Three generations are hard at work

Tasman Pine Forests

Currently we have a unique and special situation with three generations of one family working in TPFL (Tasman Pine Forests Ltd). Wayne (AKA Captain) Schroder, Cory (Chicken Man) Schroder are working on the tethered mulching, and Josh (Pluck) Schroder is operating one of the thinning machines, all working under the Steve Thompson Ltd (STL) banner. How they got their nicknames is a yarn for another time...

Wayne started logging in the early 1970s, swinging big heavy chainsaws in the native for Dick Knight in their hauler crew operations in the Lee Valley using a Dispatch with a ladder spar. Wayne became a regular loader operator, back then it was Clark 75B loaders with Detroit engines.

In the early 1990s, when Cory was about 18 years old, he had been working a couple of years milking cows for Mark Thompson at Spring Grove. Wanting a change, the time was right to have a go at wood lot harvesting with his father Wayne.

Their first pulling machine was an old D4 7U, which had a pony motor to start the diesel engine, once it was going it ran all day because it was a dog to restart once it was hot. It was all manual falling and trimming in those days, you learnt fast, or you got hurt! Thankfully, there were a lot of older experienced guys to show Cory the tricks and techniques to keep him safe and the logs moving.

It was a real breakthrough when the father and son team purchased an early model Trinder delimber. It was hydraulic driven by a power pack, which was the D4 7U plumbed into it, with someone sitting there working the lever to open and shut the knives.

Nippy Chings first job in the bush was working the delimber. Logs were loaded into the delimber with the old Hough loader, then a chain slung under the forks was hooked onto the stem and dragged through. Those logs came out really clean which halved the chainsaw work.

Around that time Steve Thompson was logging in the North Island and sent a Clark 666B down for Wayne and Cory to use, that started a long obsession with Clark skidders. At one point they had three of them - two 666Bs and a 668C. They got pretty good at bush fixes to keep the old gear going. Once they took a transmission out of a skidder in under two hours that had stopped in the middle of a haul track.

After about a decade working woodlots together, Wayne went onto hauler work in the sounds and Cory moved into hauler work locally which evolved into the beginning of C&W Logging (CWL), which Willie Waldron still owns today and is now operating in TPFL forests.

Cory’s son Josh left school at 17 and did a couple of years driving tractors for Waimea Nursery. His obsession with pig hunting and desperate need for hunting permits was enough motivation for his career move to forestry. He has been operating a thinning machine for STL in TPFL forests for a few years now. He is loving the work, but almost more importantly he has a obtained a TPFL hunting permit.