Surprisingly to me, the most common question I got over the past year of building Timber Market Watch has been “Chuck, why are you doing this?”

There’s a lot that goes into a complete answer to that question. At the (apparent) end of a long career in the forest industry and academia, I somehow found myself still needing an income to keep food on the table, pay the mortgage, and buy the wife a new car. (Lynda’s had seven children for me, and I’ve only bought her five cars in 38 years, so I figure I owe her at least two more…and you can’t buy a car these days on Social Security.)

And somehow, those seven babies have spawned ten, going on twelve, more since then. So yes, I will always need more money, no matter how old I get. My dad and grandfather didn’t live this long, so I had low expectations…I would lay low in my cushy, tenured professorship, work hard, and stay out of the PC Patrol’s way until they carried my lifeless body out of my lab, a trail of wood sample specimens in my wake.

But God had other ideas. One morning, I woke up and He had given me one of those ideas…Timber Market Watch. The whole picture, complete with marching instructions, so I couldn’t ignore it. Somewhat reluctantly, I decided to leave the financial security of a tenured professorship at a major university to return to the industry that I love, one my family has been involved in since the 1870’s over six generations. It was a risk, and it depended on a lot of unknowns working out in my favor. But I read Philippians 4:13 one more time, put on my traveling boots and hard hat, and got after it.

And then, I’m a numbers guy. I love working with and presenting data, and I dislike making conclusions based on misleading data sets from non-representative samples of data. After years of producing the Pennsylvania Timber Market Report for Penn State and answering over and over the question of why the local mill isn’t offering the price we posted on the University report, I knew the keys were proximity and currency. To get that, a good market report needed boots on the ground, and lots of them.

You can probably guess that a nationwide timber stumpage data army isn’t easy to assemble, and even harder to keep together. But it’s central to what we do at Timber Market Watch. I’ve got a team made up of a take-charge Purple-Heart Afghanistan veteran oldest son, a compassionate service-minded Pennsylvania Yankee son-in-law, a Penn State-jerseyed youngest computer-whiz son who’s graduated from stump climbing to timber sales counting, a double-degreed marketing whiz daughter who just married the luckiest young officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, and a trophy bride administrative assistant who keeps us all focused on The Goal…Making Mama Money.

Throw in a top-notch, local tech firm that sees and is shaping the future, a few lawyers and accountants to keep us honest, and presto…good things are happening.

Bottom line, though…why do we do this, specifically…Timber Market Watch?

Because in the 21st century, the timber industry needs better market data. It’s a brutal world out there, with a lot of fake news based on misleading data and cherry-picked statistics. It’s a world where there is only one real asset as good as gold, and that is well-timbered forest land. The days of trusting your uncle’s mistress’ brother on the value of your timber are over.

Bring data.

So, why should you subscribe to Timber Market Watch? Well, if:

• You use or could use timber stumpage prices in your job or timber investments.
• you see value in timeliness and proximity of the data to your timber tract of interest.
• and you want to support the effort to develop a nationwide private-sector network of forest professionals to provide real market sale data, then subscribe.

But if data isn’t your thing, don’t bother with a Timber Market Watch subscription. That’s all we do.