The Nature Conservancy
Fire Training & Network Coordinator
Salt Lake City, Utah
jeremy_bailey@tnc.org

Jeremy Bailey has served as a Fire Training and Fire Learning Network Coordinator for The Nature Conservancy since 2008. He developed and currently manages a respected program of fire training exchanges that each year engages approximately 120 federal, state and private fire practitioners from around the U.S.  The exchanges serve the dual purpose of treating large areas with fire while providing excellent training opportunities for both experienced fire professionals and new fire practitioners. The goal is to increase capacity for conducting ecologically appropriate prescribed burns by improving collaboration and sharing of resources across the U.S. fire community. Training exchanges are effective because they promote collaborative fire planning and implementation at high-value conservation areas.

In addition, Jeremy works as a leader and network coordinator for the Fire Learning Network (FLN). The FLN is a network of inter-organizational, landscape-level working teams who collaborate to enhance forest and grassland health and resiliency in the context of increasing vulnerability to threats such as too little, too much or the wrong kind of fire, invasive species, and climate change.

Jeremy is a qualified burn boss type two (RXB2), who plans and conducts about 10,000 acres of prescribed fire annually. He is an accomplished burn leader, has hosted national and international fire training events, and has bossed prescribed fires in seven states. He has developed experiential training programs recognized by the University of Idaho and serves on the steering committee of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council. Prior to his current position with The Nature Conservancy, Jeremy served in fire and aviation management with USFS and NPS since 1993 and has held positions including Fire Use Module supervisor, helicopter and helibase manager, Hotshot squad leader and engine crewmember, structural firefighter and EMT.

The College of Resource Management of the University of Idaho, in Moscow awarded Jeremy the 2011 Bridge Builder Award for his work developing training courses that provide opportunities for students to integrate in the field with local ecologists, firefighters and land managers. Jeremy is a regular lead instructor for NWCG prescribed fire course work and serves as Subject Matter Expert to prescribed fire organizations around the West.

Jeremy lives in Salt Lake City, Utah where he enjoys the numerous national parks and the world class snow found in the Wasatch Mountains.

Board member since August 2011.

Gary Burger

 

National Wild Turkey Federation

Gary Burger has worked with the National Wild Turkey Federation as a Registered Forester since 2008, with a primary focus on Longleaf Pine restoration across the southeast. He manages a number of wildlife habitat improvement grants and cooperative agreements from a variety of sources such as the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These programs have helped NWTF and its partners restore over 13,000 acres of longleaf pine over the last four years, with an overall goal of 20,000 acres within the next two years. Understory plant restoration and the use of prescribed fire for restoration and management of longleaf pine are integral components of these programs.

Gary also works closely with the U.S. Forest Service managing Stewardship Contracts and Agreements as part of NWTF’s Stewardship Services working group. He actively integrates grant funding into these Stewardship Projects and builds partnerships with local industry, other NGO’s, and state wildlife and forestry agencies to accomplish a broad range of wildlife habitat objectives. His work as a liaison to the Southern Group of State Foresters and the National Association of State Foresters helps lay the foundation for many of these partnerships, as well as developing support for NWTF’s Regional Biologist programs.

Gary’s longleaf experience and prescribed fire expertise was developed over 12 years as the first trained forester of The Hitchcock Woods in Aiken, SC. While there he developed their first Forest Management Plan and reintroduced selective timbering and prescribed burning to the 2,000-acre urban recreational forest. The Hitchcock Woods now serves as a successful model for the use of prescribed fire in the wildland urban interface.

Gary has a B.S. (’93) and an M.S. (’96) in Forest Resources Management from Clemson University. He has recently served as the Chairman for the South Carolina Prescribed Fire Council. He has also helped develop an affordable Prescribed Burning Liability Insurance product available to private landowners in the southeast through NWTF. He regularly participates in outreach and education activities including landowner field days and seminars, national conventions, and NWTF magazine articles and television programs.

James R. Erickson was contracted as the Intertribal Timber Council Fire Technical Specialist in October 2002. He has a twenty-five year career working in Indian Forestry for the Colville Confederated Tribes where he was the Director of Colville Tribal Forestry and the alternate representative to the Intertribal Timber Council.

Jim began his career with the US Forest Service on the Beaverhead National Forest in 1975. He worked briefly for Weyerhaeuser Corporation and Boise Cascade, before going to work for the Colville Tribe in 1977. His experience with the Tribe included overseeing forest development, writing silvicultural prescriptions, and administering the Tribal Forestry program. Erickson’s tenure with the Intertribal Timber Council included participating in development and passage of PL 101-630, the Indian Forest Resource Management Act, which currently directs federal actions on Indian forests.

Erickson was born in Williston, North Dakota and grew up in Washington State. He graduated from Washington State University with a bachelors of Science degree in Forest Management. He also attended the institute for Continuing Education in Forest Ecology and Silviculture (CEFES) through Washington State University, the University of Idaho, and the University of Montana. Erickson also attended the Washington State Agriculture and Forestry Leadership program.

Jim is currently a private Forestry consultant doing work for the Intertribal Timber Council.

Board member since July 2010.

 

Sand County Foundation

President

Monona, Wisconsin

brent.haglund@prescribedfire.net

 

Dr. Brent M. Haglund is President of Sand County Foundation. He earned a Ph.D in ecology from the University of Georgia where he studied with Eugene Odum and Frank Golley. His research interests had been in ecosystem level effects of weather modification, fire management, and wildlife populations.

Since moving to Wisconsin in the early 1980s from a research position in Montana, Haglund has been continuously involved in private conservation. First, he was Director of Land Stewardship for the Wisconsin Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and then State Director for that group. Second, beginning in 1988 Haglund has been active promulgating a land ethic of Aldo Leopold through support of landowner-driven conservation. Sand County Foundation operates internationally with five major programs each of which reinforces landowner conservation with good science and meaningful incentives.

Dr. Haglund was ecological consultant to the Wisconsin Legislative Council on non-point water pollution, was a member of the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission, is a member of the Executive Committee of the Wisconsin Public Utility Institute, and was a private sector conservation advisor to the Cabinet of Premier Nick Greiner, New South Wales, Australia. His latest book, "Hands on Environmentalism" Encounter Books (2005) was co-authored with Tom Still.

Board member since November 2008.

Pete Lahm - Liaison

 

Forest Service
Air Resource Specialist

Washington, DC

plahm@fs.fed.us

Pete Lahm is the Fire Weather and Air Quality Specialist for the USDA Forest Service, Fire and Aviation Management, Fuels and Fire Ecology Branch in Washington, DC.  Starting in 2004, Pete has led the Forest Service’s smoke management efforts developing technical approaches and policies related to smoke impacts from prescribed fire, wildland fire use and wildfires.  Since late 2006 he has chaired the Fire and Air Coordination Team (FACT) and been a member of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Fire Environment Working Team. Prior to 2004, Pete managed the Arizona Interagency Air Resource and Smoke Management Program. He chaired the Western Regional Air Partnership’s Fire Emissions Joint Forum from 1996-2004 where numerous national and regional scale smoke management policies and technical approaches were developed. Pete also owns a small business consulting in automotive rally racing and holds a Master’s of Environmental Management from Duke University.       

Board liaison since November 2008.

L. Keville Larson - Secretary/Treasurer

Larson & McGowin, Inc.
Chairman of the Board
Mobile, Alabama
keville.larson@prescribedfire.net

Keville Larson is Chairman of Larson & McGowin, Inc. a forestry consulting firm with offices in several Southern States and headquartered in Mobile, Alabama. He has been associated with the firm since 1961. He holds a BA from Stanford University and a Master of Forestry from Yale University. He is a registered forester in several states and has served as an officer or board member for a number of forestry organizations including the Association of Consulting Foresters, Forest Landowners Association, Alabama Forestry Association and Forest Industries Committee for Timber Valuation and Taxation. In 2000 he was the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters and a SAF Certified Forester and has been a member of the Board of Forest History Society since 2003. Keville is married and has two children who are sixth generation Alabama landowners. He has been an advocate for private owners and a long time proponent of prescribed burning and management of natural stands, and currently works on several longleaf tracts in South Alabama and Mississippi for his family. He has worked with a number of community and arts organizations in Mobile, Alabama.

Board member since November 2008.

Mark Melvin - Chair

Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center
Conservation Management/ Education Technician
Newton, Georgia
mark.melvin@prescribedfire.net

Mark Melvin is employed at the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center at Ichauway, Inc. located in Newton, Georgia. Mark has 20 years of private land management experience in the south and approximately 100,000 acres of prescribed fire experience.  At Ichauway, he works with conservation management and education staff to promote the appropriate use of prescribed fire. Some of his outreach efforts include; prescribed fire short courses that provide “hands-on” experience, participation with numerous university courses for undergraduate and graduate programs, private landowner outreach, and partners with many natural resource management agencies. Over the last four years, Mark’s primary focus has been working with prescribed fire councils at state, regional, and national levels. He is the past-chair, current vice-chair, of the Georgia Prescribed Fire Council and the current chair of the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils. The Coalition’s efforts have led to the development of an extensive communication network among prescribed fire practitioners.

Board member since November 2008.

Dan Smith