SAF Mission, Organization, and Strategies

1
SAF Mission, Organization, and Strategies

• Montana SAF Inland Empire SAF
• 2007 Leadership Retreat
• January 26, 2007
• John McMahon, SAF President

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Elements of SAF Leadership

• SAF Mission, Core Values, Code of Ethics
• SAF Officers, Council, and staff
• 2007-2011 Strategic Plan
• State, multi-state societies, chapters
• House of Society Delegates
• SAF National Committees and Task Forces
• Forest Science Technology Board and Working
  Groups
• SAF-accredited forestry programs
• SAF Leadership training programs
• SAF Members volunteer time, talent, and energy

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SAF s Mission

• SAF s Mission
• advance the science, education, technology, and
  practice of forestry
• enhance the competency of members
• establish professional excellence, and
• use the knowledge, skills, and conservation ethic
  of the profession to ensure the continued health
  and use of forest ecosystems, and the present and
  future availability of forest resources to
  benefit society.

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SAF s Core Values

• SAF s Core Values are
• forests are a fundamental source of global health
  and human welfare
• forests must be sustained through simultaneously
  meeting, environmental, economic, and community
  aspirations and needs
• foresters are dedicated to sound forest
  management and conservation, and
• foresters serve landowners and society by
  providing sound knowledge and professional
  management skills.

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SAF Code of Ethics Nov. 3, 2000

• The Preamble includes On joining the Society of
  American Foresters, members assume a special
  responsibility to the profession and to society
  by promising to uphold and abide by the
  following
• Principles and Pledges
• 1. Foresters have a responsibility to manage
  land for both current and future generations. We
  pledge to practice and advocate management that
  will maintain the long-term capacity of the land
  to provide the variety of materials, uses, and
  values desired by landowners and society.

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SAF Code of Ethics (cont.)

• Principles and Pledges (cont.)
• 2. Society must respect forest landowners
  rights and correspondingly, landowners have land
  stewardship responsibility to society. We pledge
  to practice and advocate forest management in
  accordance with landowner objectives and
  professional standards, and to advise landowners
  of the consequences of deviating from such
  standards.
• 3. Sound science is the foundation of the
  forestry profession. We pledge to strive for
  continuous improvement of our methods and our
  personal knowledge and skills to perform only
  those services for which we are qualified and in
  the biological, physical, and social sciences to
  use the most appropriate data, methods, and
  technology.

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SAF Code of Ethics (cont.)

• Principles and Pledges (cont.)
• Public policy related to forests must be based on
  both scientific principles and societal values.
  We pledge to use our knowledge and skills to help
  formulate sound forest policies and laws to
  challenge and correct untrue statements about
  forestry and to foster dialogue among foresters,
  other professionals, landowners, and the public
  regarding forest practices.
• Honest and open communication, coupled with
  respect for information given in confidence, is
  essential to good service. We pledge to always
  present, to the best of our ability, accurate and
  complete information to indicate on whose behalf
  any public statements are made to fully disclose
  and resolve any existing or potential conflicts
  of interest and to keep proprietary information
  confidential unless the appropriate person
  authorizes the disclosure.

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SAF Code of Ethics (cont.)

• Principles and Pledges (cont.)
• 6. Professional and civic behavior must be based
  on honesty, fairness, good will, and respect for
  the law. We pledge to conduct ourselves in a
  civil and dignified manner to respect the needs,
  contributions, and viewpoints of others and to
  give due credit to others for their methods,
  ideas, or assistance.

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SAF Organization
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SAF Organization
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SAF Organization (cont.)
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SAF National Committees and Task Forces

• Accreditation
• Certification Review Board
• Communications
• Cultural Diversity
• Educational Policy Review
• Ethics
• Forest Policy
• SAF-NASF Sustainable Forest Policy Task Force

• Forest Technology School Recognition
• National Convention
• National Nominating
• Professional Recognition
• Renewable Natural Resources Foundation(RNRF)
• Tellers
• World Forestry

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SAF Officers and Council - 2007

• President, John P. McMahon, CF
• Vice-President, Tommy L. Thompson
• Exec. VP CEO, Michael T. Goergen, Jr.
• Immediate Past-Pres., Marvin D. Brown
• Rick N. Barnes, CF District 2
• Mary J. Coulombe, CF District 7
• Fredrick W. Cubbage District 8
• Robert A. Daniels District 11
• G. Kirk David District 1
• Roger A. Dziengeleski, CF District 6

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SAF Council Members -2007 (cont.)

• Bernard S. Hubbard, CF District 5
• Lyle Laverty, CF District 4
• Julie G. Lydick, District 3
• Joe D. Robertson, RF District 10
• Roger D. Weaver, CF District 9
• Non-voting participants w/ Council
• Bill Rockwell, CF Chair, Forest Science
  Technology Board
• Craig A. Vollmer, CF Chair, House of Society
  Delegates
• Bob Malmsheimer Chair, Comm. on Forest Policy
• Student representative National Student
  Congress (new)

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SAF Staff Bethesda, MD

• Executive Vice-Pres. CEO, Michael T. Goergen,
  Jr.
• Larry Burner, Senior Director, Finance and
  Administration, and CFO
• Terry Clark, CF, Associate Director, Science and
  Education
• Lori Gardner, Senior Director Member Services
  and Marketing
• Louise Murgia , CF, Director, Field Services
• Rita Neznek, Associate Director, Forest Policy
• Charlene Schildwachter, Senior Director,
  Marketing Membership
• Matthew Walls, Director of Publications and
  Managing Editor, SAF Journals
• Barbara Weitzer, Assistant to the CEO and Council

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2007-2011 Strategic Plan

• Six Strategic Outcomes
• Be the Leading Professional Forestry Organization
  in the World (Rev. 2007)
• Enhanced Services to Landowners and Employers
• Enhanced Service to Society at Large
• Effective Engagement in Forest Policy
• Enhanced Professional Education, Performance, and
  Leadership Capability
• Development and Sound Stewardship of SAFs
  Resources

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Strategic Outcomes and Basic Strategies

• Be the Leading Professional Forestry Organization
  in the World. (Revised 2007)
• SAF is recognized by all technical and research
  foresters as their primary professional Society
  that meets their needs for service, networking,
  and professional growth.
• Basic Strategies (3 of 10)
• Seek to achieve a membership that is as diverse
  as society at large.
• Create an environment that welcomesthose
  havingspecialized knowledge and experience in
  forestry.
• Promote a vital and stimulating organization at
  all levels.

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Strategic Outcomes (cont.)

• 2 Enhanced Services to Landowners and Employers
• SAF is an organization that promotes sound
  scientific and experiential knowledge to meet
  landowner and employer objectives.
• Basic Strategies
• Enhance capacities to serve landowners and
  society with personal integrity, ethical
  behavior, and accountability.
• Promote management that ensures the availability
  of sustainable supplies of timber and non-timber
  goods and services while maintaining diverse
  forest values.
• Promote direct benefits of SAF membership to
  employers of professional foresters.

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Strategic Outcomes (cont.)

• 3 Enhanced Service to Society at Large
• SAF will be broadly recognized as the primary
  organization that fosters sound scientific and
  experiential forestry knowledge to balance
  societys current and emerging needs and values
  ranging from commodities to wilderness and
  protection of the environment.
• Basic Strategies ( 3 of 6)
• Provide the public, educators, and
  decision-makers with current scientific
  information related to forestry.
• Communicate our professional view regarding the
  importance of sustainably managing forest lands
  to policy makers, the news media, and the public.
  (Rev. 2007)
• Expand local and national media exposure to the
  profession of forestry.

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Strategic Outcomes (cont.)

• 4 Effective Engagement in Forest Policy
• SAF will be recognized by decision-makers and in
  policy development as the leader in providing
  credible and reliable forestry information.
• Basic Strategies (3 of 5)
• Continue to develop and promote the new SAF-NASF
  Sustainable Forests policy initiative introduced
  in 2006. (New 2007)
• Effectively engage and advocate in all important
  forestry-related public policy issues at the
  national, state, and local levels.
• Become a leader in policy development,
  communication, and delivery strategies for
  sustainable forest management systems.

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Strategic Outcomes (cont.)

• 5 Enhanced Professional Education, Performance,
  and Leadership Capability
• SAF is recognized for having high professional
  forestry standards in service to society.
• Basic Strategies (4 of 7)
• Maintain and enhance standards for professional
  forestry education.
• Provide ethical awareness, education, and
  training at all levels of the organization.
• Pro-actively champion credentialing programs
  involving forestry and its specialties with SAF
  members, policy makers, and the public. (Rev.
  2007)
• Promote opportunities for leadership development
  and succession for all members.

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Strategic Outcomes (cont.)

• 6 Development and Sound Stewardship of SAF
  Resources
• SAF at all levels is recognized for conserving
  and enhancing its human, financial, and physical
  resources.
• Basic Strategies (4 of 10)
• Develop non-dues ways and means of securing funds
  that support programs
• Develop and implement a 5-year financial plan,
  updated annually.
• Enhance and maintain a national structured giving
  program.
• Develop investment guidelines providing
  safeguards to protect and use reserve funds.

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2004 VOS Task Force report Council action

• Retain eleven voting districts realignment
  within or between districts may be recommended to
  the Council by the members in those districts.
• Retain annual convention encourage regional
  meetings.
• Add a student member from the National Student
  Congress as non-voting member of the SAF Council.
• Retain Forest Science Technology Board
  unchanged strengthen the Working Groups.

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2004 VOS Task Force report Council action
(cont.)

• Oversight of SAF Committees assigned to Vice
  President and Past President
• Standardized deadlines for National and Regional
  Nominating Committees and petition process.
• Name Committee members by February 1
• Submit petitions for Vice President and Council
  members by June 1
• Consolidated the Finance and Investment
  Committees.
• New investment policy approved Dec. 2005

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2004 VOS Task Force report Council action
(cont.)

• Council now considering questions raised in the
  Forward to the VOS Report
• Who are we? Described in Mission and Values
  statement, Code of Ethics, and 2007- 2011
  Strategic Plan.
• More important questions are What do we want to
  be? or, What can we be?
• Focus groups and member-wide survey will further
  discussion among SAF units in 2007 and beyond.
• What are the most important issues for SAF to
  address to insure that our professional society
  remains a strong, forward-thinking organization,
  able to respond to changing circumstances, and
  able to strengthen our standing as the
  practitioners, forest scientists, and educators
  best prepared and best qualified to manage and
  conserve the nations forest resources?
• How can SAF membership be made more attractive to
  professionals employed throughout the broad field
  of forestry?

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SAF Constitution and By-laws Membership

• III B Professional Member
• Shall be graduates of an SAF-accredited forestry
  curriculum or a candidate curriculum for
  accreditation OR recipients of a graduate degree
  in forestry from an institution that has an
  SAF-accredited forestry curriculum, or one that
  is a candidate for accreditation OR scientists
  or practitioners who hold a bachelors or higher
  degree within the broad field of forestry, based
  on a curriculum that is neither SAF-accredited
  nor a candidate for accreditation, and who have
  three or more years of qualifying experience
  within the broad field of forestry.
• Professional Members represent 83 percent of our
  membership.
• Note the direct linkage between the definition of
  a Professional Member and our SAF-accredited
  college and university forestry programs.

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SAF Constitution and By-laws Membership (cont.)

• Broad field of forestry is defined as those
  biological, quantitative, managerial, and social
  subject areas that are focused on the management
  and conservation of forest resources.
• Qualifying experience occurs when one spends at
  least one-half of ones employment duties within
  the broad field of forestry.
• Other Membership categories are
• Conditional Professional Members (.71 percent )
• Fellows (5.5 percent)
• Associate Members (1.2 percent)
• Technician Members (3.0 percent)
• Student Members (10.6 percent)
• Corresponding Members (.77 percent )
• Honorary Members ( .29 percent)
• International Members ( .45 percent)

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SAF Financial position Dec. 31, 2006

• 2006 is 4th consecutive year in which SAF
  revenues exceeded expenses.
• 12/31/05 310,623
• 12/31/06 455,385 (subject to year-end adj.)
• Member dues represent 41 percent of revenue.
• SAF staffing reduced 35 percent since 2003.
• Foresters Fund
• 12/31/06 1,273,910
• 12/31/06 1,417,179 (11.2 percent net gain)
• Endowment Fund
• 12/31/06 636,486
• 12/31/06 729,223 (14.6 percent gain)
• New investment policies adopted Dec. 2005 new
  investment advisors retained.
• Council Finance Investment Committee oversight.
• 2007 Operating Budget 3,319,316

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Effective Engagement in Forest Policy What did
SAF accomplish in 2006?

• Worked to gain House passage of H.R. 4200, the
  Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act
  (FERRA), with 140 co-sponsors, bi-partisan.
• Not acted on by the Senate in 2006.
• To be re-introduced in the 110th Congress.
• Led effort to secure increased funding for FIA,
  with 30 organizations in support.
• Leading coalition to strengthen the Forestry
  Title of the 2007 Farm bill.
• Endorsed increased emphasis on renewable energy
  from forests through support for Agenda 25 x 25.
• Developed updated SAF position statements on FIA
  and Federal Taxation of Forests.

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Effective Engagement in Forest Policy (cont.)

• Submitted comments, letters, or testimony, on
  behalf of SAF, on more than 25 occasions,
  including
• Forest recovery and reforestation
• FY 2007 Appropriations
• NEPA Reform
• Federal tax issues
• Hurricane Katrina and Rita recovery
• Healthy Forests Reserve Program
• Northwest Forest Plan Survey manage
  guidelines
• LEED Green building standards

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Congressman Greg Walden on SAF

• I have leaned on SAF on a number of occasions,
  and so has my staff. It is very important that
  SAF and its members reach out to those of us in
  public office, to help educate policy makers like
  myself, to pass along their invaluable wealth of
  facts and knowledge and experience.
• Theres an incredible lack of understanding in
  Congress about forestry issues. Im not a
  forester, and yet Im chair of a committee in
  charge of forest policy. So I rely on our
  academic community and on our professional
  community to help me and my committee be as
  informed as possible as we evaluate public policy
  issues. I want to get it right---we owe it to
  the next generation.

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2007 SAF Congressional Priorities

• Forestry Appropriations FY 2008
• Recovery and Reforestation after Catastrophic
  Events (FERRA Bill)
• 2007 Farm Bill reauthorization
• CREATE 21 Initiative SAF Position?
• SAF-NASF Task Force on Sustainable Forestry
  Policy
• Outreach to potential partners
• Reference in 2007 Farm bill

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SAF Position statements to be developed or
updated in 2007

• Use of Herbicides (12/06)
• Conservation Easements (12/06)
• Timber Harvesting on Federal lands (12/06)
• Forest biotechnology (new)
• Invasive species (new)
• Carbon sequestration/climate change (new)
• Position statements expiring in 2007
• Urban Forestry
• Clearcutting
• Protecting Endangered Species Habitats on Private
  Lands
• Public Regulation of Private Forest Practices
• Wildfire Management
• World Forestry

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Other 2007 Priorities and Initiatives

• Evidence-based Natural Resources Management
• U.S. Forests Facts Figures
• Tribal Training for Forest Restoration
• Group forester- forest owner certification system
• Candidate CF program implementation
• 2007 Convention Portland, Oregon
• Theme SAF - Sustaining Americas Forests
• October 23-27, 2007

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Media effectiveness 2006

• SAF quoted on FERRA legislation in
• Associated Press
• Seattle P-I
• Oregonian
• Pres. Brown Op-Ed on Sustainable Forestry - Salem
  Statesman-Journal.
• EVP Goergen quoted on changes in US private
  forest ownership, TIMOs, etc. in the Washington
  Post and Financial Post.
• Journal of Forestry article on USFS litigation
  quoted in
• Anchorage Daily Times
• Bend Bulletin
• Daily Interlake - Kalispell
• Greenwire
• Missoulian
• Roanoke Times
• Many other examples of SAF member media
  effectiveness at the state and local level.

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Key Questions for SAFs State and Multi-state
Societies

• Strategic Outcome No. 4 Effective Engagement in
  Forest Policy
• Has our State Society identified (3) to (5) key
  public policy barriers that prevent foresters and
  forest owners from practicing or achieving the
  desired future state for sustainable forestry in
  our state?
• Do we have a strategy to effectively address the
  most important public policy issues in our state?
• Have we enlisted help from potential allies who
  can help us achieve our public policy goals?

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Key Questions for SAFs State and Multi-state
Societies (cont.)

• Strategic Outcome 3 Basic Strategies
  Communicate our professional view regarding the
  importance of sustainably managing forest lands
  to the policy makers, the news media, and the
  public.
• Does each State Society have a Communications
  Committee or other means to initiate or respond
  to state and local communications needs and
  opportunities?
• Are we sufficiently engaged in the public
  communications arena, or are we being
  outmaneuvered by our opponents?

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Summary SAF Priorities - 2007

• Strengthen SAFs ability to shape effective
  forest policies both at the federal and state
  level.
• Build effective working relationships with the
  110th Congress.
• Communicate the importance of sustainable forest
  management, forest health, and active forest
  management to policy makers, the news media, and
  the public.
• Promote SAF membership welcome all
  professionals employed in the broad field of
  forestry.
• Continue to strengthen SAF financial condition
  and enhance program resources.
• Use the 2007-2011 Strategic Plan as the basis for
  focusing SAF efforts on behalf of its members.
• Accomplish successful 2007 Convention.