VALDOSTA — Harley Langdale Jr., chairman of The Langdale Company, gave the inaugural speech Friday to kick off an annual series of lectures at the Valdosta State University Harley Langdale Jr. College of Business Administration.

Langdale spoke on the history of the company his grandfather founded in the late 19th century, which is still going strong more than 100 years later and is now in its fifth generation of family ownership.

“I’m 87 years old, so I believe I’m qualified to speak on forest management in the early days,” he said.

Langdale explained the origins of forestry, saying in the 1600s, the pilgrims learned how to extract gum from pine trees and boil it to get rosin and tar, which was used to coat wooden ships. The industry originated in Jamestown, Va., but moved to the north to follow the boat builders. After finding it difficult to combat the weather and the lack of the right type of tree, the industry moved back south to Virginia and the Carolinas where long leaf and slash pines were more prevalent.

“Back in the 1800s, as the business moved into Georgia, Florida and even to Texas, it was found that South Georgia was the best suited place for turpentine and rosin production, and Valdosta was at the center of it,” he said.

“My grandfather started a turpentine business on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp in the late 19th century. My father was going to school three months a year because he wanted to be a lawyer, and my grandfather tried to talk him out of going by telling him he never saw a lawyer that amounted to anything.”

Langdale said when he went to school to learn forestry management, it was a relatively new field and many people thought it was pointless, commenting to him that “only God can grow a tree.” He said his reply was always, “We just want to try to help him.”

With the advent of World War II and the changes in the industry over the years, the company gradually became more involved in how the forests were managed, concentrating on replenishing the trees, ensuring new growth, and finding new uses for the timber.

Langdale said one of the company’s ideas for diversifying came after observing German women in years after the war collecting twigs and carrying them on their backs to plants that made particle board.

“We put in an oriented strand board (OSB) plant in Quitman, which was the first in the South. Henry Reeves was the representative then and he told us he thought we’d be all right the first year, but after that he didn’t know what we were going to do.”

Langdale said the plant is still the only one making OSB out of hard wood and is still going strong today.

In the ’90s, the company purchased a plant in New Mexico in its entirety and trucked it across the country to Withlacoochee, where they reassembled it and are now making MDF, or medium density fiberboard, there and recently built a new moulding plant next to it.

“We are always looking for new products, and our goal is to be good stewards of the land. We have 1,070 employees today and are looking to having an even better company in the future. With more research and development, the best is yet to come,” said Langdale.



To contact reporter Kay Harris, please call 244-3400, ext. 280.