Business Owner

Owning their own business and “working for themselves” is the aspiration of many people. A forest operations career offers many opportunities to progress into business ownership. Because most forestry field production work is performed by small companies, there’s real potential to become your own boss in a self-owned business, after a few years of experience learning a specialty in forest contracting.

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Forest operations offer so many exciting business ownership opportunities to learn and apply a wide range of skills in a variety of outdoor-based settings. These rewarding careers in forest contracting not only deliver valuable wood products to the market, they help ensure the continued protection of outdoor environment. An added advantage of these careers is their outdoor work, where results are accomplished and seen every day.

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The forest operations industry is almost exclusively small business—and a great profession to own and run a small business. In particular, the typical forest production business is owned by an individual, a family or partnership. These firms employ from one to 200 workers—though, commonly less than two dozen employees. Many of today’s forestry businesses were started by one-time forestry employees, who gained experience on-the-job, advanced to supervise operations, and then later formed their own company.

The forestry operations jobs described herein typically work for small, family-owned businesses. The small forestry business is often called an independent “contractor,” because they typically work on a contract basis. The forest “contractor” hires their services out to forest landowners, manufacturers, timber purchasers, government agencies, professional consultants, or other contractors. Today’s forest contract business is skilled at a variety of work situations, types of equipment and methods—tailored to specific designs and instructions in a contract.

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Forest management operations are indeed a rewarding profession to operate and run your own small business. At the end of every day—although running an entrepreneurial company can be challenging—small business owners are grateful to be able to do what they love. Forest business owners say that forest production is a great place to invest their time, money, know-how and passion.