This year the American Loggers Council (ALC) – the National affiliate of the WV Loggers Council – celebrates its 25th Anniversary. Over the past quarter century, we have overcome significant challenges and today we have become recognized as the premier organization representing the independent logging contractors. We have gained respect not only from our peers in the industry, but the policy makers who make the decisions in Washington that will have an impact on all of our logging businesses.
Since 2011, the ALC has embarked on a comprehensive strategic planning process that has continually helped us define who we are as an organization, where we are, and where we should be headed. The following is a review of our recent accomplishments as a result of this effort:
The state of the American Loggers Council is strong, but we’re always working to do better.
- The ALC has met or exceeded yearly targets for new memberships and sponsorships, and we continue to work on recruiting new voting memberships.
- The ALC continues to develop programs that benefit not only our membership, but those sponsors who have supported us over the years. Examples include the rebate programs being offered from Peterbilt and Western Star and the ongoing development of a survey that all of our sponsors should find of value.
- We have established a new ALC advisory subcommittee to encourage more participation and engagement among our sponsors, which gives our sponsors more opportunities to better understand their markets and logging business trends.
- The ALC has sponsored programs and established new partnerships to serve the logging profession, such as Team SAFE Trucking and ALC Master Logger Certification to improve log truck safety and professional logging standards, respectively.
- Thanks to our members and sponsors, the ALC’s finances have grown and become stable to allow the association to remain responsive to timely issues and actions. In recent years, the ALC has maintained reserves, though new funding sources will be required to ensure we can continue to support all our programs.
Advocacy: The ALC has increased its advocacy efforts on issues important to loggers, becoming an active participant on Capitol Hill, and working with both Republicans and Democrats.
- Attendance for the ALC’s annual Washington DC Fly-in continues to increase, with 81 attendees in 2019.
- We recognize the importance of working across the aisle, and secured bipartisan, bicameral sponsors for key legislative priorities including the Safe Routes Act and the Future Careers in Logging Act.
- ALC members actively engage with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of the Interior.
- The ALC is an active member of the Federal Timber Purchasers Committee and is partnering with the U.S. Forest Service on its forest products modernization efforts to better meet the needs of loggers.
- To support our advocacy efforts, the ALC has partnered with Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities to enable loggers to contact their congressional representatives with a couple clicks.
Communications and outreach: The ALC is reaching more people to promote our organization, get more loggers engaged on the issues, and to support our sponsors.
- Our Facebook page now has over 90,000 followers, reaching 300,000 Facebook users per month on average.
- We have launched an Instagram page to reach more people on the fastest-growing social media platform.
- The ALC distributes a monthly electronic newsletter, featuring our regular “As We See It” column that is published in major industry publications.
- We have increased our presence in the news media through the distribution of press releases that have been picked up by the Associated Press and hundreds of newspapers across the nation.
- The ALC has increased its grassroots outreach by appearing in logging shows and conferences throughout the nation, including the Oregon Logging Conference, Loggers Expo in Bangor, ME, Loggers Plus Expo in Bloomsberg, PA, Sierra Cascade Logging Conference in Anderson, CA and others.
