Pennsylvania Forestry Association: #forestproud

In October, I was honored to be elected the Pennsylvania Forestry Association's 39th president and humbled to be included in the company of past leaders like our first president, Dr. Joseph T. Rothrock. Serving in a volunteer leadership capacity like this was not on my radar screen when I started my career as an area forester with the New Jersey Bureau of Forestry 52 years ago. I was very at home in the woods preparing forest management plans and helping forest owners conduct timber harvest, pre-commercial thinning, and reforestation projects. Over the years, I realized that all of us must become "forestry activists" if we want to be able to continue to practice forest, wildlife, and natural resource management on our forest lands. During my career, a Montana logger friend of mine, Bruce Vincent, coined the phrase, "The world is run by those who show up." Over the next two years, I plan to ask PFA members to "show up" so we can regain the label we once held, "The voice of Pennsylvania forestry."

My goal is to continue the positive upward movement in PFA's growth, communications and forestry education projects, and activities established by past PFA Presidents Robb Piper and Gene Odato. My association management philosophy is that there is nothing we have done in the past that cannot be improved in the future. We will be working hard to complete the transition of the Pennsylvania Tree Farm Program from a recognition to a certification program. The PFA website will undergo a "remodel" in 2018. We will continue our record of accomplishment of annually publishing four issues of Pennsylvania Forests magazine and 12 issues of the Forestry News You Can Use e-newsletter. Plans are also underway to put even more dollars and energy into the "Walk in Penn's Woods" Program in 2018. If you are a PFA member, I offer my thanks. If you are not a member, you should be. Annual membership dues are only $30, and I'll personally pay one half of your first year of new membership dues if you join before January 31, 2018. Just send a check for $15 (made out to PFA) to me at 148 Crooked Creek Road, Gettysburg, PA 17325 with your address, phone number, and email address. I will add in the other $15 and we will make it happen.

I was recently challenged to continue to upgrade my social media skills by joining Twitter. I guess that makes me a "twit" who sends tweets! You may have noticed that Twitter users use hashtag (#) abbreviations to communicate more efficiently with the only 140 characters they are allowed in each Twitter message.

I'm very proud of what we've done at PFA over the past few years, as well as what we are planning to do in the future. PFA members should be, too! So as PFA President, I'm establishing the policy that over the next two years we will be expressing our pride in everything we do at PFA with the #forestproud hashtag. I will start using this hashtag in all my PFA communications and you will see it showing up in many other PFA communications. And in my case, it will be right alongside of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's hashtag #resourcefirst, where I serve as a Commissioner.

For more information about the Pennsylvania Forestry Association or about becoming a member, visit the website or call 800-835-8065.