Steve Richardson Was A Leader In Arkansas Timber Community

Stephen Lee “Steve” Richardson of Warren, Ark., died December 30, 2025 at St. Vincent Hospital in Hot Springs, Ark. He was 75. 

Born on July 8, 1950 in Little Rock, Richardson was the owner/operator of Richardson Wood Co./L.A. (Lower Arkansas) Wood Co., among other business ventures. A graduate of the University of Arkansas at Monticello and an outspoken advocate for the timber industry, Richardson joined the Arkansas Forestry Assn. in the early 1970s, where he served on and chaired the Logging Committee. As a founding member of the Arkansas Timber Producers Assn.—the last remaining of the group’s nine original founders from 1991, in fact—he provided leadership for ATPA’s In-Woods and Southwest Forest Products Expos and Log a Load events over many years. 

A staunch advocate for sustainable forestry practices, Richardson was the Arkansas Forestry Assn.’s 2001 Logger of the Year. In a 2002 cover story interview with Ark Pro Logger magazine, he encouraged his peers to pursue logging in ways that are not only profitable but also ecologically responsible. 

Richardson was profiled in feature articles in Sothern Loggin’ Times in February 1988 and November 1997, and in fellow Hatton-Brown publication Timber Harvesting in December 2003. In that last article, Richardson told writer Jennifer McCary that all the links in the forest products supply chain must cooperate as partners, not adversaries. “We’re all in this together, whether we’re making a piece of paper, a saw log or a board,” he said. “The sooner we realize that and get our heads together, the better.” 

An excerpt from McCary’s profile: 

“We’re all in this together,” is something of a mantra to Richardson, who finds it frustrating that the independent spirit, which attracts most loggers to the profession, is also their Achilles’ heel. “The thing is we have a lot of political clout, state-wide, if we could just get together.”