Page 14 - Tree Line - North Carolina Forestry Association - Third Quarter 2022

Q: Our records show that Toney Lumber Company has been an
NCFA member for decades now.
SUSAN GILLIAM: Our father, Frank
Toney, participated in the NCFA ever since he purchased Toney Lumber from his two partners in the 1980s. He joined the NCFA because he felt it was important to be a part of the association. Over the years, Toney Lumber has also been supportive of the Southern Forest Products Association,
whose mission is to advance the Southern pine lumber industry, and the Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association, whose mission is to represent solid sawn lumber manufacturing operations and their suppliers.
Q: Tell me about your organization.
ELIZABETH MELVIN: My sister and I purchased the company in 2004. Susan is involved in the bookkeeping and logging settlements, and I do payroll. We both worked at Toney Lumber before we had children. Roger Melvin, my husband, worked for IBM for a decade before coming to work for Toney Lumber. Roger became President in the 1990s.
ROGER MELVIN: We purchase 100% Southern yellow pine and specialize in producing decking and stair material. Since inception, Toney Lumber has run a small operation producing 20-22 million board feet per year with a focus on quality, not quantity. Sixty percent of what we sell is radius edge decking, and 30% of what we produce goes to the stair industry. We sell to wholesalers and treaters who sell to big box stores, like Home Depot and Lowes.
We buy standing timber, targeting timber age anywhere from 40 to 100 years old, and bring in the whole tree when we buy a tract of timber.
Q: What is it like running a lumber company, which is a typically
male-dominated industry?
ELIZABETH MELVIN: It’s all we’ve known growing up in this industry. When I
was younger, my dad didn’t want me to come here because he believed it was too rough for me to work here. That feeling
has changed a lot and today is a different environment than back then. There is more respect for women now than there was in the past. Roger helped tremendously by keeping Susan and I apprised of what was happening when we were both at home with our children.
Q: What was your original reason for joining the NCFA?
ROGER MELVIN: The NCFA is an organization for our industry, and not just sawmills — they represent the forestry side of business. Toney Lumber has a tree farm and works daily with loggers. We buy
our own timber, and we are a part of the family of forestry from beginning to end. It is critical to be a part of an organization representing loggers, transportation, and the manufacturing piece of it.
12 ncforestry.org / THIRD QUARTER 2022
Q:
What is the biggest issue facing your organization today?
SUSAN GILLIAM: Payroll, and needing
to hire and maintain new hires. Our workforce is the smallest it’s been, so obtaining and retaining employees are
our biggest challenges. Our experience is that wages are increasing faster than what the industry has been willing to provide. Increasing pay is challenging and work circumstances are difficult. We don’t work in a controlled environment. It’s hot in the summer and cold in winter; our forklift operators are working on gravel, not inside on cement, so the conditions are intense. Finding skilled labor is a big challenge, but also urbanization is creeping into Franklin County, affecting wages.