Forest Contracting Businesses in the US Southwest: Current Profile and Workforce Training Needs

Abstract

We surveyed forestry contractors in three sectors (logging, mastication, and trucking) across the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Our survey sought to gather current demographic and background information on contractors as well as establish how a forest operations training center might address their employee training needs. Most of the businesses surveyed were small, with owner ages tending to be high (over 50) but employee ages much lower (under 40). Finding skilled workers was identified as the greatest barrier to success by the respondents, underscoring the need for more training opportunities. The majority of respondents (86%) did not have access to any external training programs. Survey results indicated a high demand for training programs for forestry contractors in the Southwest, which could play a vital role for the region to achieve landscape-scale forest restoration goals.

The successful and timely completion of landscape-level forest restoration efforts in the southwestern United States hinges on establishing and maintaining a sustainable forestry workforce. Past forest management practices of fire suppression, logging, and grazing have resulted in overstocked forests in need of restoration activities such as mechanical thinning and prescribed fire (Covington et al. 1997). However, the forest industry in the western United States has been in decline for several decades (Keegan et al. 2011), and there are national concerns about maintaining a qualified workforce of timber harvesters (Xu et al. 2014a) and truck drivers (Cook 2019). As an example from the Southwest, Arizona’s Four Forests Restoration Initiative succeeded in thinning 12,450 acres in 2017 using a workforce of 87.1 full time equivalent loggers and truckers (Hjerpe et al. 2021). Assuming a linear scaling factor (Combrink et al. 2012), meeting the Four Forests Restoration Initiative’s stated goals of thinning 50,000 acres per year would require a total of 349.8 trained loggers and truckers. Identifying in-demand training needs and fostering greater access to those opportunities to expand the availability of qualified professionals is therefore paramount to prepare for the anticipated labor demand for upcoming forest restoration projects.

One potential tool for expanding and enhancing the skilled forestry workforce in the Southwest is the facilitation of vocational training opportunities so that students can gain foundational experience and education. This offers contracting companies the opportunity to recruit employees with a higher level of training and allows trainees to become more successful on the job market. Other regions of the US are already addressing this need with enhanced training opportunities, for example, through the creation of the Shasta College Heavy Equipment Logging Operations and Maintenance program and the Northern Maine Community College Mechanized Logging Operations Program. The Southwest is now following suit; the Ecological Restoration Institute received funding to begin planning for a forest operations training center (FOTC) near Flagstaff, Arizona that will serve the region. The center will provide training for in-woods machine operators, repair and maintenance technicians, and log truck drivers in the southwestern states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Overview of Existing Forest Workforce Research

Surveys of forestry contractors are regularly conducted in areas such as the southeastern US (Greene et al. 2013, Conrad et al. 2018a), the Lake States (Smidt and Blinn 1994, Gc et al. 2020), and elsewhere (Bolding et al. 2010, Leon and Benjamin 2012). Despite the rich survey-focused forestry contractor literature from the eastern US, there are very few published surveys from the western US (Allen et al. 2008, Vaughan and Mackes 2015) and even fewer from the Southwest specifically (Egan 2011). Most of these existing surveys target loggers and do not include truckers or mastication contractors, overlooking a critical component of forest operations that can expand our understanding of industry capacity and needs.

A recent review of logging businesses in the US identified several major trends over the last several decades, including increased consolidation of the workforce, a reduction in employment, decreased profitability of firms, increased mechanization of operations, and an aging population of business owners (Conrad et al. 2018b). However, few western states were included in the review and the southwestern states of Arizona and New Mexico were omitted entirely. One striking trend is the reduction in employment in the logging sector; nationwide, logging employment has dropped from 170,000 in the 1950s to 100,000 in the 1970s to 51,000 in 2016, although per capita productivity has increased due to mechanization (Conrad et al. 2018b). Meanwhile, a shortage of truckers has been identified in general (Costello and Karickhoff 2019) and specific to the forest products industry (Cook 2019). In a survey of contract loggers in the Inland Northwest, “finding and retaining qualified workers” was identified as one of the top two barriers facing the success of the respondents (Allen et al. 2008).

Several survey studies have addressed the topic of logger training, although they often focus predominantly on continuing education rather than vocational training for new forest machine operators and truck drivers. Haworth et al. (2007) conducted a survey of logger education programs across the US. The average program required 10 contact hours per year for certification—a lot of time for logging businesses to take away from timber production operation, but likely not enough time for a new logger to learn skills to start the job. In a survey of loggers and logging business owners in northern New England, the highest priority topics for training were identified as safety, equipment maintenance, and communication and business skills (Egan 2005). A recent review of logging truck driver training programs concluded that lecture-based training for truckers can be an effective tool, making the trainings more accessible and less costly (Smidt et al. 2021). Xu et al. (2014a) reported a strong preference by logging business owners to hire experienced or trained workers; of all recent hires in their survey, two-thirds had experience on the job and one-third had received formal training. Despite this, a separate study determined that vocational logger training programs have a negative net present value when tuition is paid by logging firms (Xu et al. 2014b), suggesting that such programs should be self-funded to be successful.

Current Status of Forest Operations in the US Southwest

State-specific research on the forest operations workforce is slowly expanding in the Southwest. In Colorado, a recent survey indicated that the forestry workforce was struggling due to economic and policy events including the 2008 recession and a shift toward service and stewardship contracts (Vaughan and Mackes 2015). In New Mexico, some of the biggest challenges faced by contractors have been reported to be a lack of demand for forest products, unreliable sources for raw wood, insurance costs, and federal regulations (Egan 2011). The same study also suggested future efforts to document training needs for the forestry workforce. One major challenge in the Southwest is wood processing capacity; the scarcity of mills often leads to long trucking distances from the forest (Sorensen et al. 2016).

Compared with other parts of the country, loggers in the Southwest are generally less mechanized and rely heavily on chainsaw felling (Simmons et al. 2020). When mechanized systems are used, rubber-tired feller-bunchers and grapple skidders dominate (Townsend et al. 2019). Another common approach used in fuels reduction projects is mastication, particularly in the expansive piñon-juniper woodlands that occur across the Southwest (Wozniak et al. 2020). Masticators shred standing trees and shrubs and leave piles of shredded materials on site. Truck drivers account for over 20% of all employees in the logging sector, although they are often independent owner-operators rather than being employed directly by logging firms (Smidt et al. 2021). In this article, we refer specifically to truck drivers that transport raw wood products from the forest rather than truck drivers that transport processed wood products such as lumber or paper.

In response to the growing demand for contractor skill sets associated with forest restoration in the US Southwest, we developed and administered a survey targeting owners of logging, mastication, and trucking businesses in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Below, we work to identify gaps in training that this emergent training center can address and provide recommendations for strengthening the forestry workforce in both the Southwest and beyond. Specifically, the survey sought to address three research questions related to the effective and needs-based development of a training center:

1. What role might an FOTC play in the Southwest?

2. What might an FOTC curriculum include?

3. How might contracting businesses engage with a training center?

Methods

Survey Development and Administration

We developed our survey instrument through a combination of key informant interviews, a literature review of existing research on employment in forest products and adjacent industries, and review of smaller-scale state-level surveys that were designed to assess other aspects of forest operations (Allen et al. 2008, Vaughan and Mackes 2015). Iterative reviews of the survey questionnaire were made by the research team following each round of adjustments or modifications based on input from these sources. Questions related to four key topics that stem from our research questions: (1) characterization of forestry contracting operations, to understand their role and potential impact on Southwestern forestry issues; (2) current business employment levels and future training needs, to help develop relevant curriculum for the training center; (3) workforce-related challenges the respondents’ businesses currently face, to understand the business needs and how a training center could help to address them; and (4) demographic information, to aid analyses and track trends over time. The questionnaire included multiple choice, ranking, and percentage-based questions as well as space on the last page to provide additional comments related to training needs. We solicited feedback on our initial survey questions from a panel of eight experts and practitioners involved in logging prior to survey administration and incorporated appropriate feedback into our final instrument. This research was approved by the Northern Arizona University Institutional Review Board (#1618261).

Our sample frame consisted of business owners of logging, mastication, or forest products trucking companies across three states: Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. These states represent the states in the Four Corners region of the United States except Utah, where the forest industry is primarily located in the northern part of the state and geographically discontinuous from the rest of the region (Sorensen et al. 2016). No comprehensive list of forestry contracting businesses or owners currently exists for this region, so we developed the sample frame through a combination of systematic web searches, requests for contact information from key informants in the logging industry, and where available, state-level mailing lists. This resulted in the identification of 343 contracting businesses based in our study area and involved in logging, mastication, and trucking operations. We removed 44 businesses whose questionnaires were returned as undeliverable during the administration process, resulting in a final sample frame of 299 business owners.

The survey was administered in November 2020 as in-woods operations wound down for the winter, following a seasonal pattern that is common in the Southwest. Mail administration followed the tailored design method (Dillman et al. 2014) and was enacted in three phases: (1) a mail survey packet, which contained a letter explaining the study, a survey booklet, and a business reply envelope, (2) a reminder postcard, and (3) a final reminder letter. Each mailing included an option to complete the survey via online platform Qualtrics instead; questions were identical to the paper booklet to maintain consistency across modes. Additionally, announcements describing the survey and encouraging responses were shared with contractors in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona by the state forester of New Mexico, the Colorado Timber Industry Association, and the Forest Restoration Director of Coconino County, Arizona, respectively.

We conducted a nonresponse bias effort via phone in April 2021 to determine whether data obtained from respondents were representative of our entire sample frame. We contacted 10% of the remaining sample frame who did not provide a completed questionnaire as per Lindner et al. (2001) and used both t-tests and Mann-Whitney tests to test for a significant difference in selected questions. As an additional measure, we compared the first 30 respondents of our survey to the last 30 respondents, as some studies indicate that late respondents often behave like nonrespondents, allowing late respondent data to become a proxy for nonrespondents (Armstrong and Overton 1977). We tested for significant differences on a subset of core questions, including basic demographic data and business characteristics, with a focus on the percentage of work that the respondents did in terms of logging, mastication, and transportation. Tests found no significant difference between respondents over time, indicating that nonrespondents are likely well represented by our data; additional detail is provided below in our results.

Analysis

We used chi-square tests of independence for categorical response variables and analysis of variance for numerical response variables. Post hoc comparisons were made using Tukey adjustments for multiple comparisons. To report effect sizes, we used phi-value (φ) for chi-square tests (φ < 0.2 = small, 0.2 ≤ φ < 0.4 = medium, φ ≥ 0.4 = large), eta-squared (η ²) for analysis of variance (η ² < 0.035 = small, 0.035 ≤ η ² < 0.085 = medium, η ² ≥ 0.085 = large), and Cohen’s D (d) for multiple comparisons (d < 0.35 = small, 0.35 ≤ d < 0.65 = medium, d ≥ 0.65 = large). In all cases, we used an alpha level of 0.05 to determine statistical significance. In most questions, these statistical tests were conducted to investigate differences among the three states, and only reported when statistically significant. To answer specific research questions, we occasionally used these tests to compare responses with a different way of segmenting the population, such as business size or primary focus. Comments from the open-ended question at the end of the survey instrument are reported word-for-word where appropriate.

Some questions required specific approaches for analysis. We asked respondents to rank seven different predefined barriers in terms of how impactful to their business they were, with a ranking of 1 being a major barrier and 7 being a lesser barrier. To analyze this, we calculated the mean ranking given to each barrier to produce a noninteger value. The barriers were then ordered by the mean rank and assigned an integer from 1 to 7, with 1 being the strongest overall barrier and 7 being the least. In a different question, we asked respondents to identify the experience level required for various operations. We defined low experience as requiring 1 year to master, medium requiring 2–3 years to master, and high requiring 4 or more years. We ranked the positions by recoding “low” to a value of 1, “medium” to 2, “high” to 3, and then averaging the scores. A higher average score indicates a job requiring a higher level of experience and knowledge.

We asked businesses that engaged in logging activities about the equipment they used for various tasks. One question, specifically targeted towards mastication businesses, asked the percentage of their work that was done using mastication machines with an integrated head versus a boom-mounted one (as defined in Vitorelo et al. 2009). Another question, targeted toward loggers, asked the percentage of felling that they do using three distinct machines: feller-bunchers, harvesters, and chainsaws. Loggers were also asked to report percentage of stump-to-truck extraction using several different machines: skidders, forwarders, cable yarders, and helicopters. For these types of questions, we summarized responses into the primary equipment for each task (highest percentage reported), rather than reporting percentages themselves.

Results

Response Rate and Nonresponse Bias

We received 66 completed questionnaires out of 299 for a 22.1% response rate. This response rate is consistent with other recent efforts to survey sectors of the forestry industry, including Milauskas and Wang (2006) with 10.2%, Baker and Greene (2008) with 24%, and Vaughan and Mackes (2015) with 32.6%. Our comparison of the first 30 respondents with the last 30 did not reveal any statistically significant differences. Quantitative data collected during nonresponse bias phone calls did indicate differences between the respondents and nonrespondents in terms of their logging focus, both using Mann-Whitney tests and t-tests. Nonrespondents were commonly retired, 10% or less of their company’s activities were related to logging, mastication, or trucking, or they performed urban tree care rather than in-woods operations. For these reasons, most of the contacted nonrespondents felt the survey was not relevant to them; hence their lack of participation. These two tests indicate that (1) our initial sample frame may have been too broad, leading some to believe that it was irrelevant and therefore deciding not to participate, and (2) based on our comparison of early to late responders, there was no evidence for nonresponse bias within our population of interest. In summary, although response rate is somewhat low, our target population is well represented within our data and those respondents provided consistent responses.

Characterizing the Southwest’s Forestry Contracting Industry

Most respondents engaged in multiple types of work rather than focusing exclusively on logging, mastication, or trucking (Figure 1). The number of businesses that had 100% focus on one segment was small (21 businesses out of total 66), but was highest in logging (10), followed by mastication (six), then trucking (five). Although this survey did not seek information about work outside of these three contracting business sectors, many respondents voluntarily reported other lines of work, including construction, snow plowing, landscaping, erosion control, and more.

Eleven of the responses came from Arizona (16.7% of the total response), 16 from New Mexico (24.2%), and 39 from Colorado (59.1%). These responses tracked closely with the number of surveys sent to each state, which was 55 to Arizona (18.4% of the sample frame), 70 to New Mexico (23.4% of the sample frame), and 174 to Colorado (58.2% of the sample frame), meaning that the response rate was fairly consistent across states. Many respondents performed work in multiple states, but in all but two cases they performed the majority of their work in the state where their business headquarters was located.

The majority of respondents had under $100,000 in investments (building and land assets not included; Table 1). As the capital investment category increased, the number of respondents decreased, with the exception of the highest category (> $1,500,000). When it comes to capital investments, the majority of our respondents were on the lower or higher end, with fewer in the middle. Participants were asked how many months of scheduled work they currently held under contract. Approximately 34.9% of respondents had only a short window of planned work (0–5 months), 44.4% reported 16 or more months, with the remaining respondents distributed between these two extremes. The mean experience reported by businesses in the logging, mastication, and/or trucking field was 27.7 years, and the mean length of time operating their business was 22.0 years.

The vast majority of the respondents had high school degrees or greater, and more than half had two-year degrees or greater (Table 1). Results showed that 35.9% of respondents were 60 years of age or older, and no respondents were under 30 (Table 1, Figure 2). Employee ages were skewed much younger, with 30.8% reported as under 30 (Figure 2). The mean and median daily truckload productivity of the respondents were 5.2 and 2.0 loads per day, respectively, where a truckload was defined as approximately 25 tons of logs. Mean truckload productivity ranged from one or fewer loads per day up to 35 loads per day for the more productive logging operations. Respondents were also asked about their ideal daily productivity, which produced a mean ideal value of 7.9 truckloads. Among loggers, there was a statistically significant association between primary felling means and daily truckload productivity (F(2,43) = 5.8627, P = 0.0058). The eta-squared value was 0.222, indicating a large effect size. Pairwise comparisons indicated businesses relying on feller-bunchers to be significantly more productive than those relying on chainsaws for tree felling by a mean value of 8.0 loads per day (Tukey-adjusted P = 0.0041). The Cohen’s D value of 1.02 indicated a large effect size.

The most common barrier to success identified by respondents was “finding skilled workers” (Table 2). Respondents also had the option to provide write-in answers regarding their barriers to success; this yielded several additions including “spotted owl moratorium” from three contractors based in New Mexico, “Forest Service regulations” from two contractors, and “insurance rates” from two contractors.

Training Needs for Current and Future Employees

The businesses participating in this survey employed a total of 531.5 people in logging, mastication, and transportation sectors (counting part-time employees as half). The total number of people employed by organizations ranged widely; six businesses had no employees other than the owner, in contrast to 69 employees reported at the largest operation. The mean and median values for number of employees of the respondents’ businesses were 8.4 and 3.0, respectively, indicating that most business firms were relatively small in crew size. The majority of employees were in-woods forest equipment operators (42.3%), followed by truck drivers (21.4%). Approximately 15.6% of employees were in the “other” category, which primarily consisted of chainsaw fallers and general labor.

Internal training was the dominant form of training, with 86% of businesses relying exclusively on internal training for their employees. Of those that relied on internal training, 85.4% indicated that internal training was the only training option available, with the remainder stating that external training programs were too expensive (10.4%) or of low quality (4.2%). Only 14% of respondents reported using external training programs at all; in these cases, external training was offered to between 5% and 100% of employees.

Respondents were asked whether they had formal safety plans, and whether such plans led to reduced insurance costs. Only 36.5% of respondents indicated that they had formal safety plans in place, with the rest relying on informal interventions such as “keeping an eye out for dangerous behavior” or “mentorship.” A chi-squared test found a statistically significant association between the presence of formal safety plans and confirmation of reduced insurance premiums (χ ² (2, n = 57) = 12.082, P = 0.0024). The phi-value was 0.46, indicating a medium effect size.

The most highly desired education level for an entry-level position was “high school diploma”, selected by 60% of respondents. Nearly 22% (21.5%) of businesses would prefer to hire a graduate of an FOTC, 10.8% would prefer to hire someone with a bachelor’s degree, and 7.7% would prefer to hire someone with no high school degree. Collectively, respondents reported that they would be hiring a total of approximately 465.5 new employees over the next five years in the logging, mastication, and transportation sectors. These were predominantly in the category of in-woods forest machine operators, with smaller representation in specialized maintenance and truckers (Figure 3).

Chainsaws and feller-bunchers were the dominant means of tree felling, with 43.4% of respondents relying primarily on chainsaws for felling, 43.4% relying primarily on feller-bunchers, and only 13.2% relying primarily on harvesters. The proportion of contractors relying primarily on chainsaws was highest in New Mexico (58.3%) and lowest in Arizona (22.2%), although this difference was not statistically significant. Despite the dominance of manual felling with chainsaws, there was some interest expressed in increasing mechanization. One respondent included in this survey’s final comments: “I would like to eventually move to a more mechanized operation but that would require additional training … To be perfectly honest I would like to have additional training opportunities to operate equipment myself”. For stump-to-truck extraction, skidders were by far the most dominant, with 85.7% of respondents relying primarily on skidders and 14.3% relying primarily on forwarders. No respondents relied primarily on yarders or helicopters, but some did use them occasionally. For mastication contractors, masticators with integrated heads were by far the dominant type (88.5%), with boom-mounted masticators only being preferred by 11.5% of respondents.

Figure 4 shows responses related to the level of experience and knowledge required for various jobs within the logging, mastication, and trucking sectors. The final ranking from highest to lowest experience required (with scores in parentheses) was business owner (2.8), maintenance technician (2.3), delimber operator (2.2), truck driver (2.2), feller-buncher operator (2.1), chainsaw faller (2.0), loader operator (1.8), masticator operator (1.7), and skidder operator (1.5). To underscore the skills required by maintenance technicians, one respondent wrote in the final comments section: “If I lose my good mechanic I’m retiring.”

Discussion

Our survey sought to investigate the current condition of the forestry workforce in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, before determining current capacity and future training needs that can help contractors meet the growing demand for forest operations on landscape-scale projects. Respondents described a diverse current workforce that they intend to expand in coming years. Major threats to workforce expansion were challenges associated with the cost and availability of training, limited return on investment for businesses paying for employee training themselves, identification of trained professionals to hire, and increasing costs associated with forest operations. Below, we discuss these findings and their implications for the development of a regional training center in the Southwest.

What Role Might an FOTC Play in the Southwest?

Survey results indicate that a southwestern FOTC could provide benefits to local forestry contractors and to forest restoration efforts as a whole. The largest barrier to business success identified by the respondents was “finding skilled workers,” with many indicating that this is due to a scarcity of external training programs for forest operations throughout the Southwest region. This aligns with existing concerns about maintaining a skilled workforce in the forest products industry (Xu et al. 2014a), which has led to a resurgence in training programs and provided the motivation for the current study. Our results confirmed the fact that most forestry contractors operating in the Southwest do not have access to any external training programs for their employees. Having the opportunity to learn safe and productive practices in a less stressful environment may lead to increased retention of skilled workers by the contractors. These results support the need for an FOTC to be developed in the Southwest region.

Existing concerns about workforce capacity in southwestern forest restoration projects could be amplified by looming retirements if the problem is not addressed. Our survey showed that the mean age of forestry contracting business owners is over 50, which is a consistently documented challenge identified in forest operations surveys (Baker & Greene 2008, Conrad et al. 2018b). Interestingly, employee ages skewed the other way, with respondents reporting that the majority of their employees were under 40 years old. This stands in contrast to a 2005 survey of loggers in Idaho in which over half of the employees were over 40 years of age (Allen et al. 2008). This signals a new generation of forestry professionals, and any training programs developed to serve this population must consider how their curriculum and course content contribute to retention of this younger workforce. This finding also indicates an influx of younger people who have an interest in forestry-related careers. Training centers can play a role in retaining these students by partnering with colleges that offer forestry or other natural resource-related degrees, certificates, and courses to develop bridging programs that can funnel trained graduates into entry-level positions as demand continues to increase. Partnerships should incorporate a diverse range of training pathways, including community colleges, four-year degree programs, vocational training programs, and high school internships or assistantships. Recognizing that as the current older population of business owners transitions into retirement, this new generation of foresters will eventually need to acquire the skills to establish or oversee businesses in this field, training centers are well-positioned to provide generalized early-stage education to support this transition.

What Might a Training Center Curriculum Include?

An FOTC has the opportunity to provide training that could shape the future direction of the industry; however, that must be carefully balanced with serving the needs of currently existing businesses and helping graduates to secure jobs. Our survey provides useful information about what forestry machines are currently being used in the Southwest, and, therefore, what students should be trained on to meet current needs. Results also suggest possibilities for a training center to expose owners and employees to newer techniques, thus helping them grow and better perform in their contracting business operations.

Survey results indicate that when mechanized logging is performed in the Southwest, feller-bunchers and skidders are by far the most dominant machines employed. Harvesters and forwarders are rarely used, which stands in contrast to other parts of the country, such as the Lake States (Conrad et al. 2018b, Gc et al. 2020). This is consistent with findings from Vaughan and Mackes (2015), who reported that at the time of the study and based on equipment owned, only one Colorado contractor engaged in cut-to-length harvesting. Cable yarders and helicopters are a minor component of the picture in the Southwest, likely due to the low value of the timber and the high cost of such operations. Our results suggest that for the training center to produce graduates that are hirable by the currently operating businesses in the Southwest, the curriculum should have a strong focus on feller-bunchers and skidders. Respondents also reported that masticators with an integrated mulching head are much more commonly used than those that are mounted on a boom, as mastication is more commonly used to shred shrubs than tall trees. This should be taken into consideration in conversations with equipment dealers about which types of machines to purchase or lease for training centers.

Survey results show that chainsaws are widely used as a primary felling means by contractors in the US Southwest; they are tied with feller-bunchers in usage and much more common than harvesters. Although not statistically significant, New Mexico contractors were more reliant on chainsaws than either of the other two states. The prevalence of chainsaw felling is likely due to the lower capital investment (purchasing and maintenance) of chainsaws. Conrad et al. (2018b) reported some other regions where chainsaw use dominates for felling, such as the Northeast, West Virginia, and Idaho. Despite the prevalence of chainsaws in these areas, in all cases, mechanized systems account for most of the volume removed. Mechanized logging is capable of achieving much larger-scale forest management objectives than chainsaw-based logging and is considerably safer for the operators (Lagerstrom et al. 2019). This highlights an opportunity for a Southwest training center to encourage mechanized operations through specialized trainings. Survey respondents typically reported an ideal productivity (in truckloads) that was higher than their current productivity; that desire to grow businesses may be well supported by increased mechanization, and training centers can aid in that transition by providing qualified operators. Because mechanized operations are less common in the Southwest, training programs related to this topic should appeal to employees at all career stages. There may also be abundant opportunities to engage with existing training centers in other regions of the US where mechanized operations are already heavily incorporated to develop effective courses that build from those regions’ successes.

This survey identified a large number of anticipated hires in logging, mastication, and trucking over the next five years. Those hires will focus primarily on forest equipment operators, with a much smaller demand for trucking hires. Truckers are a vital link in the supply chain, and other studies have concluded that trucker shortages are beginning to affect the forest products industry (Cook 2019). One explanation for this seemingly low trucker demand by our survey respondents could be that many of the loggers interviewed contract out their trucking rather than employ truckers directly. It is also possible that truckers are primarily single-person owner-operators, so they would not be hired onto large trucking firms. Nevertheless, if forest operations are to expand in the region, the trucking capacity must also expand. It is recommended that training centers offer commercial driver’s license programs or partner with local vocational schools to offer this training.

How Might Contracting Businesses Engage with a Training Center?

This survey’s results showed that the logging, mastication, and trucking businesses of the Southwest are generally small businesses with low capital investments and a small number of employees, similar to the findings of Vaughan and Mackes (2015) regarding Colorado. Many of the businesses have been in existence for a long time, and owners have several decades of experience in their trade. They engage in a variety of different job types, often due to the inherent seasonality of forestry work. Our findings that most business owners had two-year post-high school degrees or higher are similar to those of Xu et al. (2014a), who reported that loggers from the West were more likely to have a bachelor’s degree or some college than other regions from their national survey.

Owners overwhelmingly indicated a preference for hiring employees with a high school degree, with fewer specifying a “certificate from a forest operations training center.” Because no such training center currently exists in the Southwest, many respondents to the survey may have been confused by the question and not selected that option. It is impossible to determine from our results whether the FOTC certificate was not the most highly selected education level because no such center currently exists or for some other reason (e.g., owners assume they would have to pay them more and therefore wouldn’t want to hire them). In either case, these results indicate that a high school degree should be a prerequisite for applicants to the training center.

Incentivizing business participation or investment in training may prove to be an effective model for maintaining a productive workforce that is invested in by businesses in the Southwest. Respondents to our survey who had formal safety plans in place benefitted from reduced insurance rates, and although our data cannot determine whether that reduction was the motivation for safety plan development or a secondary benefit, it does indicate that formalized trainings can improve businesses’ economic well-being. Additional research is needed to (1) determine how effective incentives like insurance reductions might be for encouraging businesses to send their employees to trainings and how much of a financial incentive is needed for participation, (2) how incentivized trainings might shift recruiting patterns, and (3) the extent to which businesses might be willing to invest in training programs that meet company-specific needs.

Helping businesses establish formalized safety plans may act as a gateway to greater investment in training. The majority of respondents did not have formal safety plans for their business, and although there are benefits to informal types of risk management, this can open businesses up to legal issues associated with workplace accidents. Due to the high danger associated with the logging profession (Lagerstrom et al. 2019), steps should be taken to increase the use of formal safety plans. Safety is typically given a high priority in logger education and training programs (Egan 2005, Haworth et al. 2007) and should be emphasized strongly in any program started in the Southwest. Safety-focused courses may also provide a gateway for employees to learn about more specialized training; we recommend that any safety education the training center provides makes explicit connections to other training opportunities and that the theme of safety is present throughout all course offerings.

Conclusions

We surveyed owners of logging, mastication, and trucking businesses in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. The primary goal of the survey was to inform the development of an FOTC, and secondary goals were to gather demographic information about the businesses, assess the workforce capacity, and understand barriers to success. The large number of anticipated hires contrasted with the absence of skilled workers available underscores the value and benefits a training center could provide for the forest products industry in the Southwest. Results from this survey can help with curriculum development of an FOTC that addresses region-specific needs as demand for forest restoration continues to expand. We recommend that efforts focus on (1) maintaining and supporting the current influx of young professionals in this field; (2) promoting a transition to mechanized operations through training that can advance the forest products industry in the Southwest; (3) training operators of in-woods machines primarily, but also maintenance technicians and truck drivers; and (4) identifying opportunities to incentivize business support and buy-in to training programs that can help foster safer and more sustainable and economic operations. Training programs for forestry contractors in the Southwest are in high demand and offer a path forward to help the region achieve landscape-scale forest restoration goals.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available at Journal of Forestry online.

Supplemental Figure. In-woods biomass harvesting operation using a loader feeding biomass into a grinder, a dump truck delivering logging slash materials, and two trucks hauling ground biomass. Photo: Han-Sup Han

Acknowledgments

We have many people to thank for funding, developing the sample frame, drafting the questionnaire, and promoting the survey. Special thanks go to the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institute Wood Utilization Team consisting of Tim Reader, Carmen Austin, Richard Van Demark, and Rich Edwards, in addition to some of this paper’s authors. The following individuals helped develop the sample frame and promote the survey: Molly Pitts (Colorado), Jay Smith (Arizona), and Brent Racher and Laura McCarthy (New Mexico).

Funding

Funding was provided by a Wood Innovations grant from the USDA Forest Service (USDA-FS-WERC-2020). This grant was administered by Buck Sanchez, who also helped with many other aspects of the survey.

Literature Cited