Comeaux is
Logger of Year '09 By Tom Kelly In spite of the fact that it's hard work, the hours are always uncertain, and profit margins are thin and getting thinner, Chris Comeaux of Robeline loves logging. He was chosen Logger of the Year for 2009 by the Louisiana Loggers Association in Winnfield, but was unable to attend the Association's annual membership dinner during the Louisiana Forest Festival in April to receive the honor. We managed to get together for an mid-morning interview in the air-conditioned cab of his F-250 work truck on the parking lot of the Robeline Chevron station/store west of Natchitoches during the late June heat wave. Chris was returning from the Rosepine area in Beauregard parish, where he inspected a timber tract with a representative of Walsh Timber Co. in Zwolle, for whom he logs. Chris was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and while he was still a baby the family moved to Baton Rouge, where he grew up, and considers home. He has no family background in the timber business, and might have grown up to join his father in the commercial real estate business in the Baton Rouge area. But, when through a friend, he met a young lady named Jennifer, a student at LSU, whose father, Johnny Jenkins, is a logging contractor in Robeline, Louisiana. Of course, they married, and eventually Jennifer wanted to be back in North Louisiana. Back in the Piney Woods of Western Louisiana, Chris joined his father-in-law as a contract trucker seven years ago. After a little over three years, he went on his own as a logging contractor, and now operates two jobs, with 12 employees and himself, for Walsh Timber. He maintains a first thinning crew, and a logging crew, working on tracts up and down the timber belt of western Louisiana. The Comeaux operation hauls timber products to Boise mill at Florien, W.D. Chips at Rosepine, International Paper at Mansfield, and hardwood crosstie timber to whatever mill is available.\par }{\plain Comeaux maintains workers compensation insurance with Louisiana Loggers Association Self Insurance Fund, and participates in the Southern Loggers Cooperative for fuel and supply purchases. Commenting on the Comeaux logging operation, Self Insured Fund safety engineer Bobby Erskins said, "I'm not sure there is such a thing as luck in the logging business. Chris Comeaux has been a member for several years, and has had no accidents whatsoever." Erskins said COmeaux "is a smart young man who works smart. He has a good operation, is always well prepared, and maintains an experienced crew that is well paid, and on the job "looks out for the boss-man'." Comeaux and his wife Jennifer are parents of two sons, Jonathan, whose tenth birthday happened to be on the day of our interview, and Carson, age six. Chris postponed one interview date in order to take his sons to their Dixie Youth baseball practice. In a long conversation, Comeaux detailed the down-side of logging--long hours, hard work, and uncertain work days which often depend on the weather, and quotas at the mills--which turns young workers to other more comfortable jobs in the cities. Challenges from the ownership and management point of view include high cost of equipment, supplies, and maintenance, low profit margins compared to many other commercial opportunities, and the current lagging wood markets because of the national recession, make logging a profession which is not for the faint of heart or the careless operator. "And, after telling you all these problems, I still love logging," Comeaux said. |