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Foresight Logging

Former Illinois-based logger Tony Zimmerman reinvents his business in Idaho with a unique equipment mix and a crew that is all in the family.

— Chris McMillan

The Foresight crew: (L-R) John Zimmerman, 1085C Operator; Tommy Zimmerman, Forestry Specialist; Tony Zimmerman. LH822E Operator/Company Owner; Joe Zimmerman, LS857 operator; Anthony Zimmerman, Forestry Specialist.
Between the Branches, November 2011 covered Tony Zimmerman and his company, Premier Logging, in Oregon, Illinois. At the time, he was supplying biomass for a large power plant in Wisconsin that has since closed, as well as marketing pulpwood, stud wood, and various hardwood products to local mills. Employing an 822C feller buncher, an H822C harvester and a 1055 forwarder, Tony’s buncher-processor-forwarder system tackled row-thinning contracts, yielding high production with low residual stand damage.

Fast forward fourteen years. Tigercat team members visited the operations of Foresight Logging in Idaho to observe the company’s new 120 winch assist machine. The owner of Foresight, the same Tony Zimmerman, walked up to greet his visitors. He was excited to talk about his latest business venture with his sons, and his current fleet of Tigercat machines.

Back in 2012, Tony was struggling to find experienced operators to run his machines. Eventually, he decided to pack it in and sell his equipment fleet. He and his family moved to Idaho. Tony fell back on his forestry background and started buying and selling timber. “I started buying timber contracts and managing private timber,” explains Tony. “I saw there was a niche for it here and started utilizing subcontractors. I bought both tractor ground and line skid ground, and that went really well. I had no intentions of getting back in the woods, production logging.”

A family affair

Tony’s son Joe always had a love for the woods. He has fond memories of riding on his dad’s lap as a kid while running the old 1055 forwarder. Joe would tell Tony that he needed to get back in the woods, but Tony wasn’t in the position to do it, so Joe went to work for one of Tony’s subcontractors loading trucks and piling brush.
Tony processes with the LH822E. It is equipped with the 544 harvesting head.
When Tony’s son Tommy turned sixteen and finished school, he joined his dad and began to learn the timber buying business. By the time he turned eighteen, he told his dad he was ready to start buying timber. “I said, ‘Okay. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.’ I figured he had to learn some time,” Tony recalls. “I think he bought his first timber sale in 2020. It went well for him, and he progressively started buying more. In 2023, Tommy lined up a really good land timber deal for me that we were able to execute on, and it kind of propelled us into the next level because it freed up a whole bunch of working capital.”

Late in 2023, Joe again proposed that the family should get back into harvesting. Tony started to think seriously about the idea. “I was relying on the subs to do the logging, and the costs were steadily increasing. I was watching my margins shrink, and I’d look at my financials at the end of the year and see how much I was paying in logging, and it was an astronomical figure.”

Back to the woods

Tony decided to make the transition, purchasing a Tigercat 1085C forwarder in March 2025. He stopped into Triad Machinery’s Spokane branch and spoke to Territory Manager Jeff Casselman. “I wanted the biggest forwarder I could buy, because I knew this was big wood.” Jeff asked about his background, and if he had owned any Tigercat machines in the past. Tony explained his experience with Premier Logging and his previous Tigercat fleet.

Jeff mentioned that there was a 1085C in the shop and invited him to have a look. As Tony stepped in at the shop he saw a familiar face. Jon Cooper (Tigercat VP of Engineering) was there, along with Damien Donoher (Product Support Representative) working with the dealer technicians to troubleshoot the machine. “Jon remembered me from back in the Lake States because he had been out on my job years ago. I think we were one of the first large-scale Tigercat customers in the midwest back in 2008.”

Jon asked Tony what his plans were and Tony explained that his sons had convinced him to go back to logging. “Jon asked if I missed it and I said, ‘I really miss it, and my boys want to do it.’ I think there’s nothing better for a father than to work with his sons.”
John Zimmerman follows Tony in the 1085C. Tony wanted the biggest forwarder he could get.
Tony purchased the 1085C from Triad, and then in May 2025 he purchased an LH822E harvester equipped with a Tigercat 544 harvesting head. Gary MacDonald, Tigercat Field Representative and Operator Trainer, spent time on Tony’s jobsite to understand his requirements, tune the head accordingly, and familiarize the crew with the operations and maintenance of the head.

With Tony operating the harvester, Joe forwarding and loading trucks, and his younger son John running an excavator and building roads, the family was back in the harvesting business. Eventually, Joe got so good on the forwarder that Tony was having trouble keeping wood in front of him.

Expanding beyond CTL

With a fully operational CTL crew, Foresight Logging was vertically integrated into the timber buying business. Mission accomplished. Then a significant Idaho state timber sale came along with some pretty steep ground. 70% of the tract was designated as cable assist terrain. Tony figured that by using a feller buncher subcontractor and purchasing a Tigercat shovel logger to grapple the trees downhill, he could process and load trucks at roadside. He was looking at various possibilities to borrow or purchase a used winch assist machine to tether the feller buncher and shovel logger.

A friend of Tony’s offered a different idea, suggesting that Tony could purchase a shovel logger with a 5195 felling saw. This would eliminate the requirement to use a contract feller buncher. Tony could cut and shovel the entire tract himself and likely save time in the process.
In steep terrain, mating the LS857 shovel logger to the 120 is a game changer for operator Joe Zimmerman. The traction assist frees his mind to think more about production.
Tony called Jeff Casselman and explained that he needed an LS857 with a 5195 felling saw. Jeff called him back fifteen minutes later with good news. That exact configuration was sitting at the Spokane dealership and could be delivered to the job the following week.

Steep slope expert Kushiah McCullough (Factory Representative, Pacific Northwest), came out in July for the delivery of the LS857 to provide some training on the new machine. Tony wanted Joe to train on the shovel logger. John would learn to operate the 1085C and take his place on the forwarder. For the next few weeks, Tony was busy working on a bid for a timber sale, giving Joe the time and space to learn the new machine.

Kushiah also advised that Tigercat had its own winch assist that was fully integrated with and matched to the capabilities of the LS857. There was a unit in inventory on the coast available for a demo. Tony said that if he got the bid and the demonstration went well, he would commit to purchasing the unit. By this time, Joe had become well acquainted with the LS857 and working on slopes—something he hadn’t done before. “Once I got comfortable with it, I realized that you could go anywhere in these machines.”
Joe fells and shovels the trees down the slope for Tony to process. Combining felling and shovel logging functions with one machine saves time and money.
The 120 winch assist machine arrived and they hooked it to the LS857. As Tony puts it, “Joe took off like a pig in mud.” Tony ended up winning the contract. He purchased the 120, later remarking that it was probably one of the best investments he ever made. When asked about the performance of the 120, Tony replies, “The speed is everything. I’ve been around the Falcons, the TimberMax and the T-winch, and there’s a reason we bought the Tigercat.” For Tony, it reinforced that, “I just like to stay yellow.”

Joe adds, “When that 857 is hooked up to the winch, it’s full rabbit mode right up the hill — no issues. You want to be hooked up to the winch. Otherwise, a lot of your time goes into staying safe when you’re slinging the wood downhill.”

Future of Foresight

Tony currently has four of his boys working with him, and one other full-time employee who piles brush, and builds and grades roads. Sons, Anthony and Tommy are the forestry specialists. They line up the timber sales and plan out the logging operations, whether it be with subcontractors or the family logging crew. They mark diseased trees and create maps and logging plans. They are mostly self-taught but also attend classes at the University of Idaho.

Joe and John work on the logging crew with Tony. At seventeen years of age, John started operating the 1085C in August 2025. Watching him at the jobsite, it looks like he’s been doing it for years. Nineteen-year-old Joe continues to run the LS857 and Tony rounds out the crew on the LH822E harvester. And fortunately, if Tony chooses to further expand the business, he still has three more boys at home who are just waiting to get in the woods with their father and brothers.

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