Productive Partnerships
July 21, 2015 1:02 pm Leave your thoughts
It seems that no matter what you’re doing in forestry, things are so much easier with the help of a contractor. It is difficult to think of any job at Millar Western that doesn’t somehow involve outside help. We have contractors working on everything from laying out cutblocks and planting seedlings, to repairing roads and preparing areas for harvest. At any given time, we probably have at least 5 or 6 different companies or crews working for us, if not more. It goes to show that employment in the forest industry goes far beyond those working in mills.
During the summer, most of our outside help comes in the way of tree planters and crews doing repairs on roads. Neither of these activities can really be done in the winter, when the ground is frozen, and so our contractors spend most of the summer working their butts off to get as much done as possible within a relatively narrow window of opportunity.
In the winter, it is much the same, but instead of planting trees we are busy cutting them down and hauling them away. Some logs get hauled directly to our mills to be processed and converted into lumber or pulp. Other logs are hauled to our satellite yards: areas in the bush where we can stockpile logs during the winter, knowing that we will be able to access them in the summer. Most of our satellite yards are north of Whitecourt, near Swan Hills, and all of them have good quality all-season roads, providing year-round access.
Perhaps the constant need for contractors is why many of them are so successful. I know of at least 2 graduates from the University of Alberta’s forest management program who have started their own contracting companies and are doing quite well. I suspect there are many other U of A students from previous years who have gone on to do similar things.
It really helps that we get some experience “starting” our own companies in one of our courses in the U of A Forestry program. The class, about small business management, has an end-of-the-year group project where we have to come up with a business idea and write up a business proposal. Our proposals have to include everything from predicted financial statements, to schedules, to explanations on the reasoning behind basically every decision we make as business. I would argue that it is one of the hardest group projects that we do at the U of A, but thanks to a pretty amazing group I was part of, we actually did quite well on it. It really opened up my eyes to everything that it takes to actually run a business, even if it is a small one. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll start my own contracting company!