Mom and Dad started the logging business in 1967. So, grew up in a logging business.
Did logging my whole life through summers and college. Graduated in flight technology from Central Washington University.
Started flight instructing a bit. And then I bought an airplane and decided I needed to pay for it and come back to logging.
I got a leg I drag around to remind me that you can't undo dead, I guess.
But, uh, so it was a life changer.
It went from my family to all the, all the , all the people that come to visit you in the hospital. and all the - how you could - you change their lives.
So it's not just you being responsible for yourself out here it's you being responsible for everybody around you.
He wants to make sure that his, his crew gets home safely at night.
Here awesome. My four tower crews running. No, zero injuries. We had zero lost time, all rigging guys. Not even a twisted ankle.
He's very involved in the safety initiatives at the state level in both Oregon and Washington .
So he's a leader not just among Weyehaeuser contractors but in the industry.
With automation you have, now you have a safer industry, better jobs, more professional jobs, which is all things the industry has drastically needed.
We value that they value people.
Because you go out there, you meet the crews and they really put a lot of emphasis on good behavior with their crews.
They're polite, respectful and they also get the job done in a way that we like,
where the job is ready for the next person to come along, which is their planting crew.
C & C -- one of the things they do when they're logging -- they are very efficient and economical when they log.
I'll sit down with them. We'll develop a plan on how it's going to be cut.
And then they pass it on to their operators. And their operators are just superb.
Super important that we pick contractors who are not just technically capable but willing to grow and expand,
use technology in places where we can have a lighter footprint;
where the impact to the environment is not just minimized but we can actually enhance it.
So the technology we use minimizes ground disturbance and enhances the water quality.
For example, we will -- if we are grapple logging uphill away from a stream -- we won't run our lines across the stream.
We will - we'll run the lines on this side of the stream. Use a mobile tailhold.
So we are not getting in and near the fish, the fish buffers, and actually impacting those in any way whatsoever.
And they do that with georeference maps.
These maps are loaded onto their smartphones or their tablets, so the operators that are in the machines can look at that map
know where they are in relation to all these other draws and streams.
They recently went out and purchased a drone to use to string their haywire out.
Environmentally it's been good because now instead of stringing the lines underneath the riparian areas
and then picking them up, and they're hung down and all the branches come off, we actually string the lines across the top.
So a hooktender will generally just go as little distance as possible, which means we have a little less lift.
Now we'll go another 3,000 feet in about 4 seconds so we'll hang on a tailhold cat more often,
which is something that is not going to come out of the ground and create erosion issues and that sort of thing.
And we can increase our payloads with the yarder cause we are on something that's more of a fixed anchor.
That drone is that perfect, to me it's a great example of how innovation can work to make things safer, protect the resource.
Frank has pioneered a use of this new technique where you eliminate the need to have people on the ground.
This carriage which will come out, they'll come over the logs,
they'll use cameras, so there's a camera in the cab of the yarder, and there's a camera on the hydraulic carriage so he can see what's going on.
And he'll drop that carriage with the grapples over the turn of logs and pull it up the hill,
basically eliminating the need to have people in that risky location.
I was out on a logging operation last week, and I saw a piece of equipment that I had never seen before.
It was a John Deere 850 skidder with a grapple attachment with ecotracks that he's using to pull the wood from the unit to the landing.
And this is an example of how Frank Chandler is always looking for the next greatest, best technology.
So industrial forest landowners recently this summer approached Frank Chandler and asked him if he'd be willing to help develop a new ground-based spray application.
No other logger is doing this type of work. He's out there on the forefront. It's pretty exciting.
We have a lot of trust in him and that trust is, is well founded and well placed I think.