less destructive one, had damaged areas of forest in the logger’s hometown and surrounding counties. The company’s cut-to-length systems were in the midst of cleanup efforts, with one crew working in town cleaning up downed trees in the neighborhoods. The others were busy salvaging blowdowns on private land and county forests.
In an effort to do the most good in the shortest timeframe and capture the most value for landowners, Ericson quickly established priorities for accepting cleanup jobs. His first priority was to get trees off people’s houses and salvage the wood on timber contracts he already has out. “Secondly it is going to be private landowners who have managed their forests because I want to help them manage their forests and, of course, the county forests which are our bread and butter,” he says. “We need to help the counties maximize what they can get from this damaged wood.” Time is the critical factor because the white and red pine sawlogs are quickest to downgrade due to blue stain.
Riding shotgun with Max Ericson reveals a logger version of the Energizer Bunny, except the drum is replaced with a cell phone that chirps about as often as a drum beat. His day begins before the birds start singing because he is typically enjoying breakfast with friends at Wendy’s café by 5:30 a.m. The meal ends with a roll of the dice to determine who picks up the tab for the coffee.
First stop is the Village Hall where he meets with Trustee Lloyd Wallace and Assistant Public Works Director Keith Wehmhoefer to discuss ongoing cleanup efforts. Before leaving town, he checks the progress of the neighborhood cleanup job which happens to be working on the street where his brother, Harry, lives. Harry is the contractor working on the Ericson’s new office and three-bay shop. Moving day will probably be sometime in the fall.
After stopping by the office to confer with daughter and office manager Heidi Daleiden, he’s off to meet Douglas County Forester Craig Golembiewski to assess storm damages on a previously purchased timber sale and hopefully renegotiate a price reflecting the current condition. The two have a good business relationship borne out of mutual respect and trust. They easily agree on an appropriate adjustment.
“I believe everybody has to be treated fair,” says Ericson. “The county has to be treated fair and the logger has to be treated fair.” Golembiewski describes Ericson as one who is fully engaged in the industry and trustworthy with regard to the county’s timber sales. This is especially important because in recent years many loggers have gone out of business, often leaving the county holding the bag for the harvested stumpage. He notes that Ericson is unique because he normally mails the payment for the harvested trees even before the county’s bill goes out.
Next stop is the job site where his brother-in-law, Tom Parker, is finishing up a tract and forwarding logs to an open field where they will be picked up by one of Ericson’s self-loader equipped Kenworths. The harvester has already moved on the next site.
He stops by one of two wood yards he owns to introduce his son-in-law Doug Borst, then dashes home to grab a bite to eat and pack a bag. Next stop is Rhinelander where he will attend a GLTPA board of directors meeting that evening and a legislative conference the next morning.
Remember that earlier reference about the Energizer Bunny?
Operations
Max Ericson Logging and Ericson Trucking LLC, the trucking business owned by wife Sandy, have a combined workforce of 21. Ericson Logging operates four cut-to-length harvesting systems, runs two woodyards and also buys wood for a subcontractor, Carson Forest Products, Inc.
He would prefer to keep about two years of timber contracts ahead of his crews. “We usually don’t, but if you get under a year you’re likely to panic, trying to keep your machines working, causing you to bid too much.”
The trucking unit includes 10 Kenworths ranging from 1997 to 2011 models; a Towmaster lowboy; 15 trailers and several flatbeds.
Combined harvesting crews produce 50,000 cords annually. The wood yards handle a combined 60,000 cords per year. The owner is assisted in the dayto- day operations by his sons-in-law: Doug Borst, wood yard manager and Jeff Daleiden, logging foreman.
The Minong wood yard receives and inventories wood from Sappi contractors and transports it to the Cloquet mill in Minnesota. Species are primarily maple and aspen pulpwood. Pulpwood from Ericson’s crews is delivered here and scaled with the rest of the inventory.
Sappi leases the 22 acre yard and pays Ericson Logging by the cord to handle the wood. A third party, Midwest Forest Products, is contracted to scale all incoming and outgoing trucks. The Minong yard processes about 40,000 cords each year.
Ericson Logging purchases pine pulpwood at its Stanberry wood yard and has a supplier contract with Thilmany Papers, Kaukauna, Wis. Wood from this yard is loaded and shipped to Kaukauna by railcar. The yard handles about 20,000 cords annually. Loggers delivering here are required to be FISTA-trained to meet Thilmany’s SFI criteria that all wood be harvested in a sustainable manner.
Harvesting equipment includes a John Deere 1270D harvester and 703JH tracked harvester with a Waratah processor; Cat 501 processor and TimberPro 725L processor; two John Deere 1110 Series D and E forwarders; and 810 TimberPro forwarder. There are also two John Deere motor graders, models 770A and 772CH, and a 750C John Deere dozer for road and yard maintenance. Combined wood yard equipment includes a 924 Liebherr loader and three Hood loaders.
Equipment dealers include John Deere dealer Nortrax in Ashland, Wis.; Fabco Cat in Superior; and TimberPro dealer Pioneer Equipment Co., Rhinelander. Ericson has traded with the folks in Ashland a long time, even before he made the conversion to cutto- length in the early ‘90s.
“As far as I am concerned, they’re all good machines for different environments,” he says of the various brands. “They haven’t made a machine that fits every condition.” The larger 703 Deere and TimberPro are deployed on bigger, rougher tracts. The smaller Cat and 1270 Deere, which have faster processor heads, are used to cut pine and aspen stands.
Ericson has held back on machine rotations in recent years due to the economy. He would prefer to rotate harvesters every five years because they have so many moving parts. Forwarders can go a little longer, in his view.
Truck rotation has also gotten off schedule. His oldest tractor has rolled up 2 million miles. “That right there explains why we run Kenworth,” he says with a laugh. It will take buying two a year to get his trucking fleet back on the preferred five year rotation, according to Ericson. He bought two new Kenworths last year and expects to replace two more this fall.
Ericson has longstanding relationships with Senior Wood Procurement Manager Brett Peterson from Sappi and Steven Kariainen, Resource Manager at Louisiana-Pacific.
The majority of the company’s wood is delivered to Sappi in Cloquet and Louisiana-Pacific in Hayward. Pine markets include Potlatch Corp., Gwinn, Mich., and Thilmany Paper, Kaukauna. Both are serviced by railcar.
Operators are responsible for routine servicing and inspections of their mounts. Up to this point, the logger has relied on outside assistance to handle most equipment and truck repairs and maintenance. Trucks go to the dealer, Rihm Kenworth in Superior, or to Arnies Repair Shop in Hayward. Equipment repairs go to Nortrax in Ashland. When they move into the new shop, a good portion of Ericson’s maintenance and some repairs will be brought in-house, which will mean significant savings.
“The biggest challenge is that you have to be a great negotiator in order to survive,” he says. “I used to think if you worked hard, you would be fine, but that’s not true anymore. You have to get politically involved.”
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