Fourth-generation siblings Jake Hickman and Jessica Hickman Fresch have stepped into leadership of the family’s Emlenton-based hardwood businesses after the death of their father late last year, working to rebuild operations after a fire while also navigating workforce shortages and a changing industry.
The brother-and-sister team is about four months into carrying on Hickman Lumber, Allegheny Mountain Hardwoods and Hickman Timber Management after their father, Denny Hickman, passed away Nov. 27.
The companies trace their roots to a sawmill founded in the 1930s, in Lisbon, by their great-grandfather Harry Hickman Jr., and have long been part of western Pennsylvania’s hardwood industry.
The transition comes at a challenging time.
The company is still recovering from a 2024 fire and operating below capacity, relying in part on outside partners to process logs.
Staffing remains a persistent issue. It’s far short of the roughly 30 needed for full production.
“It’s been difficult finding people,” Jake Hickman said. “I’d like to have about 30. Right now, I think I only have about 10.”
Jessica Hickman Fresch, said, “Even when the economy got better, we weren’t able to get enough people to max out production.”
She said the labor shortage extends beyond their operation and threatens the broader industry. “If we lose the sawmills, the foresters and the loggers, there’s a trickle-down of jobs lost.”
The hurdles
Industrywide challenges are adding pressure as demand for hardwood products continues to decline.
“There are lots of sawmills around that are going out of business, too,” Jessica Hickman Fresch said. “We don’t have newspapers printing anymore. There’s just less and less, which is sad.”
She said part of the downturn is tied to reduced demand from the decline in paper product needs and an economy where people do not have the budgets to invest in long-term, higher-costing hardwood flooring, reflecting a broader shrinking market.
She also expounded on how the industry involves forest management creating a healthier natural environment for the trees and carbon footprint.
Recent retirements have compounded the issue.
Several longtime employees — including a saw filer, forklift operator and maintenance worker — retired in the past five years after more than four decades each, highlighting both the company’s deep roots and the aging workforce across the industry.
Despite the challenges, the Hickmans said they remain focused on continuing a multigenerational business that spans forest management, logging and a finished wood product.
“We have a lot of good people that do great work,” Jake Hickman said.
The operation
Jake Hickman oversees day-to-day sawmill operations on-site, while Jessica Hickman Fresch manages marketing and the company’s flooring division from Pittsburgh, traveling to meet clients and represent the business at trade shows across the country and internationally.
The company manages roughly 7,000 acres of forestland, with three foresters managing them, and produces high-end flooring from wood species of red and white oak to lesser-used poplar and walnut.
Its sawmill was among the first in Pennsylvania to earn Forest Stewardship Council certification, and its operations are designed to minimize waste.
“Nothing goes to waste,” Jake Hickman said while giving a tour of the sawmill and showing how even the sawdust is used in the boiler system for the kilns.
Jessica Hickman Fresch said promoting hardwood as a durable and environmentally beneficial material will be key to the company’s future.
“We need to be using more wood, if you care about the forests,” she said.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s Hardwoods Development Council, the state has the most abundant hardwood forest in the United States and generates billions of dollars in economic impact, even as the industry faces workforce shortages, declining markets and supply-chain challenges.
For the Hickmans, attracting a new generation to the industry remains one of the biggest hurdles.
In response, Jake Hickman has gone to career fairs at schools and the family established a scholarship in their father’s memory to encourage careers in forestry and logging.
“We did the scholarship for dad when he passed away,” Jessica Hickman Fresch said. “It’s called ‘The Denny Hickman Scholarship: Get Outside and Do Stuff,’” which can be found through the Bridge Builders Community Foundations website.
Joining the business
Both siblings said they did not initially plan to work in the family business, as college careers had been encouraged.
“Dad never pushed us to be a part of it,” Jessica Hickman Fresch said. “I think he wanted us to choose. If we came back, it was because we wanted to. If we came back, we brought more to the table.”
Jake Hickman studied history at Penn State and worked in construction before returning full time in 2008.
Jessica Hickman Fresch, who studied international business and Spanish, joined in 2012 after her goal of working with a meaningful and beneficial product became apparent right at home in the family business.
Their great-grandfather’s path into the industry began after he moved to the Emlenton area to pursue the love of his life, Eleanore Vorous Hickman, and learned the trade from her father, who was a logger.
Now leading the companies, the siblings said their focus is on rebuilding capacity, adapting to modern challenges and preserving a family legacy that has endured for nearly a century.
