Southern forestry’s finest honored during SGSF award ceremony

Since 1976, the Tulsa-based non-profit organization, Up With Trees has been “empowering, educating and serving communities by utilizing trees for their environmental, economic, and social benefits.”  Their staff and volunteers have been important advocates for urban and community forestry and have selflessly served as the caretakers of Tulsa’s urban tree canopy, supported many statewide community forestry efforts and are some of Oklahoma’s true leaders. Steve Grantham, Executive Director for the nonprofit, is a longstanding member and past chair of the Oklahoma Community Forestry Council and serves on the Board of the Midwest Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). Taylor Malone, the Program Director for Up With Trees, currently serves as secretary on the Oklahoma Community Forestry Council.

The Southern Area Coordinating Group (SACG) Wildland Fire and Aviation Excellence Award is intended to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement in leadership development, safety and cooperation/collaboration. Wade Waters’ expertise in wildland fire, his focused determination on results and his respect within the wildland fire community have led a cultural change within the Tennessee Division of Forestry (TDF), allowing the agency to play a more cooperative role in addressing local, state, regional and national emergency response needs. For example, Wade developed TDF’s first state Incident Management Team and set up pathways for professional and leadership development through the program. He has also taken several actions to develop much safer work conditions and emergency response operations within the division, such as developing a Tennessee-specific comprehensive fire operations guide and developed and ensured implementation of NWCG based work/rest guidelines and procedures for extended in-state and out-of-state deployments, neither of which were in place before his employment. Finally, Wade has worked with partners, including the Tennessee Army National Guard, to update and create key collaborative agreements, which have significantly enhanced efficiency and effectiveness of mutual aid operations.

The George E. Dissmeyer Award recognizes outstanding forestry service and achievement in forest water quality protection. Over his career, Joe Fox has demonstrated a passion for educating the public on good forest management and working with legislators to improve forest management policy and programming. Throughout his career as Arkansas State Forester, Joe has been intimately involved with the SGSF Water Resources Committee and has led the charge on increasing awareness of the benefits of forestry best management practices. Joe’s efforts have led to the creation of the Southeastern Partnership for Forests and Water, which aims to increase the linkage between landowners managing forestlands and water utility districts who provide clean water to the public from those forests. Joe is passionate about increasing landowner engagement and raising awareness of the link between healthy, managed private forests and clean water.