Plenary Speakers

 

 

 

 

Thomas Jackson is the Director of Forest Diversity and Inclusion responsible for recruiting, managing, and retaining relationships with diverse landowners and minority owned logging and forestry partner companies; and overseeing the heirs property support portfolio for Enviva. He has over 19 years of experience in the forestry industry, including the past year spent with Enviva. Thomas also leads recruiting for minority participation for field vendor opportunities, primarily LCAP; and co-leads the Enviva Heirs Property Fund, along with the Vice President of Equity, Inclusion, and Impact.

Prior to joining Enviva, Thomas spent three years at ArborGen Incorporated as a Reforestation Advisor, and fourteen years at Weyerhaeuser Company of which he served nine years as the Southeast Region Seedling Sales Manager. As a Reforestation Advisor and Regional Seedling Sales Manager, he was responsible for planning and managing seedling sales and operations, and other sales related activities such as contract negotiation, inventory and harvest operations, and product distribution and logistics. 

Thomas currently serves on the 2023 National Convention Program Committee for Society of American Foresters, and is a member of the North Carolina Forestry Association and the Forestry Association of South Carolina. He is a graduate of Alabama A&M University, with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry. Thomas currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife and children.

Krause is a diversity, equity, and belonging advocate for the forestry community as the Outreach Coordinator in the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science at Michigan Technological University, where they introduce student populations to career and degree opportunities within natural resources. They have a BS in Criminal Justice, a minor in wildland firefighting, and recently completed their Master of Forestry degree from Michigan Tech after several seasons being a wildland firefighter in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Their passion for diversity and forestry cannot help but collide in their day-to-day work, but especially as the chair for the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science diversity committee, the secretary of the Diversity and Inclusion working group for SAF, communications chair of the Michigan SAF chapter, and as an advocate at other conferences around the US. Krause's passion stems from not wanting LGBTQ+ folks or other minoritized individuals to feel the same way they did going into the natural resource profession. 

James Lewis has been the staff historian at the Forest History Society since 2003. He is the author of two books on the USDA Forest Service and published numerous articles on different aspects of forest history. For the last fifteen years, he has served as the editor of the Society’s magazine Forest History Today and its blog Peeling Back the Bark. He is one of the executive producers and a co-writer of the Emmy Award–winning film about Carl Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School called America’s First Forest. His next book will be a history of the Yale School of the Environment. 

Nisogaabokwe – Melonee Montano, is a mother, grandmother, and an enrolled member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Outreach Specialist for Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) where she helps assess climate change impacts on treaty resources and potential threats to Ojibwe culture and lifeways. She is also a graduate student at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities in the Natural Resources Science & Management Program under the Forestry Department. Prior to GLIFWC she was Red Cliff’s Environmental Programs Manager where she has also served on various committees including EPA’s Regional Tribal Operations Committee, Alliance for Sustainability, Treaty Natural Resources, the Integrated Resources Management Plan, and is currently serving on the Great Lakes Compact Commission. She holds a BS degree in Healthcare Administration with a Native American and Environmental Studies emphasis. Lastly and most importantly, she is a lifelong student of her cultural ways.

Linda Nagel, PhD, has over 23 years of experience as a professor of silviculture. She has a long record of directing, teaching, and facilitating professional training courses and workshops, including the National Advanced Silviculture Program for the USDA Forest Service. Nagel co-leads the Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) Network aimed at bringing together practitioners and scientists to co-develop adaptive forest management practices in the face of climate change. This high-impact research and outreach project is translating climate adaptation theory into practice, with 14 research sites across North America, and includes over 100 partners. Nagel has served on the faculty at Michigan Technological University, the University of Minnesota where she also served as Director of Operations of the Cloquet Forestry Center and the Hubachek Wilderness Research Center, and Colorado State University where she was Department Head. She is now Dean of the S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources at Utah State University. Nagel has received awards and recognition for teaching excellence, efforts toward diversity and inclusion in natural resources, outreach and service to forestry professionals, and leadership of the ASCC Network for its contributions and broad impact to forest science and management.