Ed Brightman Sr. of Assonet, co-owner of the Brightman Lumber Company, has been named the 2022 Massachusetts Wood Producer of the Year by the Forest Alliance.
The Douglas B. Cook Wood Producer of the Year Award is presented to a timber harvester, sawmill operator, or forest products professional who exemplifies the late Doug Cook’s spirit of innovation and leadership in the industry.
Brightman Lumber Company is a 5th generation family business that does logging and land-clearing and uses the logs those operations generate to produce lumber and other forest products at their small sawmill in Assonet. Ed has been part of the family logging and lumber business for more than 50 years. He also started his own firewood business when he was still a teenager, which he still operates today part-time.
Ed’s late father, John Brightman Jr., began the sawmill operation in 1978 to better utilize logs and other materials generated by the logging and land-clearing operations, rather than just ship the logs to northern New England or Canada to be processed. Ed and his brother, John III., worked on the logging/sawmill operations while sister Patty managed the office.
Today, Ed Sr. oversees the 3 person land-clearing business while his son Ed Jr manages the sawmill, estimates jobs, is the sawyer, among other responsibilities, and Patty keeps them all organized with her work in the office. The mill employs 10 people, full and part-time, producing pine and oak lumber as well as a variety of forest products. The mill sells to local businesses, contractors and homeowners. While the mill uses the logs harvested from the land clearing, they also purchase logs from local loggers as needed.
When Ed’s father began logging with his grandfather in the 40s, they used horses to drag the logs from the woods. Then they used a crawler tractor to skid out the logs out. Today, the land clearing equipment consists of 2 skidders, 3 chippers, a feller-buncher, a slasher, 2 log trucks and a host of other trucks to haul chips, lumber and other materials. They work on 60 to 80 different land-clearing jobs each year, mostly in southeastern Massachusetts. They clear smaller parcels for houses, and larger lots for industrial, commercial and agricultural purposes.
“Ed has always looked at new strategies and techniques to improve the efficiency and quality of his work,” said Bill Hull, whose Connecticut forest products company hired the Brightman family to log many years ago.
Besides working on the family businesses, Ed has always been a prominent participant in timber sports competitions at fairs throughout New England. For 25 years he sponsored and organized the Westport Woodsman’s Show. This year, Ed competed in timber sports events in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts. He has won numerous awards in Axe Throwing, 2 Man Crosscut, Bow Saw and Super Modified Chainsaw events throughout the years..
In presenting Ed the Cook Award, Hull said that the Brightmans have been great ambassadors for the forest products industry in southern New England.
For more information about Brightman Lumber Company and the products they sell, visit their website at www.brightmanlumber.com
The Brightmans also have a terrific Youtube video that you can see at The Brightman Lumber Company – Who We Are – YouTube