Lasiter Logging
By Melanie Torbett
“We’re 100 percent loggers.”
You can’t get any plainer than that when talking about who you are and what you love to do every day. But that’s how the Lasiters talk. And there is no mistaking this family’s dedication to their business, to their community and the forest industry at-large.
Tim, Jeffrey and Justin Lasiter operate T&T Logging, headquartered in the central Louisiana community of Tullos. This is a part of the state that has long been associated with the timber and oil and gas industries, where, typically, families’ livelihoods have been tied to either one or the other.
In the Lasiters’ case, the family tree includes influences of both – Tim’s grandfather was a timber man in Arkansas and his father worked in the woods in both Arkansas and Louisiana. His wife Teacy had her father in the local oil business. Their sons Jeffrey and Justin opted to join the woodsy side of the family, representing the fourth generation of “logging Lasiters.”
The Lasiters are currently working as contractors for Professional Timberland Management, the management entity for Six C, LLC, a South Louisiana-based company which acquired about 55,000 acres here formerly owned by Louisiana-Pacific in LaSalle, Caldwell and Winn Parishes. Steve Gleason serves as the company’s forester, working out of its Olla office.
“Tim Lasiter was the first fulltime logging contractor we hired in the fall of 2002; he’s been with us from the beginning,” said Gleason. “They are very capable people — very versatile and innovative, and can work on just about any kind of job, from first thinning to final harvests to fuel chipping.”
The tracts that the Lasiters are cutting this summer are familiar grounds – “we’ve been associated with this land since 1968,” says Tim, remembering his father’s work here for Georgia-Pacific decades ago. When Louisiana-Pacific shut down its operations in the Tullos-Olla-Urania community several years ago, the Lasiters were among the few who were fortunate enough to transition to employment with the new landowners.
“We are doing basically the same thing we were doing when we were with La. Pacific,” explained Tim. “We have survived, and I’m very thankful for that.”
“We’ve been blessed to be able to continue to work here, and create jobs,” said Jeffrey Lasiter, who left a job in telecommunications seven years ago to return to Louisiana and logging. “I couldn’t ask for a better place to work. I love what I do. I don’t mind getting up every morning and coming to work.”
He and brother Justin each runs a crew of four to six men, while their father focuses on chipping and equipment maintenance. Their mother Teacy handles the bookkeeping, payroll, insurance and other office responsibilities.
“We work together really well,” said Tim. “That’s fairly unique, I think.” He noted that his sons both “grew up in the woods,” gaining valuable knowledge and experience that allows the trio – all master loggers — to share decision-making on the job. “They (his sons) take a good deal of responsibility.”
“Logging is what I like doing,” said Justin, whose career choice is all the more remarkable since he is an amputee who lost his leg as a teenager years ago in a four-wheeler accident. “I really like to work on the processor.”
The T&T crew is notable for their ability to work well together. “Everybody tries to help one another,” said Justin. They have regular company meetings and safety training for all the employees, as well as occasional social get-togethers. “We try to take care of our people the best we can,” added Tim. “We have people that, as a whole, enjoy working together.”
In addition to the collegiality of the T&T group, company forester Gleason also praised the quality of their work and dependability they offer.
“Tim has a lot of expertise; he’s very determined, and he gets things done,” said Gleason, who admitted to an admiration for logging contractors in general.
“Loggers are the backbone of this industry – it’s hard, backbreaking work in all kinds of weather conditions, and there are fewer and fewer of them who will do this. We all lean on one another, and long-term relationships are important.”
The land the Lasiters are working on is managed for wildlife habitat (especially deer and turkeys) as well as for timber, Gleason explained, because the owners of Six C are avid outdoorsmen. Game fencing borders a good deal of the property, with food plots and feeders dotting the area. Logging is currently taking place in areas where natural stands are being harvested to prep for reforestation in pine.
To get this harvesting done, the T&T Logging team relies on an equipment inventory that includes the following:
• Loaders:
New Holland Carrier EC240, 230B Tigercat, 230 Tigercat, 160B Barko,
235 Husky
• Skidders:
630 Tigercat, two 620C Tigercats, 450C Timberjack
• Cutters:
724D Tigercat, 720D Tigercat
•Also: Two R models and 5CH Mack trucks; a 2090 Bandit fuel chipper; a Caterpillar D5 dozer; chip vans, trailers and other accessories.
Tim Lasiter said he added an in-woods chipper about a year ago; he believes it will eventually prove to be a wise decision. “I thought fuel chipping would really pay off, but it has not taken off yet like I thought it would.” Yet, as son Jeffrey pointed out, “the future (of logging) is diversity.”
The ever-rising cost of buying new equipment has meant that the Lasiters are careful to keep their machines in good shape; Tim prefers to schedule much of the maintenance work during the middle of the day. (“Dad is the ‘go-to guy’ for fixing things,” his sons agree.)
On these two tracts, the Lasiter crews are cutting and hauling a combined total of about 20 loads a day of fuel wood, logs and pulpwood to various plants in central and northern Louisiana. They rely on their own trucks as well as contract trucks.
Having lived through the closure of the local La. Pacific mill, the Lasiters are committed to supporting economic development efforts in their community. Jeffrey serves on the Olla town council and as mayor pro-tem, and both he and his father sit on the area’s economic development board that jointly serves Olla, Urania, Tullos and Standard.
They are hopeful about a proposed project that would bring a wood-chip fueled power generating plant to the local industrial park. If that comes to pass, it would mean the creation of about 100 direct and indirect jobs that the area sorely needs.
“We want to do whatever it takes to not let this industry die,” said Jeffrey. Educating the public about the value of the industry, and how its people have been “green” environmental stewards for a long time, is also important, he said.
“Loggers are busy in the woods, and don’t usually have time for politics or public relations,” he added, so the general public too often has an inaccurate picture of who loggers really are.
As “100 percent loggers,” the Lasiters want to do what they can to paint a brighter picture for the future of logging here – to keep the tradition strong for their family, their company and their central Louisiana home.
(Melanie Torbett is a writer and regular contributor to the Louisiana Logger.)
CSA 2010 tracks trucking infractions
The Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA) program is scheduled to be in place by the end of 2010. It will replace the older system monitored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA) program is scheduled to be in place by the end of 2010. It will replace the older system monitored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
The newer model (CSA 2010) is designed to be more precise on measuring the driver and the carrier in highway safety compliance with a proactive approach to reducing highway crashes. Some of the highlights of the program are:
• Combining all data from all states on drivers and carriers from roadside inspections and crashes. All information will be reported –not just out of service violations. The driver’s “Track Record” will provide up to three years of driver data and will move with the driver from carrier to carrier.
The data – good or bad – will stay with the carrier for at least two years affecting his safety fitness determination.
• Closely monitoring the safety and performance of both the driver and carrier. This monitoring system will use the Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASIC). This scoring system will implement weighted values for violations that are more severe and are more recent.
• Intervening when safety performance is headed in the wrong direction. This intervention could come in warnings, off site investigations, or cease of business.
Previously less than 2% of all drivers were being monitored through compliance reviews. The downward trend in commercial vehicle crashes has stalled in the last years, giving the FMCSA some concerns.
Cuts in carrier budgets, limited enforcement tools, poor data collection, and their inability to become proactive in crashes has led to these changes. CSA 2010 has not changed any laws regarding highway safety, just the way the safety is monitored.
The key points of the measuring system are called the BASICs. (Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories).
They include unsafe driving, fatigued driving, driver fitness, drugs and alcohol, vehicle maintenance, cargo loading/securement and crash history. As carrier or driver violations occur, they are classified into the BASICs. At that point, they are assigned different weights – some violations will count more severely than others. This weighting is based on such factors as:
• The age of the violation;
• The relative crash risk associated with the violation;
• How long ago the inspection took place.
The weighted scores will become the measurement that will indicate a deficient BASIC for carriers or drivers. These scores will be used to assign a percentile rank (0-100%) which grades the carrier or driver in relation to their peers.
This percentile rank will be updated every 30 days and will start the evaluation process by showing poor safety performance, or good safety performance. At this point, the intervention process will start for poor safety performances.
The intervention section of CSA 2010 was intended to be the FMCSA’s proactive tool in crash prevention. In the old system crashes were already occurring for a driver or carrier, before the FMCSA realized a poor safety performance was occurring.
A more timely and efficient data collection system will take care of this problem. The early contact portion of the intervention may include warning letters, targeted roadside inspections and carrier access to safety data and measurement.
A more severe intervention will include off-site investigations, focused on-site investigations, or comprehensive on-site investigations. If that fails, safety plans will be developed and implemented.
Notice of violations will be submitted to the carrier along with fines for repeated violations. Settlement agreements will be the last effort for safety improvement which will contractually bind the motor carrier to certain actions and improve safety performance. As a last resort, the carrier will be shut down.
Hopefully, CSA 2010 will give carriers and drivers the information they need to avoid crashes and fatalities.
As always, the best and the worst will become very evident. All carriers and drivers will be compared to their industry peers.
As the comprehensive data collection begins, some average carriers will find their scores slip out of the average percentile. This should show trends that could lead to poor safety performance and hopefully be corrected in time.
(For more information, consult the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administra-tion at www.fmcsa.dot.gov or J.J. Kellar)