Fourth Time Lucky
Fourth generation logger Jacqui Beban is taking this historical Coastal operation to the right size.
by Jean Sorensen
For nearly a century, Frank Beban, Jack Beban, and grandson Frank have carried the Beban name through pages of sawmilling and logging history, tackling changes on the BC Coast all the while. Yet, today it is great-granddaughter Jacqui Beban, the youngest of four daughters of the late Frank Beban (Jr.) who will take Frank Beban Logging (FBL) through what is one of the most challenging times in the woods.
The struggle that Beban faces is what she calls 'right-sizing', the corporate buzzword for the right fit in today's market conditions, which has seen volume reductions and crimped margins for full-phase contractors like FBL.
"We want to be the right size, with the right equipment and doing the right volume," says Beban, who started in the logging industry shortly after high school, lured in by her first visit to camp life in nearly a decade after her father's death, as she worked bringing equipment parts to the divisions. She was drawn to the camp's energy, activity, the people and challenges faced daily in logging some of the most rugged terrain in Canada.
But, right sizing isn't downsizing for Beban today. "We went through a period where we really downsized," says Beban. "We are now at a point of doing things better, and we hope there are opportunities to grow."
Before the industry shakeout, FBL was one of the largest full-phase contractors on the Coast, but today - like other industry players - it has lost a substantial amount of cut. "From stump to dump, we handle contracts of 225,000 cubic metres a year, with opportunities to bid on more, and our mechanical felling and processing is over and above that." Finding the right opportunities and weathering the storms along the way - such as the labour shortage in the forest industry - becomes a daily challenge.
One advantage that Beban has, though, is deep roots. She is fourth generation on the Beban side and third on mother Dolores's side. Her maternal grandfather Olaf Fedje (now 90 years of age) started Fedje and Gunderson in 1948, once the largest falling contractor on the Coast. He was also the first person to run a one-man power saw in BC. Today, Fedje and Gunderson operates as a separate entity, out of FBL's Parksville office.
The Beban name entered the BC forest industry when great-grandfather Frank, then in New Zealand, borrowed the money for a ticket to escape the life of a butcher and landed mid-Island establishing Frank Beban Lumber Co., which also had timber holdings.
"He opened a mill in Cumberland in 1911 but logged before that," says Beban, who believes the family is close to or at 100 years of forest history. A decade later, the colourful Frank would arrive back home for a visit in a Cadillac he had shipped across the ocean. Frank's son Jack started Beban Logging, a contract firm, followed by grandson Frank Beban who started FBL. Ironically, a few years ago, FBL was working in an area of Buckley Bay, which had been logged earlier. There, mired in mud, was an old abandoned logging truck. "It was from when my grandfather logged in the area," tells Beban, who is named in Jack's memory.
Success and Challenges
The forest industry has also taken its toll on the family. "My father loved the Queen Charlotte Islands," says Beban, adding that in the late 1960s, "my mother and him would go camping on the West Coast of the Charlottes, exploring and beachcombing for glass balls from Japanese fishing boats."
Frank Beban would log in the Queen Charlottes, bringing his family of four girls, including Jacqui who was just six weeks old during her first camp visit, to spend summers at Lyell Island. They were full of good family memories, but halted by tragedy.
FBL was central to a long-running dispute when members of the Haida Nation launched blockades on Lyell Island. After 12 years of failed negotiations, the provincial and federal government eventually came to terms, creating a national park. Frank Beban, a large outspoken man, died of a heart attack in 1987 while dismantling his Lyell Island camp when ordered out. His death would be covered by even the New York Times, which opined that the larger-than-life man would no doubt enjoy the irony that only in his death and tragic loss to the industry, could both sides in the controversy agree upon something. The CBC would report in 1989 that the Lyell Island controversy laid the foundation for Canada-s native land claim treaties.
Frank Beban's eldest daughter Cathi took over the helm of the company, as Jacqui was only 12 at the time. Eight years later, Jacqui, 20, joined the company in 1996 working in parts in the rebuild shop. The job brought her to the camps. "I took a trip to one of the camps and absolutely loved it," she says. The equipment parts and places all came to life.
By 1999, she was given the opportunity to become general manager-intraining as sister Cathy left to obtain a computer sciences degree. Yet it was in Port Eliza, a 25-minute flight from Gold River, where FBL maintained a large camp, that she found a mentor. Greg Kennedy, now celebrating 25 years with the company, was manager.
"I would ask lots of questions, learning from him, learning what his day involved and about the different equipment and processes involved," tells Beban.
"When she first arrived in camp, you had to wonder how serious she was about the business," recalls Kennedy. But, Beban "never missed a week" rotating between the camp and office. And, she always came back loaded with questions and interested in all phases of the operation. At one point, she even climbed behind the wheel of a loaded logging truck, recalls Kennedy and drove the 12 km to the sort area.
While Beban isn't wearing the same boots as her late father, she is treading many of the same paths. Kennedy says - "I didn't know Frank Beban that well, but I know he treated his men well." The same can be said for Beban, he says. He credits her for solid employee relations, ensuring management has the needed tools for the job, and a willingness to listen to what those around her say. That's a talent her father honed to an art.
"The one thing that Frank couldn't handle," tells John McLaughlin, a longtime logging manager for both father and daughter, but now working as a private consultant, "was when someone said - you only pay me from the shoulders down." Frank Beban was interested in the opinions of his men, including the new hires, whom he saw as fresh eyes. The opinion of a chokerman was just as valid in ensuring a successful operation as that of a manager.
Beban says her knowledge base is "still developing," as she visits the two company camps (one at Gold River, and a second barge camp located a 25 minute flight out of Gold River), attends equipment exhibits, and is a newly elected director of the BC Truck Loggers Association.
"I have spent a lot of time learning from managers, crew and employees, and I have been surrounded by good managers and people that are good at their jobs," she says. She is also amazed by how many loggers and forest industry members have shared memories about her father, and how 20 years after his death, people still talk about him.
Tackling Costs
By drawing on the expertise around her, Beban is hoping to carry FBL through the current unprecedented changes in the forest industry. Not only is the US housing market down, but also it is predicted to stay down for another 18 months. Cost pressures on contractors have been merciless. Add to that the diverse terrain, varied species and stem diameters, and emerging second growth, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
"It is definitely the costs (for contractors) that continue to go up, and the end product price is not going up as fast. It is also a more global market with other competing products," she says, aware that global market prices eventually trickle down to the price paid in BC's woods.
Beban says FBL has undertaken a number of initiatives to ensure that it is in the best cost competitive position to compete on long-term or short-term contracts.
"We have diversified into mechanical falling and processing," she says, adding that "we saw the shift in the industry happening." The company now deploys a tracked Timberking TK1162 feller buncher (a Caterpillar product known for its ability to handle tough terrain) with a Risley 29-in intermittent saw head for felling duties, while processing is done with a Cat 330 forestry carrier using a 626 Waratah harvesting head. The equipment has provided diversity, allowing FBL to offer singlephase contracting options when required, either full-treebunching or CTL harvesting. The equipment can work together, or as was the case in May, be split up with contracts at either end of Vancouver Island.
Mechanization has provided some relief to second-pass logging, as the once-logged valley bottoms now offer a new crop of smaller stemmed trees. But, using bunchers on second growth on steeper ground or attempting to harvest the higher elevation stems isn't always a viable option. "There are areas where mechanical felling and processing doesnŐt work," says Beban, another reason for a contractor like FBL to offer a flexible range of services ranging from hand falling to heli-logging options.
FBL is also one of the few companies left on the Island that operates offhighway trucks. "We have 12 off-highway trucks, mostly Pacific 16s. We have put a lot of money into them in the past five years to make them more fuel efficient and control emissions," says Beban. As the company is working in larger and heavier old growth in more remote areas, the rugged but powerful vehicles provide the performance required. "We feel they are a really good truck," she says.
The company has also built a proficiency in grapple yarding, including using some newer locally made Madill machines.
"We run five grapple yarders and two are interlock machines," she says. The yarding system is supplemented by supersnorkels and hoe-chucking machines. Grapple yarding, snorkeling, and hoechucking all lend themselves to the stringent environmental standards that operators on the Coast come under.
"BC really excels in environmental practices today. They are amongst the best in the world, and are more stringent than they have been at any time in the past," Beban says. In addition, "the people who work in the woods live in the area and care about the environment, the fishing, and the landscape, and want to protect these things."
SAFE Operations
Beban has also brought FBL into the SAFE Companies program, launched last year by the BC Forest Safety Council Council in conjunction with industry and WorkSafe BC. The program, which strives to exceed standard safety requirements, is aimed at reducing injury and fatalities in the workplace. The BC Forest Safety Council estimates that total expenditures for injuries, fatalities and related injury expenses to industry was $432 million from 2003 to 2005, including $108 million in direct costs and $324 million in indirect costs. A 50% reduction in all claims would result in industry saving more than $216 million, including $54 million in direct costs and $162 million in indirect costs. This reduction could result in 1,600 fewer short-term disability claims, 485 fewer longer-term disability claims, and 2,000 fewer health-care-only claims. The SAFE Companies program is a key part of that.
"It's quite a process - there is a lot of training and documentation," Beban says, as the company is currently undergoing the audit process to achieve the certification. "But, it is definitely going to get the crew more involved. Under the program, everyone takes responsibility for safety." The program is also being asked for by major licensees today, she adds.
By being flexible, developing expertise, and cutting costs, Beban believes there are opportunities. It will come from timber sale areas or allocation of timber to First Nations.
"I hope there will be opportunities for us there as well," she says. Beban doesn't rule out working off Vancouver Island as her father did in the Queen Charlotte area for many years. "I can see us doing that - if there is the opportunity and the numbers make sense," she says.
She's also aware that the fall-out from the reallocation of cut on the BC Coast has not completely finished.
"The rationalization of contractors has not yet finished. Some contractors are just going to say they have had enough. Others are going to want to retire, and have no kids to pass the business onto," she says. For others, the economics just won't work.
"And, it has to be the right fit or you are out," she says. Essentially that's what right sizing is about.
