Few families are as appropriately named as the Woodys, an Eisenstein family that has spent generations working with their namesake product.
Kyle Woody and his cousin Aaron Troyer are now at the helm of a family business founded long before either of them were born. It all began with their paternal grandfather, the late George Woody.
Jim Woody, George’s son, remembers his father as a hard worker.
“If he wasn’t logging, he was farming,” he said. “And if he wasn’t farming, he was logging.”
As a youngster Jim would work in the woods with his dad and siblings. He has two brothers, Dave and Roger, and two sisters, Nadine and Sharon. By his time logging had evolved from the use of one- or two-man crosscut saws to fell trees to the use of chainsaws. Moving the logs changed, too, from skidding with a horse and a dray to a tractor.
Eventually, according to Jim, the family purchased a bulldozer, followed by a pole skidder. He came on as a partner after graduating from Park Falls Lincoln High School in 1970. Later still, as George was easing into retirement, Jim’s brother Roger joined in to form Woody Brothers Logging. It operated as such for the next 30-plus years.
“It’s stressful work really, as well as physical work,” Roger said. “You hear rain on the roof during the night and wonder if you’ll be able to get into the woods tomorrow. There’s always something on your mind.”
Jim’s son, Kyle, learned the logging business from the ground up under his dad’s tutelage. Jim said he wanted to instill good work ethic but didn’t expect that Kyle would take over the family business someday.
But Kyle’s mother, Marilyn, the company bookkeeper and office staff, saw something in him.
“Ever since he was young, I thought Kyle being in the logging business was meant,” Marilyn said, “I’ve said to Jim many times, I think that kid was born with sawdust in his veins, and I’m happy if he’s happy doing something he enjoys.”
Jim and Roger lend a hand on a part-time basis, helping with road building, parts runs, or other tasks as needed. Both say aging has them stepping back from their central roles and that it’s “just time.”
Kyle formally joined the business in 2013, because he felt it was a “good idea.”
“There was no question for me back then,” he said, “with dad so learned and still on board I knew this was what I wanted to do.”
Being self-employed is also a bonus, he added.
His cousin, Aaron Troyer, son of Jim and Roger’s sister Nadine, came on board in 2016.
“There was no way I was going to do factory work,” Aaron said. “This is more my element.”
Both Kyle and Aaron have advanced schooling in electrical and mechanical technology that assists them in the business. The days of simple tools for harvesting wood are long gone, so they need to be mechanics when the machinery breaks.
“And it will break down,” Kyle said.
Kyle and Aaron take part in training to keep up with the advancements as well as those necessary to stay in the logging business.
“Logging is about production,” Kyle said, “and you need to keep producing to pay overhead and keep your employees working.”
The business owns two forwarders, three harvesters and four trucks while employing three or four full-time employees, three truck drivers and one mechanic.
Kyle said a typical day varies. The first thing is “hoping nothing breaks.” Then it’s arriving at the job site, harvesting wood, returning home or to the shop. It’s something of a “work, sleep, repeat” loop, he said, with an average day about 10 to 12 hours long.
“Oddball things can happen,” Kyle said. “But my dad and uncle Roger had many stories to tell that prepared us for that and we deal with it as it comes.”
One oddball event occurred recently when a fully-loaded pulp truck tipped on its side while Kyle was picking up equipment in Wausau. The driver was uninjured and the truck was righted using other machinery, heading back out on the road without further incident.
Winter weather has both advantages and disadvantages, Kyle said. The company waits for the ground to freeze before cutting in swampy areas. It would be impossible to access those areas otherwise. The warm weather this winter did delay at least one job because of soft ground.
On the other hand, the drier weather made for easier trucking and, even with the road bans posted extremely early, Kyle’s crew kept working throughout spring break-up. Most of the jobs are on county or state land, with a typical commute 40-to-50 miles one way — much longer for the truckers as most of the wood produced by his crews goes northwest to the Sappi Global mill in Cloquet, Minnesota, or to northeast to wood mills in Bessemer, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
“A 130 or 140 mile trip for hauling is pretty common,” Kyle said.
The market for hardwood or popple is fairly strong, according to Aaron Woody. It’s not great, but has improved in recent years. Softwood is another matter.
“Those with softwood species practically have to give it away,” Aaron said.
As adults Kyle and Aaron have worked with harvesters and forwarders rather than the earlier equipment, and both are cross-trained to make their jobs easily interchangeable. While harvesters and forwarders are complex machines, they streamline the work with the operator doing everything with trees from cutting, delimbing, cutting to length, sorting, bunching and peeling bark — all without ever leaving the cab.
According to Roger’s estimate a harvester can do in one day what a man with a chainsaw and a skidder could do in a week, depending on the quality of the wood.
“It’s so much easier and safer now,” Jim said. “We needed to embrace that change and our family did. My dad would never have gone back to using a cross-cut saw rather than a chainsaw. We needed to embrace change to stay in the business.”
Kyle and Aaron seem suited for their chosen work even though they find themselves in the minority when attending training sessions and/or meetings.
“We’re always the youngest ones there,” Kyle said with a laugh.
That said both Kyle and Aaron are embracing the change Jim alluded to and will continue the work they enjoy. It has become, after all, a family tradition.
Most Popular
Comments / 0