Page 16 - Tree Line - North Carolina Forestry Association - Second Quarter 2020

Western Membership Spotlight (Part 3 of 3)
Moretz Brothers Logging, LLC
The NCFA meets with brothers and ProLoggers Justin and Greg Moretz of Deep Gap to talk about logging in western North Carolina.
Justin, age 37, and Greg, age 35, Moretz are fifth-generation loggers from Deep Gap, NC. The brothers have run their own logging crew, Moretz Brothers Logging, LLC, since
2010. Both got their start in the Moretz family sawmilling business.
“Our family has been working in the forest products industry since the 1870s,” Justin said.
“We always knew that we wanted to work in the family business. It was what we grew up around,” said Greg. Both brothers attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh, each obtaining a Bachelor’s of Science in Forest Management.
The Moretz brothers went into the logging business because everything
else had stopped due the economic recession of 2008 and 2009. “Our dad operated a sawmill/planning mill near Boone for a long time,” Justin said. “People would bring us wood that they had bought, and we would saw it for their homes. All of that stopped in ’08 and ’09. Some folks have said that we kept our help in the family mill and
let ourselves go instead. Greg and I went back to logging because it was a family tradition. To be honest, I didn’t much care for logging when we first started, because we were doing it out of necessity. Now I really enjoy it.”
Greg agreed that logging is a very enjoyable profession, “but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication.”
Frankie Simmons loads logs onto one of the Moretz brothers’ tandem-axle log trucks.
Owning and Operating a Logging Job in the Mountains The Moretz Brothers logging crew consists of Justin, Greg, Frankie Simmons and John Moses Teague. The brothers have two skidders, a cable
and a grapple, one loader, one tracked feller-buncher, a small bulldozer and two tandem-axle log trucks on their job.
“Most of the equipment on our logging job is used, either from the 1980s or 1990s,” Justin said. “I would say that 10- to 20-year-old equipment is the average in western North Carolina, although there are some western loggers that have newer equipment and some that have older equipment. It really comes down to personal preference and justification from a business standpoint.”
14 ncforestry.org / SECOND QUARTER 2020