Forestry Graduates Gain Career Ground as ORISE Participants at Fort Campbell

Fascinated by its natural beauty, variety of inhabitants, and complex behavior, many people feel innately drawn to the forest. We all have a deeply ingrained understanding that the forest can provide for our survival and, in fact, the forest continues to be one of our most valuable natural resources. Wood products are used in many facets of our daily lives, from toothpicks and paper to housing structures. The renewability of the forests continually provides more diverse and increasing amounts of products to meet growing human needs. With proper management, the forests will continue to provide for future generations.

Forest management is a complex process involving the management of timber stands to meet a desired outcome. This process requires gaining knowledge of forest and ecosystem behavior, as well as the biological requirements of individual tree and wildlife species in the area. This knowledge is then combined with various thinning and harvesting methods, in order to obtain specified outcomes or goals. Once the management goals and desired outcomes are delineated, a forest inventory is designed to gain a sample that will adequately represent the forest composition in order to make management decisions.

The use of geographic information systems (GIS) as a management tool has taken the field of forestry by storm. As the data is collected, layers and maps are created in the GIS database using ArcView software. The multiple layers, including forest cover types, stand stocking size, and site index, as well as soils, elevation, and topographic information, are integrated within the GIS and used to determine how to divide the forest tracts into separate management units. The stored GIS information can then be combined and queried to gain new knowledge and insight on forest growth and behavior. GIS also creates a clear picture of tree species distribution and forest growth patterns that occur over the entire base and would otherwise be easily overlooked. This brings the information gained from forest inventory into a new light, allowing for advanced forest management decisions to be made. New technology and management tools such as GIS are shining a new, far-reaching, and inclusive light on forest management.

Anne Jewell, 
Ben Campbell

Fort Campbell is located on the Kentucky/Tennessee border, east of the Land Between the Lakes national recreation area. This region has the climatic and topographic qualities that lend it to be one of the most biologically diverse in North America. The installation contains approximately 105,000 acres, including more than 50,000 forested acres with about 78 different tree species. In 1997, Linda Alderdice, the head of the forestry section on Fort Campbell, turned to ORISE to help create and carry out a complete forest inventory in order to be in compliance with the military’s interests, as well as to create a broad- spectrum basis for making forest management decisions.

Keith and Vicky Hilpp, former ORISE participants and University of Kentucky graduates, designed the inventory layout and procedures. They also began an intricate geographic information system (GIS) database to be used in conjunction with the inventory. The entire inventory project was expected to take between two and three years for completion. When the Hilpps left for permanent employment opportunities, Ben Campbell and Anne Jewell were brought on as new ORISE participants to help complete the inventory project.

Both Campbell and Jewell have attained B.S. degrees in forestry and have been working with the forestry staff on Fort Campbell, including Steven Stedman, Stephen Forry, and Jim Harris, for nearly a year and a half. The inventory crews have now completed the 50,000-acre inventory and are nearly one full year ahead of the estimated schedule.

A forest management decision will be made for each management unit that was delineated using the inventory processor information as well as the images and data provided by GIS. The intended land use, timber availability, wildlife, and other special concerns including wetlands, soil erosion, presence of archaeological sites, and presence of threatened/endangered species must all be considered before a decision is made for each management unit. These decisions will be combined into an integrated forest management plan for Fort Campbell, which will guide management decisions made over the next twenty years.

The ORISE program has allowed Campbell and Jewell to gain a unique experience as new foresters. They have been exposed to technological and educational experiences that many of their fellow graduates have not had in similar entry-level positions. Campbell and Jewell have also had opportunities to increase the public’s awareness of forestry and forest practices through classes they designed for organizations such as the Boy Scouts, as well as high school classes and a local Earth Day event on base. This puts them a step forward as young, professional foresters in a field of study that is currently growing exponentially in both scope of studies and public interest. The ORISE experience has exposed them to the myriad of ideas and possibilities presented by the future of forestry and land management as they embark on their careers.

From the Army’s perspective, the ORISE programs allow installations to complete projects that could be difficult to finish otherwise due to limited resources. "The ORISE program has been a tremendous benefit to Forces Command and, I think, to the individual participants," said Dr. Bert Bivings, natural resource manager, U.S. Army Forces Command. "Over the past few years, we have had a hundred or so ORISE participants on our installations. More than 95 percent of the time, both the participant and the installation have gained a great deal during their partnership.

"Several M.S. theses and journal articles have come from the ORISE research work. But the majority of participants have had the benefit of working in the field as professionals, with experienced professionals as mentors, to gain valuable experience.

"While individual installations have benefited with completed projects or documents like the forest inventory at Fort Campbell," Dr. Bivings continued, "the biggest gain is that these professionals, who are potential future regulators, now know what really goes on at military installations. This is in the long-term best interest of the government—a win–win situation."