Page 139 - Tattnall County

learn it or they don’t last long. Of the fourteen men Mike employs, any one of them would as soon work in an air-conditioned cab as pick up a shovel and dig a hole in the summer’s heat. They do whatever he asks of them. What some may see as a motley crew is in reality some of the most dedicated and hardworking men a business owner could ever hope to fnd. “These guys are an integral part of what it takes to make it in biomass harvesting,” said Mike. He once heard Robert Mearns, a business consultant say, “Success in business is 15% knowledge and 75% relationship.” Mike believes this is a key principle to making things work whether it’s in a high-rise business offce or deep in the woods with a crew of men. Mike learned the value of relationships and strong work ethics on his family’s fve hundred acre farm. As a young child his father put him

in a peanut feld pulling weeds with a group of hardworking women while his older brother plowed the felds. Mike learned to work alongside people and to work hard whether it was pulling weeds or grading onions. His father was one of the frst to grow onions in Tattnall County. What would become the infamous “Vidalia Onions” were then bagged and shipped under the name “Glennville Sweet Onions.” He believes that those women and feld workers are partly the reason why he enjoys being in the woods alongside of his men or talking with landowners. He understands how important the land is to these people. It’s a part of them as much as the land that has been in his family for generations.

Mike’s parents are extraordinary people. His father, Dickey Collins, whose body was crippled by polio as a young child, worked his farm with