I tell our crew we are like a hockey team,” says New Brunswick logging contractor, Sean Storey.
“We don’t score goals or fill contracts as individuals – we all work together as a team to meet our collective goals, providing top notch service to our business partners, and go home safely at the end of our shifts. Then we come back for the next game or shift inspired to work productively and as a team. I am so very fortunate to have such a great team. I’m convinced I have the best team of workers.”
Sean manages S&S Logging along with his wife, Sandra, from their home base in Storeytown, across the Miramichi River from the Village of Doaktown, New Brunswick, Canada.
S&S Logging works on Crown Licenses 7 (J.D. Irving), 3 (Interfor) and 8 (AV Nackawic). The operation supplies logs to 13 major mills across the province. S&S Logging also contracts some private land stumpage and cumulatively produces around 500,000 cubic metres of wood annually.
Sean started his forestry career working as a teenager on his father’s contracting operation. He bought his first skidder, a Cat 518 in 1987, establishing S&S Logging as a harvest contractor. Through the years, he has worked with a wide variety of harvest equipment.
Those years of experience have convinced him that his favorite and most productive harvester is the Tigercat 855 tracked harvester, equipped with the LogMax 7000 series harvester head.
At the time of writing, S&S Logging’s equipment stable included 12 Tigercat 855 carriers with LogMax 7000C or XT heads plus a Tigercat 570 harvester head.
“Currently, I am witnessing a high demand for harvesting capacity,” explains Sean. “I feel confident that our operation can handle the growth.”
The S&S Logging fleet is rounded out with a Tigercat 855 feller buncher with a Tigercat 5702 head, three 25 tonne Tigercat 1085 forwarders and two 18 tonne Ponsse Buffalo King forwarders. On some J.D. Irving operations, forwarding is handled by other contractors.
“We keep our 855 machines until they have about 20,000 hours on them. That is the sweet spot, I figure,” says Sean. “They still have lots of life in them and their resale value is still good.”
He is quick to share that his wife, Sandra, has been an irreplaceable part of the S&S Logging business since they were married.
“Sandra is absolutely critical to our business. She manages all the business side, and I focus on keeping the crew (35 to 40 employees) and machines operating, and on dealing with the forestry companies we work for,” he says.
“I learned bookkeeping from Sean’s mother, using a ledger and filling everything in by hand,” says Sandra. “In recent years, I have evolved to working with a computer. There were more than a few challenges and anxiety making that switch, but now the books, payroll, remittances and bills get handled electronically.”
In addition to administrating S&S Logging, she is employed as an in-classroom Educational Assistant.
Handling harvesting
Sean elaborates on the...
