McClam named Outstanding 2020 Logger of the Year

Gary McClam got out of farming in the early 1980s and started learning about logging. In 1988 with financial help from his brother-in-law, Dewitt McKenzie, he started his own company. Shortly afterward he began logging for Stone Container. In 1994 he bought out McKenzie’s share of the company and has done his own financing ever since. At the beginning of 2000 he started logging for Jordan Lumber & Supply. As his company grew, he split off a second crew that logged for Keels Land & Timber for awhile. Then he put the crew back together with Jordan. In 2007 he saw a need to split again and put the second crew to work with Kingstree Forest Products. That same year he was diagnosed with throat cancer.

He began changing the way he viewed life and ran his company. “I don’t let things worry me nearly as much as I used to,” he says. “The first ten years that I logged, I was on the road and staying in motels all the time. I was trying to get my feet on the ground. It was a lot of hard work.”

He realized he couldn’t do everything himself and needed to delegate more responsibility. Thanks to long–time, loyal employees he got through it and is cancer free today. He still has one crew with Jordan and one with Kingstree. Some employees have been with him for 30 years. He adds, “I’m one of the lucky ones. All these years later, I’m still alive.”