Oregon logger, TV star and spokesman

REAL AX MEN: More real than reality TV stars, Oregon logger Mike Pihl, left, son-in-law Kelly Baska, a supervisor, and Leland Bontrager, yarder engineer, take time out from "Ax Men," seen Sunday evenings on the History Channel.

Plain spoken and about as "aw shucks" shy as they come, Oregon logger Mike Pihl, 49, is as unlikely a television star as one might imagine.

But there he was at Redding's Holiday Inn on Thursday, Feb. 11, signing autographs for old and young fans alike of the History Channel's popular "Ax Men" reality series.

Jaeger Daniels, 10, was one of those lucky enough to have Pihl autograph a bright yellow hard hat, obviously well used, that Daniels said he had borrowed from his father.

Pihl was the featured speaker during a kickoff breakfast for the 61st Forest Products & Construction Equipment Exposition sponsored by the Sierra-Cascade Logging Conference. The part-trade show, part-social event for the logging and construction crews and companies based in northern California consolidated this year in Redding, another casualty of the economic downturn, said Jeff Gletne, who welcomed several hundred paying patrons to the 8 a.m. buffet breakfast.

"I like to promote our industry as good, hard-working people," said Pihl, who started bucking hay as a teenager attending high school in his home town of Banks, Ore., approximately 40 miles west and slightly north of Portland.

He also felled trees, set chokers and ran various pieces of heavy equipment until he landed a similar job living and working for Jerry Larrabee and Pat Soderberg on a floating logging camp set up on a large barge near Sitka, Alaska.

Knowing the importance of a hard-earned dollar, Pihl was determined to save every penny of his pay from that job, a trait that received some scrutiny by the company's bookkeeper," he told biographer Jeff Mullins.

"My boss even had to ask me to cash my checks so he could balance his books," Pihl recalled with an easy smile.

Three years later, when Pihl returned to Oregon, at age 22, he used his accumulated savings to purchase a Skagit SJ5 yarder and form a business partnership with his twin brother, Matt, as Pihl Brothers Logging for several years until the partnership went flat.

Mike Pihl Logging was established in 1986. Today, Pihl runs a crew of nearly 40, owns and manages 17 small parcels totaling more than 250 acres and is a partner in C&P Investments Inc., a land development company based in Vernonia, Ore., another 40 or 50 miles north of Banks and near Mt. St. Helens.

After he was recommended by the editor of Loggers World, Mike Pihl signed on three years ago to do some pilot filming for the History Channel.

"They shot our work crew for about a week, then they took their trailers down to Hollywood," Pihl said.

The next time he heard from the show's producers, they were asking him to read and sign a five-year contract that he described as "a two-inch thick stack of legal documents," complete with fine print allowing them to shoot Pihl and his crew members "nude, semi-nude or even engaged in immoral acts," the logger said with a hearty laugh.

Pihl characterized the reality show, now in its third season with more than 2 million viewers tuning in each Sunday since the season premier aired Jan. 10, as "85 percent personality and 15 percent logging."

However, being on the hit TV show has opened up many more opportunities for Pihl to get out the real message of modern-day logging that includes environmental responsibility, job safety and wise resource management.

"Not to put down California or anything, but there are so many rules and regulations to deal with that I am glad I operate in Oregon," Pihl told his more than sympathetic audience of California and Nevada loggers.

With television film crews on the job site six days a week and for 10 hours a day, Pihl allowed that being on the show does hurt his annual production by about 20 percent and "it is an intrusion and an invasion."

However, never did he think that he would be inundated by fans while taking a rare vacation trip through Romania. Meanwhile, the community of Vernonia, Ore., is routinely overrun with tourists each summer from as far away as England, Mexico and Honduras, Pihl said.

"It's not really a money issue for me. Last year, the producers paid us the equivalent of a used yarder that we had to purchase and set up as an alternative film site when one of my private contracts forbid us to photograph on their property," Pihl said.

"I can be the Ax Man, but I would rather talk to people about an industry that is self-policing. We love our jobs and we want to continue doing our jobs, so don't take that away from us," Pihl concluded.

One side note. As a result of the TV show's popularity, Pihl was able to donate his signature red suspenders emblazoned with "Mike Pihl Logging, Inc." in white lettering to an industry auction that brought a bid of nearly $6,500 for education programs about the timber industry, he said.

"We must, as an industry, risk changing with the times or we will lose the ability to reach those in the classroom, our future workforce," Pihl cautioned his Redding audience.