Skip navigation

About Us

Concurrent Sessions

All Concurrent Sessions will take place on the second day of the Convention, July 26th. Check back for more information on exact times and locations and new sessions.

 

Healthy Woods

- Hiking Trail Design

-Intro to Geocaching

-Restoring Oak: Landscape Approach

-The Minnesota Harvester Handbook

 

Healthy Wildlife

- Timber Management for White Tailed Deer

-Manage your Woodlands for Songbird Habitat

 

Healthy Future

- Free the Trees: Policies against Pests.

- Changing the Wood Conversation

 

Women's Track

- How to Win Forestry Friends and Influence People

- Sharing Your Woods Online

 

Healthy Woods

Hiking Trail Design

Speaker: Dr. Mel Baughman, Professor Emeritus University of Minnesota

Forest owners will learn how to design, construct, and maintain sustainable hiking trails that hold up to intensive recreational use and severe weather conditions.  It will cover all steps in trail design, including how to: determine trail uses, select the trail corridor, establish trail design standards, mark exact trail location, clear the trail, and construct the tread, install structures to cross obstacles (e.g., a hillside, slopes and cliffs, wet soil, waterways and gullies, roads and fences), sign the trail, and install facilities that support the trail. 

Dr. Baughman is a Professor Emeritus from the University of Minnesota, Department of Forest Resources.  He taught a three credit class on trail design at the University of Minnesota for several years and provided dozens of seminars and field trips on trail design for family forest landowners and the natural resource professionals who advise them.  He also does free consulting on trail projects for public agencies and nonprofit organizations.

Use Geocaching to Explore and Monitor your Forest

Speaker: Stephen Connolly, VP Minnesota Geocaching Association 

Geocaching is an individual  or family activity which millions of outdoors enthusiasts enjoy worldwide.  This presentation will give a brief overview of this game which combines the high technology of global positioning systems with the thrill of an old fashioned treasure hunt.   

Stephen Connolly is a production specialist at UPM/Blandin Paper Company in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.  UPM/Blandin is a forest industry leader in the manufacturing of high quality magazine grade printing papers.  Mr. Connolly has been geocaching since July of 2005, and currently serves as Vice President of the Minnesota Geocaching Association.                   

Restoring Oak on Private Lands; a landscape approach

Speakers:Mike Finlay and Carol Nielsen from WI DNR

Forest owners and managers will learn about the importance of oak on the landscape and how they can help address the decline in oak stands. Focus will be on the importance of landowners deeply understanding oak silviculture and how it relates specifically to their oak regeneration attempts. Once landowners have developed their understanding, we will present the tools to help them reach out to their neighbors and deliver a proper and effective forestry message based on finding from an innovative outreach attempt in Southwest Wisconsin.

Carol Nielsen graduated from UW Stevens Point with a bachelor’s degree in Forest Management.  She has been a forester with the WDNR since 1984.  Her career has spanned the state from north to south and field to central office.  Her field experience includes working with private woodland owners  in both Sawyer County and Iowa County. In her current position she is responsible for the administration of the Wisconsin Forest Landowner Grant Program, the Cooperating Forester Program and interaction with a wide variety of private forestry partners including the Wisconsin Tree Farm Committee and the Driftless Forestry Network.

Mike Finlay is a forester for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources servicing private landowners in Richland County, WI. He specializes in helping landowners manage their forests for high quality sawlogs while providing wildlife, ecological, and social benefits. Mike has a B.S. in Forest Management from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO.

The Minnesota Harvester Handbook

Speaker:  David Wilsey, University of Minnesota

Participants in this session will be introduced to a new publication, the Minnesota Harvester Handbook. The Handbook is the culmination of several years of collaborative work among educators, forest resource managers and harvester communities in Minnesota. It provides a framework for exploring and learning about non-timber forest products that includes product biology and ecology, markets, policy considerations, and social factors. Moreover, it offers users multiple points of entry to more meaningful incorporation of natural resources into their lifestyles and livelihoods. This is a great resource for forest owners and resource users!

David Wilsey, Ph.D. is a lecturer and program coordinator for the Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) degree program at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Prior to joining the Humphrey School this July, Dave was an Associate Extension Professor / Educator in Forestry. His program and research efforts focus on socio-economic aspects of natural resource management such as natural resource livelihood strategies, natural resource enterprises, market-based conservation, and community-based development. His specific areas of expertise include non-timber forest products, value chains, and certification.

Healthy Wildlife

 

Timber Management for White-Tailed Deer

Speaker: Matthew Ross from the Quality Deer Management Association

Timber management can produce income for the landowner; however, it can also be the major reason for quality wildlife habitat. This presentation will discuss sustainable forest management as it relates to even and uneven-aged silvicultural techniques, as well as how managing hardwood and coniferous stands of trees may differ under a quality deer management program.

Matthew D. Ross is a native of upstate New York, he received his B.S. in Wildlife conservation from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and his M.S. in Wildlife Ecology from the University of New Hampshire. He has worked as a wildlife biologist and forester in southeastern NH before joining the Quality Deer Management Association in 2006. He is a Certified Wildlife Biologist, a NH Licensed Forester and an American Tree Farm inspector.

Manage your Woodlands for Songbird Habitat

Speaker: Brad Hutnik and John Nielsen from Wisconsin DNR 

We will discuss forest interior songbird habitat from a landscape perspective down to the influence individual woodland owners have on habitat.  We will present specific habitat needs of individual bird species and how landowners can contribute and understand how their actions can improve forest interior song bird habitat.  We will also present a landowner perspective on the impact 20 years of active woodland management  has had on the songbirds on their property in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin.

Brad Hutnik is a Forest Ecologist / Silviculturist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, stationed in Madison.  As silviculturist, Brad serves statewide forest ecology and silviculture programs with responsibility for developing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating both programs and policies.  Brad graduated with a bachelor’s degree in forest management from The University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point in 1994. Before joining the DNR, Brad interned with Consolidated Papers (now New Page) and worked for the Lake County Forest Preserve District (Lake Co., IL) and Clark Forestry (Baraboo, WI) as a staff forester.  He lives in Spring Green, WI with his wife and family. 

John Nielsen received a Forestry Degree in 1982 from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. John has worked as a forester for the DNR for over 28 years and is currently the Southern District Forestry Leader where he coordinates Wisconsin’s forestry efforts in the southern 27 counties of Wisconsin, including the Driftless Area.  He is a member of the Driftless Forestry Network steering committee. He and his wife Carol practice forestry at their Tree Farm in Richland County, Wisconsin. John and Carol have two children in college, Mathew and Kristina.  They reside in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.

Healthy Future

Free the Trees: Policies to get rid of pests

Speaker: Christine Cadigan, AFF Public Affairs Manager

Emerald Ash Borer. Asian longhorned beetle. Sudden oak death. Cogongrass. What’s next? Will it ever end? Learn what federal policies are protecting our forests from these seemingly endless threats and how you can help ensure these policies are working as effectively and efficiently as possible.  Also help us work to spread the word to other landowners, so they can be ready to stop the spread, too.

Christine Cadigan is a Public Affairs Manager at the American Forest Foundation. She first joined AFF in February 2011 as the Public Affairs and Conservation Coordinator and then moved into the Manager role shortly thereafter. Prior to AFF, Christine completed Masters’ degrees in both Forestry and Environmental Management from Duke University, concentrating her studies on woody biomass supply and demand in the Southeast.  Christine has brief experiences working with the USFS Southern Research Station, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Virginia Department of Forestry. She is originally from Richmond, Virginia and completed her undergraduate studies in biology at the University of Virginia.

Changing the Wood Conversation

Speaker: Melissa Moeller, AFF Public Affairs Manager

Wood is good—good for the environment, for conservation, and for the economy.  However, we have seen policies pop up at the federal, state, and local level that discriminate against the use of wood and even forest products more broadly.  Learn about efforts to change public policies and the broader conversation around wood and how you can be an effective advocate. 

Melissa Moeller has been a Public Affairs Manager for the American Forest Foundation since February 2010.  She manages grassroots advocacy programs and influences public policy issues important to family forest owners.  Prior to joining the staff at AFF, Melissa worked for the National School Boards Association (NSBA), where she increased engagement in grassroots advocacy programs and supported federal education policy initiatives.  Prior to NSBA, Melissa also worked for the United Motorcoach Association.  Melissa received her MA in Political Communication from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD and her BS in Psychology and Political Science from Furman University in Greenville, SC.

Women's Track


How to Win Forestry Friends and Influence People

Speakers: Melissa Moeller and Christine Cadigan, AFF Public Affairs Managers

Whether we like it or not, public policies play a role in our woodlands, impacting the health of our woods and the future for our families.  Learn how you can play a role in influencing public policies.  Often it’s not about being an expert on the policy details—it’s about building relationships and sharing your Tree Farm’s story.  

See Healthy Future for speaker bios.


Sharing Your Woods Online

Speakers: Emily Patterson, AFF Website Manager

You love your woods. And when you love something, you want to share it. This session looks at how you can use new online tools to share photos and stories with friends, family, ATFS and other woodland owners. First, get familiar with the latest trend in social media, the image sharing site Pinterest, where women worldwide share beautiful photos and delicious recipes. Then, check out our Facebook page and tell us how we can make it more relevant for you. Finally, learn about how you can share your stories with other woodland owners on My Land Plan and the Tree Farm System website.

Emily Patterson comes to marketing and web design from a background in journalism. After graduating from Ohio University's Scripps School of Journalism, Emily took a copy editing position at China Daily, China's largest English-language newspaper. She worked with an international team of journalists to start Asia Weekly, a magazine with news and features from across Asia.

After returning to the US in 2008, Emily turned her eye for writing and design to the  field of website design and management. She worked as the web content manager for the Better Business Bureau headquarters, where she wrote, designed graphics and oversaw analytics for a website that receives nearly 7 million visitors a month. She is currently the Web Communications Manager for American Forest Foundation where she has been instrumental in growing traffic, enhancing usability and increasing conversions on the organization's four websites.