Safety first
No board foot is worth an injury. Every crew member has stop-work authority, no questions asked.
Rooted in the
forest since 1987
A family company that learned logging the hard way — and decided to do it the right way.
Our story
One saw, one pickup, one promise
In 1987, Erik Halvorsen bought a used Stihl, a half-ton Ford and a handshake contract to thin 40 acres above Cascade Falls. The promise he made to that landowner is still painted on our shop wall: "Leave it better than you found it."
Today his daughter Marit runs the company with her brothers, 84 full-time crew members and a fleet that has grown from one truck to thirty-one. We've added a sawmill, a reforestation nursery and a forestry planning team — but the way we work hasn't changed. We walk the ground first. We plan before we cut. We stand behind every board foot.
Most of our work comes from repeat customers and referrals: private landowners, tribal and family forest trusts, county road departments, and builders who want timber they can trace back to the stand.
84Crew members
31Trucks & machines
3Generations
Growth rings
Four decades, one ring at a time
Like a tree, we grow slowly and keep a record of every season. A few of the moments that shaped Ridgeback:
- 1987
The first contract
Erik Halvorsen starts Ridgeback with a single crew and a 40-acre thinning job.
- 1996
First log truck
We stop subcontracting haul and put our own truck on the road. Delivery times drop by half.
- 2005
The sawmill opens
A band-sawmill and kiln on Sawmill Road lets us sell finished lumber directly to builders.
- 2014
Chain-of-custody certified
Independent audits confirm what we always said — every log is traceable.
- 2020
Seedling nursery
We start growing our own native Douglas-fir and cedar stock for replanting.
- 2025
1 million hours, zero lost time
Our crews log a full year without a single lost-time injury.
What we stand for
Four rules we don't bend
Stewardship
We manage for the next harvest, not just this one — protecting soil, streams and wildlife corridors.
Craftsmanship
Clean cuts, tidy landings and accurate grading. Pride in the work shows in the final product.
Community
We hire locally, buy locally and donate lumber every year to build homes for neighbours in need.
The crew
The people behind the saws
Leadership who still wear steel-toes — and a crew averaging 11 years with the company.
Marit Halvorsen
President & CEO
Third-generation owner. Former lead faller and registered forester.
Tomas Reyes
Director of Operations
28 years in the woods. Plans every harvest unit and every haul route.
Dana Whitfield
Head of Safety & Training
Certified instructor behind our zero-lost-time programme.
Kai Nakamura
Equipment & Fleet Lead
Keeps 31 machines running — and our crews moving.
Equipment
A fleet built for hard ground
Modern, well-maintained machines mean less ground disturbance, fewer breakdowns and safer crews. We invest in equipment that's gentler on the forest floor.
- Cut-to-length harvesters & forwarders for low-impact thinning
- Tracked feller-bunchers and skidders for steep slopes
- 31 log trucks and self-loading trailers, GPS-tracked
- Band sawmill, planer and two 60,000 bf kilns
- Grapple saws, crane trucks and chippers for hazard-tree jobs
Want a crew that treats your land like their own?
Book a free site walk and written estimate — no obligation.