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February 2007 - The Logging and Sawmilling Journal

cONTRACTOR PROFILE

BROADER HORIZON

BC logging contractor Eldorado Enterprises has grown by leaps and bounds in the last five years, primarily by broadening the company’s horizons and seeing what’s outside the box, says company owner Lee Todd.

By Jim Stirling

Lee Todd whisked his helicopter above the battalions of processed stems aligned symetrically at roadside. “That’s good,” he says. “It’s coming along well.”

Todd likes to space out each log harvesting phase. It makes for a steadier and more efficient flow of wood from bush to mill. He wheeled the helicopter up and away for an overview of the rest of the logging operation, southeast of Williams Lake in British Columbia’s Cariboo country. It was the site of a 35,000 cubic metre BC Timber Sales Program licence to which Todd had assigned a pair of bunchers, skidders and processors of primarily Caterpillar equipment to harvest the wood.

The aerial workhorse for Lee Todd of Eldorado Enterprises is a new Robinson 44 Raven 11 helicopter. “A delight to fly,” says Todd of the machine, which matches the cruising speed of its main competitor, but with half the fuel consumption.

Dead and dying lodgepole pine trees dominate the landscape here. The devastation caused by the mountain pine beetle epidemic is undeniable. But Todd says he doesn’t buy into the doom and gloom scenario. When he surveys the sea of red trees stretching to the horizons, he sees changes—that’s for sure. But with those changes come opportunities, he believes.

Todd is president of Eldorado Enterprises Ltd, based in Williams Lake, and he thrives on reacting to changes and seizing opportunities. He’s not afraid to take a different approach to his logging and road construction business if he figures it’s merited. “I call it being in the real world,” he says.

It works for him. In 2005, Eldorado logged about 600,000 cubic metres of wood without any large, long-term contracts. “I’m not sure how we got to be where we are,” he admits with a smile.

Eldorado Enterprises is a young company—founded in 1991—but it brought Todd back home to his Cariboo-Chilcotin roots. He’d kicked around the forest industry long before that. He recalls as little more than a kid running one of the first feller bunchers, a Drott 40, and recognizing immediately the potential of the log harvesting concept it incorporated.

Many variations on that theme followed. It’s no small irony the beetle wood that’s now boosting Eldorado’s annual harvesting volumes mightily nearly wiped him out about 10 years ago. He was salvaging beetle wood in the Chilcotin, near Kleena Kleene. Temperatures plunged to between minus 35 and 50—and stayed there, says Todd. Maybe one of the last good Chilcotin cold snaps. “It wiped out the beetles and the work ran out too. We were desperate and deeply in debt.”

But although Eldorado didn’t have any long-term harvesting contracts to lean back on, it did have another ace in the hole. “We try to develop good relationships with people.” One of them was Bill Kordyban Sr, then at the helm of Carrier Lumber Ltd, in Prince George.

In 2005, Eldorado logged about 600,000 cubic metres of wood, without any large, long-term contracts. The company has a 60,000 cubic metre licence for Carrier Lumber and picks up the balance of volume where it can.

That was the time, around 1996, when Carrier was developing sawmills and supporting woods operations, first in Northern Alberta and then in neighbouring Saskatchewan. It was during those years that Todd put his love of flying to use and gained considerable business benefits. He racked up the hours, rapidly transporting crews and supplies across the Rockies in his twin-engined plane. Some of those trips, he recalls, were pretty hairy.

Meanwhile, work in the Cariboo hadn’t entirely dried up. He was still delivering wood to West Fraser Timber, another good customer. “So we had the two different arms going.” Eldorado still does. The company has a 60,000 cubic metre licence for Carrier, and the other nine-tenths of its volume it picks up where it can.

Today the aerial workhorse is a new Robinson 44 Raven 11 helicopter. Todd says the machine is very well engineered, with the cruising speed of its main competitor and half the fuel consumption. “And it’s a delight to fly,” he says.

“In the last five years, we’ve grown by leaps and bounds,” he adds. “We’ve broadened our horizons and we’re always thinking and seeing what’s outside the box,” he explains.

That philosophy has often translated into harvesting big volumes in short time frames. For example, 100 loads a day for a period last winter. But he hasn’t forgotten the tough times any more than his roots. People and their suppliers had confidence in them when they didn’t have two pennies to rub together, he says.

Apprentice mechanic Dustin Macdonald (left) carries out some servicing. Eldorado spends time and energy getting its money’s worth from its equipment. The company emphasizes rebuilding in both its Williams Lake and Prince George shops, and operates an internal exchange system.

“The truth is, your number one resource is your people and you can’t go anywhere without them,” declares Todd.

“I can’t say enough about them.” He says turnover among his key employees is close to zip. The workforce creeps up to 100 in winter. Some of his co-workers have been with him since before Eldorado was formed.

“My guys joke if you work for Eldorado, you get life. Working together with them, that’s the backbone, along with my rock, my wife Donna. But don’t tell her I called her a rock,” he says. “Get the right people, then look for the work. The work is there,” he has discovered.

Todd pays his people on a 12-month salary basis, so despite the ups and downs of industry activity, they know there’s some regular money coming in. “Other contractors say you can’t afford to do that. I say you can’t afford not to.”

Eldorado Enterprises is heavily into Cat equipment and spends time and energy getting its money’s worth from it. Eldorado emphasizes rebuilding in both its Williams Lake and Prince George shops and operates an internal exchange system. “We keep lots of parts and components—for instance with our six Cat butt ‘n tops—and maintain our old stuff to keep its effectiveness,” outlines Todd.

Eldorado will pick and choose what and when to buy new to keep close to the leading edge of log harvesting system technology. For example, the company has a large Tigercat six-wheeled, hydrostatically driven grapple skidder capable of moving about 20 cubic metres of wood a turn, but with a track and rubber configuration that leaves a miniscule two psi footprint, says Todd.

	Eldorado often harvests big volumes in short time frames, primarily with Cat equipment. The winter before last, it was doing 100 loads a day for a period of time.

And at the logging operation southeast of Williams Lake, a new Cat 320C LL carrier with a 622B Waratah processing head was getting its 250-hour service check from Finning, the Caterpillar dealer. Todd says the diligent acquisition of new equipment into the existing fleet is a case of Peter paying Paul. “It’s working for me.”

Eldorado takes a different approach with its 20-strong fleet of Western Star logging trucks. (“They’re all Western Star because they look after me.”) “You’ve got to keep fairly new trucks,” he continues, “five years max.” He notes with the good warranties on the trucks and the Cat engines driving them, it makes sense to keep running relatively new vehicles.

Road construction is an important component of Eldorado’s business. The company was recently awarded a contract to build about 30 kilometres of new road for Canfor Corporation in the pine beetlestricken Nazko area west of Quesnel.

And Todd has his eyes on possible opportunities much further away. He recently visited China as part of a trade delegation and came away thoroughly impressed. “The Chinese we met were wonderful people. I think there’s a tsunami (of opportunity) going to happen there. And we’re going to go with it and see what happens.”

With all that’s going on in Eldorado’s world, Todd regrets not having the time he’d like to get his hands dirty anymore, to work on a machine in the shop or do some welding. In order to keep work in front of Eldorado’s crews and to service widely scattered jobs, Todd has to instead jump in his helicopter. But that, as a widening smile confirms, is not a bad kind of thing at all.

This page last modified on Saturday, July 21, 2007