I am considering a career in forestry after attending Oregon State, and I was wondering what it takes to start your own logging company. What is the process of getting contracts, and what is an approximate start up cost. Also, how many guys do you need to employ in order to make a decent and honest living. Any information is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Christian Willson
Well first off yer my kind of crazy.
Secondly a forestry degree is better for being a Forester, though it won't hurt while logging.
On with the meat and taters part, Oregon is not Warshington so take this with a grain of salt, up here to be legal you only need a business license, and to pay your taxes, permits help on private ground. But I would suggest you get some real experience with a real logging show, spend a summer in the rigging or hold a spade for a land clearing outfit, what ever it is you need to see its ****ing hard work, if you don't love the hard work your going to hate it and hate it in a big way. For gub-a-mint work you'll need to be insured and bonded... and fer like 2,000,000 still wanna log?
As far as getting contracts it depends on whether you wan't gub-a-mint werk or private ground work, going big with DNR/BLM/FS is nearly impossible, DNR here wants you to have 2 years exp. and you need to show a profit within the last 3, FS has a boat load of paper work to dig through proving you're an American citizen have a real business and are mostly literate, among other things.
Then once you have the in on DNR or FS contracts you have to bid on them... which means having load of money to throw around as insurance, you know so the gub-a-mint gets paid regardless of whether you make money or die they don't care... much... (they want 20% down, plus a 10,000-1,000,000 bond)
Its probably easier to get in with a local mill to harvest gov. ground, but then you'll need about 500,000 in wore out equipment to compete with everyone else... Yarder, loader, processor, cat, maybe a skidder. Figure on one person per piece of equipment, plus 3-4 in the bushes for the yarder. You really don't want to know what new equipment is going to cost... oh and tack on at least 2 cutters, or a feller buncher or both, probably both. And most of these fine folks are going to be getting roughly $18-30+ an hour, plus like $20 an hour to L+I... each... So average that to $45 an hour per employee, without benifits.. and you'll want to get them benifits so add roughly $600 a month for insurance, and $3 an hour for vacation... All this before the first logs hit the landing, let alone the mill.
For private ground you can get a cat/dozer, Skidder, or an excavator along with the usual assortment of chainsaws, hang a shingle wait for the first phone call, then start killing trees... Go this route and you can make a decent living as a one man show... eventually... But your still looking at like 10,000 to 40,000 for equipment and start up costs.
Best of luck to ya, don't want to chase you off, just want you to have a realistic idea as to what you can expect. Also notice that the other companies will not appreciate the competition. Not that I ever cared what they thought...
j/k
