It’s an amazing fee­ling when eve­ryt­hing goes your way – eve­ry­one feels well, and mac­hi­nes do not pre­sent any surpri­ses. Now that the sun’s coming out, it’s hard to beat the feel of early spring. These are the thoughts of brot­hers Mat­tias and Mar­kus Pers­son who work as forest cont­rac­tors in Bred­byn.

During Ponsse’s visit, the tem­pe­ra­ture is just below zero, but mac­hi­nes are col­der after the night and early mor­ning. Howe­ver, it doesn’t take long when snow starts to melt and fall from the mac­hine loa­ded and moun­ted for trans­port. Early spring, which is some­ti­mes also cal­led the fifth sea­son, has been long-awai­ted.

“Oh yes, it’s a won­der­ful time of the year. While the days grow lon­ger and war­mer, there’s still enough snow for skis and snow­mo­bi­les,” says Mar­kus Pers­son.

Brö­derna Pers­sons Skogs­mas­ki­ner Ab has three mac­hine chains: one for thin­ning and two for rege­ne­ra­tion fel­ling. Soon the com­pany will also have a forwar­der for log­ging resi­dues. Most cont­racts are wit­hin a radius of 50 kilo­met­res. The brot­hers Pers­son have had a long-stan­ding part­ners­hip with Hol­men Group. Their cus­to­mer rela­tions­hip already star­ted when the com­pany was establis­hed in 1961.

The mac­hine fleet has grown along with the growing num­ber of cont­racts, sta­bi­li­sing at the cur­rent level after the mid-2010s. Mac­hi­nes are tra­ded frequently.

“Mac­hi­nes tie up a sig­ni­ficant amount of capi­tal. While the fleet rai­ses a lot of res­pect, it’s impor­tant that mac­hi­nes are of a high level of qua­lity, ope­rate reliably and keep pro­duc­ti­vity high.”

“Of course, tech­no­logy is att­rac­tive in itself. We are kee­ping a close eye on tech­no­lo­gical deve­lop­ment, and our opi­nions and ideas also seem to be impor­tant for mac­hine manu­fac­tu­rers,” Mar­kus Pers­son says.

The company’s first PONSSE was the Bear har­ves­ter, which was purc­ha­sed in 2020 for rege­ne­ra­tion fel­ling. It was fol­lowed by the Scor­pion har­ves­ter to join the group of other thin­ning mac­hi­nes.

“The Bear is unbea­table when trees are large, but we are not expec­ting many cont­racts where it will be nee­ded,” Mar­kus Pers­son says.

The com­pany will soon have three PONSSE mac­hi­nes. In addi­tion to the har­ves­ter in the group of thin­ning mac­hi­nes, two forwar­ders are on their way: the Elep­hant King for rege­ne­ra­tion fel­ling and the Buf­falo. 

The lat­ter mac­hine will, above all, be used to carry log­ging resi­dues.

“Ponsse’s forwar­ders will soon make their debut here,” Mar­kus Pers­son says. He points out that the effec­ti­ve­ness of the mac­hine supplier’s after­sa­les ser­vices is key.

“Every mac­hine requi­res main­te­nance every now and then, and when it does, down­time has to be mini­mi­sed. Mac­hi­nes must remain in ope­ra­tion. This is what we and also our clients require.”

The clo­se­ness of main­te­nance ser­vices was a deci­sive fac­tor for the brot­hers Pers­son to choose Ponsse. The nea­rest Ponsse loca­tion is 45 kilo­met­res away in Örns­kölds­vik, and the repair shop in Åsele is also fairly close. This enables the quick avai­la­bi­lity of both spare parts and main­te­nance emplo­yees.

“We’re in an even more pri­vi­le­ged posi­tion, as a couple of Ponsse’s emplo­yees live near here. This means that help and spa­re­parts are very easy to come by. The com­pany having a low­bed for mac­hine trans­por­ta­tion is a sig­ni­ficant advan­tage.

“It inc­rea­ses our inde­pen­dence, as we can trans­port our mac­hi­nes on our own,” says Mar­kus Pers­son.

Recently, the com­pany also pro­vi­ded soil pre­pa­ra­tion ser­vices, and it nee­ded to trans­port mac­hi­nes even more frequently than at pre­sent.

Two years ago, the brot­hers Pers­son built a large industrial hall for mac­hi­nes.

“It’s quite an advan­tage to be able to drive mac­hi­nes and main­te­nance vehicles inside the hall. We should’ve made the invest­ment even ear­lier,” Mar­kus says with a smile on his face.

The company’s his­tory dates back to 1961. At the time, the com­pany was also run by two brot­hers Pers­son: Rolf and Mats (fat­her of Mat­tias and Mar­kus). As the young brot­hers had grown up on a farm, the idea of wor­king in a forest felt natu­ral. Rolf had even wor­ked at log­ging sites at the time when loads were still dri­ven by hor­ses.

Mec­ha­ni­sa­tion was still taking baby steps in the early 1960s. The brot­hers Pers­son star­ted their career by ins­tal­ling half-tracks in their fat­her Ernfrid’s farm trac­tor – a Volvo BM 320 Bus­ter – that sig­ni­ficantly impro­ved hand­ling in forests. Trees were fel­led with chain­saws and loa­ded by hand. The next trac­tor, which was a little newer, lar­ger and stron­ger, was equip­ped with a crane.

Forwar­ders slowly star­ted to come along: a smal­ler one for thin­ning and a lar­ger one for rege­ne­ra­tion fel­ling. Soon the com­pany star­ted soil pre­pa­ra­tion ser­vices, which were ini­tially pro­vi­ded using a towed til­ler. The brot­hers inves­ted in their first har­ves­ter in the middle of the 1990s. That was also when Mat­tias star­ted in the com­pany.

The fleet has for long con­sis­ted of har­ves­ters and forwar­ders. Soil pre­pa­ra­tion ser­vices have also been pro­vi­ded for years. In 2004, the com­pany purc­ha­sed its first dual mac­hine with Hol­men to test the oppor­tu­ni­ties the tech­no­logy had to offer. It was later replaced by a forwar­der desig­ned to carry log­ging resi­dues, and the com­pany also inves­ted in a chip­per.

“The bio­energy mar­ket has gone up and down. Still 15 years ago, we had a mac­hine group con­sis­ting of a chip­per and two forwar­ders for log­ging resi­dues. When the bio­energy mar­ket was in a slump, we had to let the chip­per go and replaced it with anot­her har­ves­ter. We will return to the mar­ket with the Buf­falo forwar­der.”

In addi­tion, the com­pany has pro­vi­ded soil pre­pa­ra­tion ser­vices some­ti­mes, and some­ti­mes not. In 2014, the ser­vices resu­med after a break of 20 years. Out­side the sea­son, the mac­hine offers addi­tio­nal resources in trans­port ser­vices.

“To have more to carry out­side the soil pre­pa­ra­tion sea­son, we purc­ha­sed yet anot­her

har­ves­ter. The mac­hine was unemplo­yed during the soil pre­pa­ra­tion sea­son, and its two ope­ra­tors wor­ked in plan­ning.”

It’s quite a puzzle to have all cont­racts run­ning opti­mally day in, day out, and also in the long term. Mar­kus is mainly res­pon­sible for resource plan­ning and the company’s admi­ni­stra­tion, as well as mac­hine trans­port, whe­reas Mat­tias plans the company’s ope­ra­tions when the ground is thawed and ope­ra­tes a har­ves­ter during other sea­sons.

Effec­tive teamwork comes first for Mar­kus and Mat­tias. They also want to give eve­ry­one the oppor­tu­nity to par­tici­pate and keep an open mind to do things a little bet­ter.

“The bet­ter eve­ryt­hing works, the bet­ter we can handle any unex­pec­ted chal­len­ges whe­ne­ver they turn up.”

Mat­tias and Mar­kus share an inte­rest in tech­no­logy and mac­hi­nery. After secon­dary school, Mat­tias stu­died mec­ha­nical and pro­duc­tion engi­nee­ring, while Mar­kus focused on the trans­port industry. Mat­tias star­ted in the family-owned com­pany right after gra­dua­ting, whe­reas Mar­kus drove a tim­ber lorry before joi­ning the ranks.

What would you have become if you weren’t forest mac­hine cont­rac­tors?

“Ha, that’s a tricky one! Here, life lar­gely revol­ves around forests, and they offer various job oppor­tu­ni­ties. I pro­bably would’ve ended up doing somet­hing with mac­hi­nes or lor­ries,” Mar­kus says.

Mat­tias is along the same lines.

“I really enjoy staying in the forest. That’s where I live, work and spend my free time.”

Mat­tias has a wife and two children. Eve­ry­one in the family is into hun­ting: elks above all, but also bears. They have five dogs, four of which are grey Norwe­gian Elk­hounds and the most recent one is East Sibe­rian Laika. They also share their owner’s pas­sion for forests and hun­ting. Mat­tias is also a forest owner.

Mar­kus and his co-mari­tal spouse have two children who are ent­husias­tic about skiing, riding, dancing and ice hoc­key. Markus’s spouse is a skiing coach, while Mar­kus him­self coac­hes an ice hoc­key team. Flying is anot­her pas­sion for Mar­kus. He has a two-sea­ted ult­ra­light seaplane with push pro­pel­lers. Snow­mo­bi­les are among his hob­bies on firm ground.

“I have now­here enough time for eve­ryt­hing, but I enjoy my hob­bies and have fun. That’s what is impor­tant,” Mar­kus says.