EXTRAORDINARY EQUIPMENT, AND A CUSTOMER-FOCUSED COMMITMENT

It didn’t take long for Balsbaugh Excavating to see the value of an Astec GT440 horizontal shaft impact crusher. It just took the right situation.

When it came time to buy a new feller buncher, Mike Heiss didn’t bother shopping around. His company, H&H Land Clearing, has owned a Komatsu 430 for more than a decade and has been very satisfied with it and the service he gets from Columbus Equipment Company. So to him, it made sense to buy another one, this time opting for the new XT430L-5. “We really liked the 430, so we decided to upgrade but stay with the reliability of a Komatsu,” he said. “We’re the first guys in on a project. Uptime and being able to produce are important to us. We have to get the trees out of the way so everyone else can do their work.”

If you’re interested in the evolution of the logging trade, look no further than Corbett R. Caudill Chipping Inc., a family-owned company based in Hamden, Ohio. Owner Corbett “Corb” Caudill Sr. logged with his father using handsaws and horses to cut and move the timber when he was a boy. Today the company relies on state-of-the-art machinery to perform those tasks, with a Komatsu Forest XT465L at the heart of the operation.

The Robbins family has been in the sawmill business since the 1950s, but fourth generation logger Ed Robbins has been in growth mode almost since he started.

As the fourth-generation owner of a fifth-generation family owned and operated business, Chris Beaver puts a lot of thought into growing the business to benefit the next generation. Equipment from KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Screens plays a crucial role in several of those services.

Mario Halasa, operations manager for Akron’s Finest Mulch, can sum up the company’s growth in a few, succinct, apples-to-apples statistics, comparing the early years with today. “In our first year in business, we sold about 400 yards of mulch. Now we do over 60,000 yards of mulch, plus topsoil and gravel. We started on 4 acres of property, and now we have over 50. We started in a 4-by-8-foot trailer, and now we have two retail yards, a stockpile yard, and we’re going to open another retail yard.” The company recently purchased a 1,000-plus horsepower Morbark 6400XT Wood Hog Horizontal Grinder to meet growing demand for its products.

Since its founding in 1978. J. McCoy Lumber Company Ltd has focused on sustainably managing the forests where it cuts timber. The company selectively harvests timber to ensure long-term growth of the the forest while serving customers in furniture, cabinet, and millwork manufacturing. In 2019, McCoy Lumber purchased a Komatsu 931XC Harvester and a Komatsu 875 Forwarder that will enable the company to be even more selective in the cutting process and help it sustainably manage timberland.

CJ LaRoche, owner of LaRoche Tree Service Inc., got the idea for his career when he was 15. “My parents had a guy come out and remove some trees at our home. I saw it that day, and I knew that was what I wanted to do,” he recalled. His company has grown far beyond what that starry-eyed, budding professional could have imagined, however. In addition to the kind of residential tree service he probably envisioned as a teenager, the company does right-of-way and land clearing, commercial tree care, and mulch production. He has about 55 employees. To ensure the job is done well, he relies heavily on CMI mulching machines. In all, he owns ten CMI units: three C175 units, three 250’s, two 400’s and two C450’s. Four of the machines—two 250’s and the two 400’s—are outfitted with stump grinders, and the rest are used as mulchers.