Randy Kimball walks through a woodlot in Stoneham with two of his sons.
Photos courtesy of Randy Kimball.
Randy Kimball has logging in his blood. He grew up in Poland, Maine, in part on the log landing as his father worked the woods. He now works with his dad and is raising three sons with his wife and business partner, Chrissy. When he’s not at work in the woods or tending to the kids, Randy is likely to be dismantling and reassembling his Harley-Davidson – or taking it for a spin around the neighborhood. We talked with Randy for an editor’s blog post in early 2019 and thought it would be fun to invite him for a more in-depth conversation for Community Voices.
My relationship with the woods is mostly in what it can provide. I truly enjoy walking among tall trees, and I value what those trees can provide for my family and the families of all involved in the forest products chain.
My father started logging in the 1980s when I was just a little kid. He started with a chainsaw and cable skidder. He would bring me and my brother to the woods when he was working, and we would have to stay on the landing all day and entertain ourselves. We would pretend to be skidders and move wood into piles while we waited for him to come out of the woods with a hitch.
He has progressively invested in mechanized equipment, probably mostly due to pressure from me. In 2014 my company, Kimball & Sons Logging, branched off from my father’s company, Kimball Logging & Firewood. The “Sons” was added because of our three sons, who are now 8, 5 and 1. We always joke that good help is hard to find, so we started making it instead. Joking aside, we just want them to be happy, content, and challenged in anything they do, but we would definitely support any of them who want to join us.
Originally, I bought half of my father’s equipment and started the process of creating my own brand. We still work together on every job. He owns and operates his own feller buncher and I own a log loader, skidder, and a tractor/trailer combination. Working in conjunction with your family is the best thing that could ever happen, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. I am at a point in my career where I am ready to grow, and my father is ready to slow down, so we have been working hard to come up with a plan that works for both of us. My company employs two people in addition to myself. Our employees are like family, and we include them in a lot of our decision-making.
I’ve been working in the woods my entire life, except when I was a teenager. For a few years, I went to work for Chipman Farms, one of the oldest farms in Maine. I rode my bike before and after school to the farm to pick fruits and vegetables for $4.38 per hour. I was too young to get paid to work in the woods, and I wanted to earn my own living.
The only training I ever had was on the job. I took a forestry class in high school, but it didn’t really train me for mechanized logging. I learned that on my own. I got in the equipment and figured it out. Nowadays we do a lot of additional training on safety and best management practices with a lot of emphasis on protecting the forest ecosystem.
I am on the Board of Directors of the Professional Logging Contractors of Maine (PLC), a trade association that represents logging and trucking contractors in Maine and promotes our profession. I’ve worked hard to overcome some social anxiety in the past few years. Not long ago, I couldn’t imagine being a part of any kind of board, but I have gotten much better at introducing myself and talking openly with people, and it has changed everything for us.
In recent years, I have noticed the public having more interest in knowing more about what we are doing in the woods and how it impacts the environment. I think there is a lot more we can do to educate people on this topic, but it does make me happy to know that people are paying attention. I wish people understood that some trees can have 4-6 different products sorted out of them. One large oak tree can have saw logs, a matt log, firewood, hardwood pulp, and biomass in it. It’s my job to know all of this and get the best utilization out of the tree. I wish people knew more about how much you need to know just to appropriately sort the products by market and value. It isn’t just cutting and piling.
My favorite part of this work is actually walking and assessing woodlots before we do the management and harvesting work. I enjoy estimating the values, creating plans, and mostly the time I get to spend with landowners and hearing their stories.
There are a lot of challenges, always have been, just like in any agricultural-based business that survives on supply and demand. Currently, one of the biggest challenges is the low-grade wood market, softwood pulp and biomass. I think a lot of people understand that without these markets, we can’t produce all the other products. We can’t just take logs and firewood and be done with it. There needs to be a home for all products to make the forest healthy and sustainable.
Another major challenge is workforce. Many of our workers are getting older, and the career doesn’t exactly attract a lot of new talent. This isn’t just an issue for logging companies, it is an issue for any trade occupation. This is an issue that deserves attention from every single person who uses wood products. Without logging, every single person will be impacted. This is one of the reasons Chrissy and I have become so involved in the PLC and the industry as a whole. We intend to do this for the rest of our career and are committed to help solve these problems. The best we can do is be active in the legislature, making our voices heard, and educating the public.
Really, at this point the pandemic has barely had any effect on us. The logging industry tends to feel the pain of global or national issues much later in the game, and then it tends to take us longer to recover. The local mill explosion is what has immediately been challenging. The Pixelle Mill in Jay, which suffered a major explosion last month, is the major purchaser of softwood pulp that we harvest from forest thinnings for private landowners. Our family has been working with this mill for over 20 years, and it is essentially our only market for this material. Our only other option is to chip it into biomass, but this will flood the biomass market and we will in turn have trouble selling that product.
One lesson I’ve learned is to not overextend yourself in the good times, because you have to prepare for the bad times. The business is full of hills and valleys, and you never know when something is going to happen which could impact your business. I have learned that competitors are not enemies and in fact, we may be able to help each other if you just speak up and ask the questions.
I love every new woodlot I visit. Chrissy and I just purchased 30 acres in Stoneham, Maine, that is part of a land trust, and we are really looking forward to managing that and spending some time up there. It might be my new favorite spot.