James M. Guldin

James M. "Jim" Guldin is a 1975 B.S. graduate of our Forest Science program. He subsequently earned an M.F.S. in silviculture from Yale University in 1977, and a Ph.D. in silviculture and quantitative ecology from the University of Wisconsin in 1982.

After earning his doctorate, Jim taught for ten years at the School of Forest Resources at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, first as an assistant professor and then as an associate professor. He left the university in 1992 to become a research scientist with the Southern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service, and has risen through the ranks of that agency to his current position as Supervisory Research Ecologist and Project Leader for SRS-4159, Ecology and Management of Southern Pines.

Jim is responsible not only for his own research program, but also for the administration of the SRS-4159 research program (~$1.8 million annual appropriation) in forest ecology, silviculture, forest soils, and wildlife in Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. In this capacity, Jim has supervisory responsibility for 20 employees at five unit locations--Monticello, Hot Springs, and Crossett, AR; Nacogdoches, TX; and Normal, AL. Jim is also the Scientist in Charge for two Forest Service Experimental Forests: the Crossett EF in Ashley County, AR, and the Stephen F. Austin EF in Nacogdoches County, TX.

Jim's research interests are in silvicultural practices for managing naturally regenerated southern pine stands. He's known internationally for research and application of uneven-aged silviculture in intolerant southern pines. His most recent research interests are in silvicultural restoration of southern pines to promote red-cockaded woodpecker recovery, and on how the practice of silviculture must adapt to changing climatic conditions. As an extension of these research interests, Jim supervises and participates in the Southern Station's preeminent program of science delivery, training, and technology transfer for silviculture of southern pine-dominated stands centered at the Crossett EF, which recently celebrated 75 years of research. At Crossett, Jim is coordinator of the Southern Pine Module of the National Advanced Silviculture Program for the Forest Service, the required agency course for silvicultural certification for agency field foresters. In short, Jim has a passion for scientifically based practical field forestry. He is also an Arkansas Registered Forester.

Jim has received numerous honors and awards from both the Forest Service and beyond.

The number 100 is a key element of Jim's research productivity--he and his co-authors have published more than 100 papers, given 100 invited presentations, and provided more than 100 field tours on the ecology and silviculture of southern pines to a variety of audience types. Jim serves on the editorial board of Forestry, an international forest research journal published in England by Oxford University Press. Some of his other professional service includes: SAF 2013 National Convention Program Co-Chair, member of the Program Planning Committee for the 2012 SAF National Convention, 30 years as a member of the Technical Advisory Board for the Arkansas Field Office of The Nature Conservancy, and past Associate Editor for Growth and Yield for the Southern Journal of Applied Forestry.

Jim serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Oklahoma State University; in the Graduate School of the College of Agriculture at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville; in the School of Forest Resources at the University of Arkansas at Monticello; and in the School of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

Jim lives in Little Rock with his wife of 25 years, Melissa, who is the business manager for Roy Dudley Estate Sales, the high-end estate sale company in central Arkansas. The Guldins have one son, Will, who is completing his master's degree in Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and who will intern this summer at the Reading Eagle, 20 miles from Jim's home town of Kutztown.

While at Penn State, Jim sang with the Penn State Glee Club and served as president of the Glee Club in 1974-75. That started a lifelong avocation that has continued to this day. He is a charter member and stalwart in the bass section of the River City Men's Chorus in Little Rock, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary year, and he also is invited for occasional bass-baritone solo work in the Little Rock church community.

Jim's other hobbies include woodworking, weekly trips to the woods during the Arkansas bobwhite quail hunting season in January and February, and one day of fishing per month during the rest of the year, wet-wading to chase smallmouth bass in the rivers and creeks of the Arkansas Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains.