James M. Cowan

James M. Cowan knew when he was a junior in high school that he wanted to pursue a degree in forestry at Penn State. He was offered admission to “main campus” but heeded his brother’s recommendation and enrolled in the “freshman forestry” program at Penn State Mont Alto. Brother Les was a Penn State forestry graduate and a procurement forester with Penn Tech Paper Company.

The sense of community at Mont Alto that first year became central to Jim’s alliance with Penn State. When he transitioned to University Park a year later, he and several classmates joined Tau Phi Delta, a professional forestry fraternity, in which he is still active today. Between Jim’s junior and senior year, he joined International Paper Company in Maine as an intern field forester.

After completing the B.S. in Forest Science in spring 1978, Jim went to work as a contract logger for the U.S. Forest Service and the PA Game Commission, harvesting blown-down black cherry in the Alleghany National Forest and state game lands. Later that year he accepted a job as a field forester with Kocjancic and Horn Consulting Forestry Firm in Kane, Pennsylvania. Both Kocjancic and Horn were also Penn State forestry graduates. Jim’s primary duty was to help with the inventory and evaluation of the 200,000+ acres of Seneca Resources land holdings located in northcentral PA and southcentral NY. He also assisted with regeneration analysis in parts of the Alleghany National Forest, marking private timber sales, and the surveying of woodland properties.

In 1980, Jim accepted a seasonal U.S. Forest Service position with the Toiyabe National Forest in northern, central, and western Nevada. His duties included the layout and management of timber sales, firewood sales, juniper fence post sales, and pinion pine nut sales. He also assisted in forest fire suppression. Much of the work was done on horseback.

Upon returning from Nevada, Jim worked as a research technician for Penn State’s Land and Water Research Institute, under the direction of Drs. David DeWalle and William Sharpe. One of his main focuses was on acid snow study within the Mellon Estate, located near Ligonier, PA. He constructed a weather station, a stream monitoring station, and ground water collection sites. Jim also participated in biomass production studies involving short-rotation, hybrid-poplar plantations, both as a proposed energy source for cogeneration power plants and toward the production of ethanol as an additive to diesel fuel.

As funding for the Penn State studies concluded, Jim established his own forest consulting business, Alleghany Foresters and Consultants, located near State College, PA, in 1982.

Over the next forty years Jim grew his business, building an all-important landowner clientele base throughout Pennsylvania and bordering states and also developing relationships with other timber professionals. He promoted sustainable forestry and instructed his clientele on “best practices” that considered the biologic potential of their resource ownerships as well as their management objectives.

As a private consultant, Jim managed over 20,000 acres of woodland, selling an average of 3 million board feet of timber per year, managing several large industrial ownerships, and numerous municipally owned forests in the Centre County region. Jim was certified in writing Forest Stewardship plans and serving as a Pennsylvania Tree Farm inspector. He was recognized by way of a Pennsylvania Tree Farm of the Year Award in Clinton County and a Number One Tree Farm Award in Mifflin County.

While running his forest consulting business, Jim also established Two Rock Stone Company in 1998 with an emphasis on architectural stone appointments. This enterprise included 13 employees, multiple pieces of excavation equipment and sales of over 500 tons of stone per year. Marketing focused on outlets in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Jim sold the business in 2004.

Jim served as Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in Huston Township, Centre County from 2004 to 2022. During this period, he expanded the township’s service capabilities. As he started, the township had a 2-mil tax rate, was $12,000 in debt, had a collection of old and well-used equipment, and no storage for these items. As Jim left his position in 2022, the township had a 1.85-mil tax rate, a budget surplus of $800,000, new and updated equipment, and a 5,000-square-foot metal storage building.

Jim is a life member of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association, Trout Unlimited, Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, and the National Rifle Association. He has had affiliations with numerous conservation and professional organizations, including the Society of American Foresters, The Association of Consulting Foresters, Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and the National Wild Turkey Federation.

Jim recently established a long-term scholarship fund at Penn State Mont Alto built upon a shared capital reserve, with the scholarships directed to undergraduates in Forestry or Allied Health Sciences. He also is planning a similar gift for Tau Phi Delta, with the proceeds to be used for renovations and maintenance of their fraternity house.

Jim and his wife Lisa have shown their three daughters the wonder of travel through foreign countries and still enjoy the simplicity of family camping. Jim has “stepped foot” on all seven continents and visited all fifty states in the USA. The quote, “Life is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page” (Saint Augustine), has become a favorite within the Cowan family.
                                                                                                                                                                                   April 2024