Amber Yokum handles heavy logs many times her weight and doesn’t think twice about it. Not that it’s easy – she’s clear on that point, especially to guys who don’t believe it’s a tough job just because a girl is doing it. 

“Sometimes they give me a hard time when I tell them it’s not easy,” she laughs. “That’s irritating but I just let it go. They’re too bullheaded to listen anyway.” But she wouldn’t mind getting one of them out to the job site to prove it.

Unlike the others, her boyfriend, a carpenter, is really impressed by what she does. As he should be.

21-year-old Amber, from Chaneysville, PA is one of the few women in the country who have chosen logging as their career. She has a steady job working in the woods with her father and brother. She runs the loader, a Prentice 325, on logging operations for their company, Yokum and Sons Logging and Trucking. Yes, Sons.

“That’s the name of the company because it used to be my dad and two brothers,” she explains. “My other brother moved away and doesn’t work with us anymore. But we’re keeping the name like that for now.” For now.

The company cuts cordwood, pine logs and pulpwood for a variety of customers in the region. They own two International skidders, one Dresser dozer, an older Tree-King loader along with the Prentice, and two trucks, a Peterbilt and a Kenworth, with two log trailers. 

Amber considers herself lucky that her father, Sam Yokum, asked her to start working with them when she was 18. As far as he’s concerned, he likes her working in the woods. 

“I was never interested in working at the mall or someplace like that,” Amber says. “When I was younger I liked driving the farm tractors. I really enjoy working the loader and being outside.”

She learned to operate the loader on the job but it helped that she was used to running other equipment.