Model Forest Policy Program

Staff

Nancy Gilliam, Ph.D., Executive Director

Dr. Gilliam initiated the Model Forest Policy Program in 2000, and directed our first assessment of the effectiveness of existing forest law, as well as the design of a model law governing private forested lands. Dr. Gilliam holds a Masters Degree in Counseling and a Ph.D. in Psychology, and has over 25 years of extensive experience in research, group leadership, organizational development, group process training, and in conducting interviews. She has monitored timber practices and sales, provided detailed input to the Forest Plan Revisions, and inventoried and helped draft protection policies on the unprotected wild lands of the Jefferson National Forest. In 1998, she initiated a bill that passed the Virginia General Assembly requiring a legislative study of the impacts of chip mills on the economy and environment of Virginia.

William Paddock, Project Director [TN]

William Paddock joined MFPP in October to lead a multi-year project with the City of Cookeville and Putnam County in Tennessee. While working with MFPP, William continues to manage his consulting firm, WAP Sustainability, a boutique consulting firm helping businesses and organizations implement sustainability strategies. William will also be the first graduate of the Institute for Sustainable Practice at Lipscomb University with a MBA focused on Sustainability. Previous work experience includes M&M Mars, Environmental Protection Agency, and Smart Data Strategies.

Toby Thaler, Policy Advisor

Toby is a lawyer and policy analyst working with environmental groups and others on forestry, fisheries, water quality, development, and environmental review. After working for Indian Tribes from 1978 to 1986, he became first staff attorney at the Washington Environmental Council in the mid 1990s. From 1998 through 2006, he was with the Washington Forest Law Center, where he advocated for improvements to the regulation of forest practices on 11,000,000 acres of non-federal forest lands in Washington State.

Brian Paddock, Policy Advisor [TN]

Attorney Brian Paddock has lived in Jackson County, Tennessee for more than 25 years. He has extensive knowledge of environmental law. For more that 10 years he has worked on projects to improve the protection of Tennessee's heritage hardwood forest and the world class freshwater biology of our streams and wetlands. As a resident of the Highland Rim, he studied the impacts of growth on the watersheds, forest and farms of the Upper Cumberland Plateau Counties.

Karen Lamb, Project Coordinator

Ms. Lamb is an environmental educator, past director of two environmental organizations, and a curriculum writer. With a Master's Degree in Environmental Education, she was a naturalist at several outdoor education centers and the Columbus Metropolitan Park District. While with the park district she initiated and conducted a popular series of environmental education workshops for teachers. Contracted by The Nature Conservancy, Ms. Lamb wrote Project Conserve: A Curriculum Covering Topics in Conservation Biology. In 1999 she founded Earth Day Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and coordinated the organization for 7 years, then directed Climate Change Action Network, in north Idaho, for its first year of existence.

MFPP Nashville Conference, 2002

MFPP Advisory Committee

Clint Trammel, Rolla, Missouri

Mr. Trammel was the Forest Manager of Pioneer Forest for twenty-nine years of his thirty-seven year career there. Located on 154,000 acres in the Missouri Ozarks, Pioneer has demonstrated over more than 55 years that silviculture can simultaneously be an economic, biological, and recreational success by applying uneven-aged forest management techniques. Mr. Trammel holds B. S. degree in Forest Management and a Masters Degree in Resource Economics from the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He was the founder and first Chairman of the Missouri Consulting Foresters Association in 1981 and has been actively involved with the Forest Guild since its beginning in 1995. He was also associated with National Timber Consultants of Salem, Missouri for 35 years while at Pioneer.

Gene Hyde, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Mr. Hyde has served as the City Forester for the City of Chattanooga since 1990 and is also the Chair of the Chattanooga Green Committee. He has served in leadership positions of both state and international urban forestry organizations and is considered a subject matter expert in the field. He has done grants work in the Ural Mountains regarding greenways.

Fiona Crofton, Ph.D., LEED® AP, Vancouver, British Columbia

Fiona Crofton is a sustainability consultant and educator with a background built upon a systems and design foundation. An early pioneer spurring sustainability, Fiona has over 20 years experience in the field and has received awards and recognition for her work as a sustainability leader, educator and catalyst for change. Dr. Crofton is an adjunct professor at University of BC (Sustainable Development and Engineering). Recent projects include work with the USGBC and ICLEI on climate change (Playbook for Green Buildings & Neighborhoods) and leading an SSOS project focused on increasing sustainability in existing multi-unit residential buildings (audit and retrofit). Dr. Crofton’s primary aim is to facilitate sustainability-oriented decision-making and action in planning, design and lifestyle choices.

Elizabeth Willmott, Seattle, Washington

Elizabeth Willmott has been a climate change program coordinator and policy advisor in the King County (WA) Executive Office since January 2007. She has been the project manager for the King County Climate Plan, and has co-authored a guidebook for local, regional and state governments on how to prepare for regional climate change impacts. She has also published a number of articles on climate change adaptation with regard to historical, cultural and natural heritage, among other topics. She holds a B.A. in biology and Chinese language from Williams College, and a master’s in public policy from Harvard University, where she focused on sustainable development.

Ray Vaughan, Montgomery, Alabama

Called by Dave Foreman “the best conservation/environmental attorney in the country,” Ray Vaughan has more than 15 years of experience in fighting for the Wild in the courtroom. Ray is the founder and executive director of WildLaw, a nonprofit environmental law firm with offices in five states, including Virginia.

Sharon Duggan, Berkeley, California

Ms. Duggan specializes in forestry and environmental administrative law and litigation. In that capacity she has represented many different environmental groups over the past two decades in efforts to enforce private land forest practice laws, among other efforts.

Sharon Kramer, Arcata, California

Dr. Kramer, a recognized expert on Pacific salmon and the Endangered Species Act, is Senior Ecologist, Harvey Ecology, Arcata, CA, a professional consulting firm. With Harvey Ecology, she has provided technical expertise on a wide variety of interdisciplinary projects, including watershed analysis and habitat conservation planning, development of monitoring and adaptive management strategies, and habitat and aquatic species inventories and assessments.

Jonathan Evans, Sewanee, Tennessee

Since 1994, Dr. Evans has been a faculty member in the Department of Biology at the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, where he is currently a tenured Associate Professor and Acting Director of the Landscape Analysis Laboratory. The Laboratory serves as a focal point for an interdisciplinary team of faculty, staff, and students engaged in the study of land-use in the southeast and its ecological and socio- economic implications.

Mary Scurlock, Portland, Oregon

As Senior Policy Analyst for the Pacific Rivers Council, Mary Scurlock is a nationally known environmental lawyer and co-author of Entering the Watershed, A New Approach to Save America’s River Ecosystems. She is currently working on an Endangered Species Act enforcement action against the state of Oregon and a critical analysis of federal approvals of key habitat conservation plans under the Act involving aquatic species on industrial forestlands in the coastal and interior West.

Bruce Hull, Blacksburg, Virginia

Dr. Hull is a professor in the College of Natural Resources at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. He has been on the faculty of the University of Melbourne (Australia) and Texas A&M University. His teaching and research focus on the social dimensions of natural resource management, community -based conservation, and urban-wildland interface forest management. He is co-founder of PublicEcology.org and advises several public and private forest-focused groups.

“From all I have learned previously and now with your help, with my own special interests in the forests of the U.S., and for the great importance of forest preservation in this most bio-diverse of America’s ecosystems, I heartily endorse your goal. The policy you have devised is in my opinion the most effective way to gain public support…For all our sake, I wish you success and growing influence.”
- E.O. Wilson, Harvard University - Massachusetts

contact mfpp.org