Turman’s transportation-based approach puts firm at cutting edge of forest products industry

As director of business development at his family’s diversified forest products business, Ryan Turman believes looking at the industry from a transportation standpoint is the key to competitive success. In an interview at The Turman Group’s sawmill and company headquarters in the Southwest Virginia town of Hillsville, Ryan Turman shared with the American Journal of Transportation his thoughts on being positioned at the literal and proverbial cutting edge. And the ambitious 34-year-old offered insights into his creation of “a load board on steroids,” his passion for politics, with an eye toward the Virginia Governor’s Mansion, and a festive golf outing in which no one wants to finish last.

When you say you approach the forest products industry from a transportation standpoint, what do you mean exactly, and why is this important?  When you’re in a commodity industry, you can lose a sale pretty quick by any unnecessary cost. And you can also give yourself an extreme advantage if you can lower the cost, and the best way for us to do that is with transportation. What we do is we try to partner with forward-thinking folks to where we can then reposition a container in the field and save on inland freight going back. We’re also pretty aggressive on ocean freight rates, but, when it comes to inland, we spend a tremendous amount of time on capturing boxes in the field. With the forest products industry having shrunk substantially in recent years, what role has branching out internationally played in The Turman Group not only surviving but succeeding?  The recession was tough on the entire industry. It became survival: How do we get through?  For us, with the international markets, we started out in China, and now we sell to over 30 different countries and, because of that, we were able to increase our kiln-dried production by 30 percent. Not only did that help us to get through, but it helped us to gain market share. Our exports are up 20 percent to 30 percent over what they were last year. You know, product out of one tree can go to as many as five industries – the furniture industry, flooring, railroads, pallets and now for making a board road for the natural gas industry. As we were walking around the mill, you noted that you started in the family business doing things like laying rock and painting fence as early as age 11, at a business started by your father, Mike, still president and CEO, with a portable mill cutting in the woods. What challenges and joys have you found to be associated with working in a longtime family business?  I’m very fortunate to get to work with great people. Of the younger management, we all grew up in some capacity around the sawmill, and we were trained by the guys who built this from the ground up. They’re old-school kind of mentality, and they’re not going to hand out a whole lot of pats on the back, but they know that we’ve carried our weight and we’ve done what we’re supposed to do to help us grow and help us get through this period. In terms of the second generation coming through, we’re absolutely standing on the shoulders of giants. Would it be an exaggeration to say you have sawdust in your veins? I’d rather not sensationalize it. That’d come up at Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, and I’d get a lot of ribbing over that. Honestly, I think my cousin Jeremy and my brother and my best friend growing up, Barry, they truly do have sawdust running through their veins. I more get excited about transportation. Those guys go to sleep thinking about sawmills and logs. I go to sleep thinking about what’s inside of containers. To me, that’s pretty neat. International trade is very cool, to me. You also, in 2012, started Konnect Kloud as a Web-based supply chain solution. What’s it all about?  Konnect Kloud is an online, simple transportation solution that combines a closed-network solution with file-sharing, chat, a lot of social-media-type that are geared toward the intermodal industry, with features of the agricultural industry as well.  It’s sort of a load board on steroids.  For us, as a company, if we can get our product to market with cheaper transportation and more efficiently, we give ourselves an advantage. And we’ve also provided, in our proof of concept that we’ve run over the last five years through [truck brokerage firm] Southeast Streamline [Inc.], we’ve taken enough miles off the road to go to the moon and back 18 times. We’ve done that through 56 exporters and 30 importers. Those who’ve participated are folks such as Lowe’s [Companies Inc.] on the import side and TMX [Shipping] on the export side. They’re very forward thinking. They understand the benefits to it, and it’s very good for the environment. Even before getting your bachelor’s degree in history and politics from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 2003, you’ve been involved in politics, including in 2000 as an intern in George Allen’s successful run for Virginia senator and as a volunteer on the Florida election recount, and you continue to be active politically. What’s your fascination with politics?  I have become pretty disenchanted with the whole political process at this point. The polarization that exists in Washington is not good for the United States.  If our elected officials knew just how developed the rest of the world has become and they realized just how competitive it is, I believe they would be much more willing to work with each other and do what’s right for the U.S. So, from a political standpoint at this point, I’m pretty disenchanted. I got to see it up-close and personal with many congressmen, one senator and one president, and, at this point, I’m a little bit older and a little bit disenchanted. Can we expect you to be running for office anytime soon? Not anytime soon, but I’ll probably be the governor [of Virginia] one day. I’m 34. We’ll probably try it out at 50 and see what happens. I am not currently involved in campaigns outside of lending some advice to buddies who ask for it. I am involved in wood industry lobbying and am currently working with a group of industry leaders to defeat a proposed hardwood check-off program. That has been a blast. You’re involved in putting on a golf tournament that adds new meaning to the term “shotgun start.” What makes this event unique?  The Turman Fall Classic just had its 16th anniversary, held in my hometown in Floyd County, at Great Oaks Country Club in Floyd, and it’s the highlight of our year.  Invited guests have no idea who they’re playing with, and we try to pair people up who might benefit from an introduction, such as different vendors with some of our competitors. We have folks from an array of industries from all over the world competing not to get the Horse’s Ass Award, because, if you come in last, you will get the Horse’s Ass Award. It’s a very festive event. We have convenience stores, and throughout the course of the year, when six packs or 12 packs are broken, they’ll end up in a container, and, when it’s time for the golf tournament, we start everybody off with good beer, and, throughout the course of the day, we’ll go ahead and work out that inventory from last year, and nobody seems to care. In regards to the term “shotgun,” the shooting comes from either the night before or that night, and guns have been broken out and it’s just guys gettin’ their country on. So you might have a fella from India firing a shotgun at 11 o’clock at night, and it’s a good time.  It gives us an opportunity to show the rest of the world a piece of our culture, through shotguns or locally sourced liquor and golf, which is universal, but you might find yourself playing with a guy who just walked off a tract of timber and has still got on boots who might play once a year who’s just out there to blow off some steam for four or five hours. It’s a good event, and I can say in full confidence no one has ever been seriously injured.