When we met Merritt, we were struck by how deeply he understood the forestry industry. He spent two years living in a small logging town in California, working alongside timber crews to learn why the industry was losing operators faster than it could replace them. That immersion shaped a pragmatic strategy: start with remote operation to solve the labor shortage today, then use every hour in the field to build toward autonomy. Today, Kodama is already running in commercial production with leading timberland owners and integrated with the industry’s largest equipment manufacturers.