Board of Directors
The members of The Longleaf Alliance’s Board of Directors represent both public and private sectors and all have made significant contributions to the management and recovery of longleaf pine forests. The goal of the Board is to assist The Longleaf Alliance in setting priorities, assist in fund raising efforts, and help us chart the future of the Alliance. Current Board members include Richard W. Brinker, Drue DeBerry, Dean Gjerstad, Rhett Johnson, Angus Lafaye, Cody Laird, Julie Moore, Kenwood Nichols, Dick Porterfield, Gaines Smith, and Charley Tarver.
Richard W. Brinker
Dick is Dean and Professor in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University since 1998. He has a BS in Forestry from LSU, an MBA from the University of Southern Mississippi, and a PhD in Forestry from LSU. He worked in the forest industry for 12 years with experience in land management, wood procurement, timber harvesting, and lumber mill management. As an Assistant and Associate Professor at Auburn from 1988-1998, he held a joint extension and teaching appointment. Dick received the SAF National Technology Transfer Award in 2001, is a Fellow in the Society of American Foresters, and was inducted into the Alabama Foresters Hall of Fame in 2001. He currently chairs the USDA Forestry Research Advisory Council which provides input on forest research issues to the USDA Secretary of Agriculture, and represents the National Association of University Forest Resource Programs on the NASULGC Budget Advocacy Committee. Dick served 30 years as a member of the U.S. Army Reserve and retired at the rank of Colonel.
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Drue DeBerry
Drue is Senior Vice-President for Conservation at the Center for Conservation Solutions, American Forest Foundation. Drue earned a Masters degree in Forestry at Yale University before joining the American Forest Foundation (AFF). He has worked extensively with private forest landowners and as a new addition to the Board, Drue brings a commitment to achieving practical solutions to natural resources problems.
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Dean Gjerstad – Vice-President and Co-Founder
Dean is the other co-founder
of Tthe Longleaf Alliance and a retired Professor of Forestry from Auburn University. He retired from Auburn after 34 years where he was involved in several regional research and outreach efforts involving forest productivity and plant competition. Current interests include restoration of longleaf ecosystems, artificial regeneration, and educating students and professional foresters and biologists in topics related to longleaf ecosystem management. And, like many private landowners, Dean’s ultimate goal is to convert his 140 acres of off-site loblolly pine back to a longleaf pine forest.
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Rhett Johnson – Chairman of the Board & President
Rhett is one of the co-founders of The Longleaf Alliance and Director Emeritus of Auburn University’s Solon Dixon Forestry Education Center located near Andalusia, AL. The Dixon Center is a 5,300-acre educational, research and working forest located in the heart of south Alabama’s longleaf region. Armed with a wildlife degree from North Carolina State University and an MS degree in forest management from Clemson University, Rhett is a regional leader in promoting forest and wildlife management practices based on sound ecological principles. Rhett’s professional interests and expertise include threatened and endangered species, multiple-use forest management, wildlife management, fire ecology, and longleaf pine management and restoration. He has served in many professional leadership positions including chair of the Southeastern Society of American Foresters and president of the Alabama Wildlife Federation.
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Angus B. Lafaye
Angus brings a perspective to our Board that has been lacking: that of a working professional forestry consultant. Although most of the current Board Members have forestry degrees and backgrounds, we have moved away from the day-to-day business of managing forest resources. Angus is the President of Milliken Forestry, Inc., which has its principal office in Columbia, South Carolina. Angus earned his B.S. in Forest Management at Clemson University in 1965 and has over 40 years of hands-on experience as a consulting forester and appraiser in the Southeast. He is a long-standing member of the Association of Consulting Foresters, the Society of American Foresters, and is a past chairman of the South Carolina Forestry Association. He is a Registered Forester in South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina and a licensed realtor in South and North Carolina. Milliken, under Angus’ leadership, has considerable experience and expertise in managing longleaf forests and is a strong supporter of The Longleaf Alliance’s mission.
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Cody Laird
Cody is Managing Partner of Oakridge Farms in Worth County GA. He is Managing General Partner of RHD Partners LLLP, and Chairman of The R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation.
He was associated with Life Insurance Company of GA from 1964, when he joined the company as manager of Life of Georgia Center Development. He was named vice president - Real Estate in 1970. He has served on the Board of Directors of Life of Georgia, Southland Life, and Security Life of Denver and as chairman of the executive committee of the Life Insurance Company of Georgia board.
Prior to joining Life Insurance Company of Georgia, he served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force as Base Police Officer of Travis Air Force Base, California and, thereafter, as Facilities Officer with the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division at Cape Canaveral.
Mr. Laird is past chairman of the board of directors of the Atlanta Speech School, past member of the board of trustees of the McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee and past chairman of the board of trustees of the Westminster Schools in Atlanta. He is a past member of the board of trustees of the Georgia Conservancy and the Georgia Chapter of The Nature Conservancy; and a member of the board of the Path Foundation. He is a past President and board member of the Mountain Conservation Trust of Georgia.
He and his sister own Oakridge Farms, a 3,200-acre property in southern Worth County, Georgia, where they are working to restore the longleaf pine/wiregrass ecosystem. A conservation easement was recently placed on the property with The Nature Conservancy.
A native of Atlanta, Mr. Laird is a 1957 graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering. Cody and his wife, Linda, live in Atlanta, Georgia.
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Julie Moore
Julie works in Washington, D.C. for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service with the Branch of Candidate Conservation in the Endangered Species Program. She is national coordinator for Safe Harbor and Candidate Conservation Agreements and has participated in the development of the Healthy Forest Reserve Program administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Before transferring to the FWS, she was an endangered species biologist with the Bureau of Land Management for three years.
She has worked on variety of southern forest ecosystems, most recently with longleaf pine forests and the many associated plant and animal species. Before moving to the Washington area in early 2001, she worked in the piney woods of southern Mississippi for the MS Natural Heritage Program and the MS office of TNC coordinating a Department of Defense funded biological inventory of Camp Shelby National Guard Training Site from 1995 through 1999. She is the author of “Managing the Forest and the Trees,” a guide for longleaf forest landowners funded by TNC, the LLA, and the Southern Group of State Foresters.
She was with the NC Natural Heritage Program for over a dozen years as a botanist and ecologist specializing in fire dependent systems and working with private landowners. As director of conservation at Tall Timbers Research Station, she initiated a conservation easement program for the Red Hills region of south Georgia and the Florida panhandle.
In 2000, Julie planted 70 acres of longleaf pine on family timberland in east TX that she manages. She is active in native plant conservation organizations, is past president of the Botanical Society of Washington, D.C., and has served as a board member of the LLA and on the operation committee of the American Forest Foundation’s Center for Conservation Solutions. She is co-author of “Southeastern Summer Flower Finder” to be published in 2009 by Nature Study Guild Publishers. Julie received a BS in biology from Tulane Univ. and an MS in botany from the University of North Carolina.
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Kenwood Nichols – Secretary / Treasurer
Kenwood first became interested in a career in the forestry business while growing up on a family farm in Dallas County, Alabama. He began planting pine seedlings, cutting pulpwood, improving timber stands and wildlife habitat on the farm at age 14 under the guidance of his vocational agricultural teacher. He attended Auburn University on an academic scholarship, graduating with a BS in Forest Management in 1961. After military service in the U.S. Army, he earned an MS in Business Management from Duke University in 1964.
For the next 36 years, Kenwood worked for companies in the timber and forest products industry. Champion International Corporation - a major timberlands, paper, and wood products firm with significant operations in the United States, Brazil and Canada - was his employer for the last 28 of those years. At Champion, Kenwood became Vice Chairman and Executive Officer. In that capacity he was responsible for all of Champion’s businesses in Brazil and Canada, and for the company’s timberland and wood products operations in the United States. In addition, he was responsible for many of the Corporation’s central staff units, including finance, accounting, tax, audit, legal affairs, management information systems, real estate, strategic planning, and mergers and acquisitions. He served as a member of the Company’s Board of Directors, and also served on the Board at Weldwood of Canada, a Champion International subsidiary.
After leaving Champion, Kenwood moved back to Alabama where he lives with his family on the home farm where he was born and grew up. He now owns and manages farm and timberland acreage in the area and does volunteer work for The Longleaf Alliance, Inc., the Alabama/Georgia Land Trust, Auburn University and other organizations.
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Dick Porterfield
Dick grew up on a farm in central Ohio and graduated from Ohio State University in forestry and business administration (BS). Graduate school included North Carolina State University (MS) and Yale University in economics and forestry (PhD). Dick also graduated from the Advanced Management Program at Harvard School of Business (1998).
Work experience includes research and instruction at the University of Arkansas at Monticello (1973-75) and Mississippi State University (1975-79). Forest industry work experience was with Champion International Corporation (1979-2000); last serving as Executive Vice President of uncoated papers. He has also served as Dean of the School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia (2004-06). Dick and his wife Rita reside in Williamsburg, VA.
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Gaines Smith
Gaines is currently Director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. The Extension System is the major outreach program unit of Auburn University and Alabama A&M University. As Director, he has overall responsibility for Cooperative Extension education program throughout Alabama.
Prior to his current position, Gaines served as Interim Director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Associate Director for Rural and Traditional Programs, District Extension Agent in west-central and southwest Alabama, and County Extension Agent in Jefferson County. He is one of few people in Alabama Extension with work experience at the county, district, and state levels.
Smith was a member of the first freshman class of Auburn University where he earned three degrees in agriculture and educational administration / management. He is a native of Autauga County, Alabama where he grew up on a small-diversified farm in the Evergreen community near Independence.
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Charley Tarver
Charley is a forester and the founder of Forest Investment Associates (FIA), a Registered Investment Advisory firm, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Until his recent retirement he served as the firm’s President and CEO. FIA specializes in timberland investment management for large institutional investors. Its clients include the retirement funds of major corporations, states, municipalities, university endowments, foundations and large family trusts. With additional offices in Pennsylvania and Mississippi, FIA manages timberland investments throughout the country totaling approximately two million acres, with a market value in excess of $2.5 Billion.
Charley has been in the timberland investment business since 1979 and pioneered the business for tax-exempt institutions, beginning with the development of the country’s first pooled timberland investment fund while employed at the First National Bank of Atlanta. Charley is a Registered Forester with experience in banking and finance. He serves on the boards of directors of The Longleaf Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, the Forest History Society and is a member of the Society of American Foresters, the Association of Consulting Foresters, and is a past president of the American Forestry Association, the nation’s oldest citizen conservation organization. He helped form and is past Chairman of the Forest Landowners Tax Council. Charley has served on the boards and executive committees of the Georgia Forestry Association and the Forest Landowners Association. He has authored forestry investment and appraisal articles and has been a featured speaker at numerous forestry investment seminars and workshops.
Charley is a Vietnam veteran, and served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. He is a graduate of the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University, where he has served on the Advisory Council and Development Committee. The University named him outstanding alumnus in 1992.
He and his wife, Susan, now reside at Palmetto Bluff in the Low Country of South Carolina, but also spend much of their time on their timberland in Southwest Georgia, where they are actively involved in the restoration and protection of the longleaf pine/wiregrass ecosystem.
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