2017 International Forest Industries Magazines October November 2017 | Page 28

PARNELL PERSPECTIVE
– Samantha Paul
The 45,000 hour T250 in the yard at the Parnell Inc. headquarters in Maplesville, Alabama. (L-R): David Long, sales specialist, B & G Equipment; Joseph
Parnell, part owner, Parnell Inc.; Jeff Parnell, part owner, Parnell Inc.; Johnny Boyd, Tigercat district manager; Tommy Moore, manager, Parnell Inc.
“It is just as dependable as it was when we first bought it,” says Jeff.
T
he Parnell family has come a
long way from their first grant
of land from the Government
of Alabama nearly 200 years ago
back in 1819. In 1960 James Parnell
started his own business with just
a used truck and a pair of mules.
Incorporated in 1978, the company
now has nine logging crews and
34 pieces of forestry equipment. In
2006, Parnell Inc. earned the title
of Forest Resource Association’s
Regional Logger of the Year and in
2008 Logger of the Year.
“You can’t imagine what I have
seen change over the years,” states
family patriarch James. When
James first started out, he bought
an old Pepsi Cola delivery truck
from Atlanta. He put a log body
on the back and loaded logs by
hand. They used mules to skid until
about 1963. Back then he worked
eighteen hours a day. “He would
do it today if mama would let him,”
says son Joseph.
Logging was not a big industry
in the area in the early 1960s. “We
didn’t know we were in a good
26 International Forest Industries | OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2017
trade at the time,” says James.
“The Riverdale Mill that opened
in Selma Alabama in 1966 opened
things up for logging in the South.
Before that, we didn’t know what
we had. When that mill came in, it
was like the gold rush out West.”
People were calling James at twelve
o’clock at night trying to learn
about logging and how to get in
business.
Brothers, Joseph and Jeff
Parnell spent many years in the
woods with their now 73-year-old
Parnell Inc. owns 34 trucks with contract trucks on top of that. The company
services the trucks at night so the trucks don’t need to be pulled off the
road during the day. “The repair costs are going down tremendously,”
explains Tommy.