May 2026
MONROEVILLE, Ala. — It was 25 years ago that John Ayres stood with a pink slip in one hand and in the other, $2,250 in cash from the sale of his old GMC pickup. He was barely a decade into his career as a procurement forester, and he was now on the precipice of a decision that would define his career and secure his young family’s future.
Inside This Issue
COVER: Faith, Hope, Love
MONROEVILLE, Ala. — It was 25 years ago that John Ayres stood with a pink slip in one hand and in the other, $2,250 in cash from the sale of his old GMC pickup. He was barely a decade into his career as a procurement forester, and he was now on the precipice of a decision that would define his career and secure his young family’s future.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
SOUTHERN STUMPIN': History Lessons
In business, we have to learn from history before we become history. Examples abound of once-dominant businesses dooming themselves with lack of vision, thinking they can keep doing what they’ve always done and never need to change.
FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW: Survivor Count
I recently went on a search for survivors. It had been a brutal jour- ney that had begun in the harsh con- ditions of winter, or what was left of it, the previous year. The time the survivors had been in the ground now was 12 months. They had endured the trying dryness of summer with its blistering heat; and had at least one or two good spells under water over the course of a very wet winter. My job this day was to see how many of the trees that I planted last year were still alive and ready to grow this year. It was bad enough that a seedling had to survive being transplanted from the nursery beds to the real world, where upon being replanted they would have to again establish their roots. Plus, here in the wild, they had to overcome other obstacles that would make even a mature tree wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
INDUSTRY NEWS ROUNDUP
- As We See It – Dying by a Thousand Cuts: The Reality Facinf Loggers Today
- Gresham House Acquires Molpus
- Canfor Announces Alabama Expansion
- VLA Welcomes ALC This Fall
- Rayonier Maintains Name After Merger
- La.’s Davis Timber Expands Operations Al Research Center Closing
Trinity
Genesis Timber, Gray Logging and Valor Trucking are part of the same family business.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Southern Loggin’ Times
MONROEVILLE, Ala. — It was 25 years ago that John Ayres stood with a pink slip in one hand and in the other, $2,250 in cash from the sale of his old GMC pickup. He was barely a decade into his career as a procurement forester, and he was now on the precipice of a decision that would define his career and secure his young family’s future.
Only six months into his new job as Procurement Manager at International Paper’s plywood mill in Waycross, Ga., company officials announced they were closing, and he and dozens of other employees would be losing their jobs. He was now facing career uncertainty, with a young wife, Susan, and a baby daughter named Faith, who had just fought her way out of the NICU. The next few months would prove to be the most pivotal of his career.
The sudden closure of the Waycross mill wasn’t entirely unexpected— such were the times of the early-2000s big timber consolidation, and Ayres had been through industry downturns before.
There, Back Again
Having graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Industrial Forestry Operations in 1991, Ayres worked his way up from cruising and procuring timber for Canal Wood to managing thousands of acres of tracts for high-producing mills in Georgia, Florida and Alabama for Champion International and IP.
As a young college grad, he had only a few job prospects, but after a chance meeting with Worth Kendall, former President of Canal Wood at an American Pulpwood Assn. annual meeting in Minnesota— where Ayres and other students from the Virginia Tech program had come to network— his name was passed along. That led to him landing a job as a procurement forester and later Area Manager for Canal Wood in Fitzgerald, Ga.
“One of my first bosses was Bob Leynes, the General Manager at Canal,” Ayres reflects. “Bob Head was the area manager; I also had two co-workers named Randy Hughes and Joe Mathews. Those guys were my mentors. They were really good wood buyers and even better people. They did things by the book, they crossed their Ts and dotted their I’s, and they did what they said they’d do. They were fair and treated everyone with respect. They each taught me a lot about buying timber.”
Have A Question?
Send Us A Message