SFC and WEA Provide Insights to UF Students on Wildlife Management for Private Lands

 

John Dooner (SFC Partner) and Austin Carroll (WEA President and SFC Partner) joined the University of Florida School of Forest Resources and Conservation’s Integrated Natural Resource Management class as guest lecturers for the second consecutive year. Focusing on Wildlife Management and Environmental Considerations on Private Lands in Florida, Mr. Dooner and Mr. Carroll discussed the complexities of managing for multiple objectives on industrial and non-industrial land holdings in the Southeast.  The focal points of the discussion included common silvicultural practices to achieve recreational and financial objectives and the importance of adaptive management when considering the long-term sustainability of multiple resources. The lecture concluded with a brief review of available wildlife management funding sources and a question/answer session.  UF students asked questions on topics ranging from how to evaluate emerging ecosystem services markets (e.g. carbon) to landowner conservation easement considerations.  SFC and WEA are proud to provide practical, real-world insights and scenarios to the next generation of natural resource managers.

 

Cloud Computing Part II – Meeting the increasing demand for useful information

By Mike Berzinis II, RF, CSM

In this post, we share practical ways cloud computing is helping forestry and natural resources organizations function in the digital age.   

The future of business will be information driven.

Business owners and managers are experiencing rapidly increasing demands for information – a trend that’s expected to continue.

A successful strategy for information supports growth, the ability to work from anywhere (like necessitated during COVID), the delivery of new services for existing customers or simply to increase employee quality of life by reducing tedious data entry.

Data is like a green log, information is like lumber which is ready to use.

Data rich and information poor.

Data which does not function as “useful” information for answers and decisions is a source of frustration and lost time. The quote “Data rich and information poor” (Waterman, R. 1982) refers to being rich with data which is not easily turned into information of value.

You may be information poor if your systems formed incrementally over time where the parts do not function together as a whole (e.g. they’re fragmented).

Are your personal digital photos “useful information” or just data?

Digital photos (data) on a hard drive in a desk drawer are of limited use, whereas photos on a smart phone are easily used by just about anyone.  A digital photo taken with a smart phone has utility which was difficult to “picture” 15 years ago when most people had point and shoot cameras.  For example, digital photos on a smart phone can:

  • Be shared with others through various social media like Facebook and Instagram.
  • Be stored in one place (you guessed it, in the cloud!).
  • Be accessed securely from anywhere via a user account.
  • Be texted directly to loved ones.

Smart devices are fundamentally powered by cloud computing.

How can businesses use their data like photos on a smartphone?

Would business data generate greater value if it were easily kept up to date and could be shared? While business systems are more complex than photos, many of the underlying digital capabilities for photos can be applied to meeting the growing information demands of businesses.   Such examples include:

  • Team members access a single, authoritative source of business information.
  • Staff with any technical ability level can share and get answers to every day questions like “what is the status of Smith Tract thinning job?”.
  • Data entry and manual processes are reduced and even eliminated.
  • Information can be shared securely inside or outside an organization.
  • Teams access real time information on smart devices wherever work is done: from home, the truck or the field.
  • Information security and trust standards are in place to reduce risks of hacking and ransomware.

In Conclusion:

Yesterday’s technology and approaches cannot meet today’s or tomorrow’s business information needs.  “Redefining forest technology” is about having choices for technologies where the parts fit into a whole to maximize the reach and utility of information assets.

SFC is a trusted technology partner and leading cloud solutions provider for numerous wood products and forest management organizations across the southeast.

Mike leads SFC’s Geospatial business line and is a military veteran with 20 years experience in forestry technology.

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Ashley Farms Recognized as 2020’s Jon Gould Florida Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year

 

Southern Forestry Consultants (SFC) is excited to announce that Ashley Farms, owned by Don Ashley and Theo Meadows, has been recognized as the 2020 Jon Gould Florida Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year.  This award is presented annually by the Florida Tree Farm Program, a non-profit organization, and the state affiliate of the American Tree Farm System (ATFS).  Our SFC team in Monticello, Florida assists Ashley Farms with forest and wildlife management, a relationship maintained for over 25 years.

SFC Vice-President, Dave Lewis, began working with Mr. Ashley’s and Mrs. Meadows’ parents in the early nineties and attributes a great deal of the success at Ashley Farms to the family’s willingness to adapt.  From local shifts in weather patterns to global influences on forest product markets and anything in between, the determination to “make the best of things” is unwavering.

Dave characterizes the resolve and adaptive approach of Ashley Farms in his comments that, “Regardless of the next management challenge, Don and Theo are always ready to tackle any obstacle with a solution-focused mindset.”

Ashley Farms has experienced quite the transition over the last four decades from a shade tobacco farm to a diverse property focused on striking a balance between timber production, wildlife habitat, and row crop production.  These efforts also led to Ashley Farm’s recognition as the Florida State Forest Stewardship Landowner of the Year in 2007.  While recognition as the Florida Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year may be the culmination of efforts focused on maintaining this sustainable, multi-use farm, Ashley Farms is excited to continue and improve for years to come.

SFC and WEA are fortunate to work with outstanding landowners who are committed to sustainable management.  As a result, Ashley Farms is our fifth client since 2010 selected as the Florida Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year.

For more information on Ashley Farms and their award, please visit the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences announcement.

Michael Dooner Receives 2020 SAF Presidential Field Forester Award

 

The Society of American Foresters (SAF) recently named Michael Dooner as a 2020 Presidential Field Forester Award winner. SAF’s Board of Directors annually recognizes one member from each of the 11 SAF voting districts who have dedicated their professional careers to the application of forestry on the ground using sound, scientific methods, and adaptive management strategies.  Michael Dooner is President and Founder of Southern Forestry Consultants Inc. (SFC), with more than 40 years of experience in forest and integrated natural resource management and planning. He is a Registered Forester (RF) in Alabama whose major areas of technical expertise are forest management, timber sales, forest economic analysis, prescribed burning, integrated natural resource management, forest inventory, and auditing. Mr. Dooner is also a Certified Prescribed Burn Manager and Licensed Real Estate Associate in Florida.

In his nomination letter for this award, Russell D. Weber, CF, SAF Florida Division chair, wrote that “I have followed Michael’s career through the years and early on it was apparent its trajectory was always professional, on the ground practical, and committed to doing the very best for private landowner’s and their forest lands.”

Under Mr. Dooner’s leadership, SFC provides forest management for hundreds of private and public clients on over one million acres in the Southeast. SFC has expanded its natural resource offerings over the years to include Southern Forestry Realty and Wiregrass Ecological Associates. Recently, SFC has entered into strategic partnerships with Lim Geomatics and Planet Imagery to provide its clients with redefining forest technology solutions.

Dooner’s commitment and passion to the forestry profession and the forest industry is exemplified through his numerous continued forms of service. He is the immediate Past-President and current member of Executive Committee for the Florida Forestry Association (FFA) and has served as the Florida Farm Bureau Federation District 4 State Director since 2000.  He chaired the FFA’s Forestry Roundtable 2009 and received its Above and Beyond Award in 2010.  Most recently he has tirelessly led efforts to secure funding for landowners and restore forested habitats in the wake of Hurricane Michael.  These stewardship efforts were recognized by the Florida Audubon through the 2019 Sustainable Forestry Award.

Additional information on this award can be found in the SAF Forestry Source, July 2020 edition.

Six things your business needs to know about cloud computing.

By Mike Berzinis II, RF, CSM.

 

For many folks in forestry, hearing about “cloud technologies” may create a strong compulsion to run away and into an open pine stand full of briars. There’s a good chance you didn’t get into the natural resources to be up on – or even interested in – technology. However, an inability to harness the power of cloud computing in your operations could limit your growth and ability to serve your customers’ and employees’ changing needs. We hope this plain language post about cloud computing provides some context for what continues to be the biggest shift in how businesses use technology.

1. The most powerful business solutions (and your smartphone) rely on cloud computing.

The most capable and cost effective business technologies are based on – and enabled by – cloud computing. Neglecting the use of cloud computing platforms is akin to milling your own home-building materials when standard dimensional lumber and other materials streamline the building process by fitting together uniformly. (you’d really have to want to do all that work!) Technology providers who have yet to embrace cloud-based computing platforms will spend more to deliver less by building out features that computing platforms have out of the box.

The cloud is “[the]#1 technology for the next decade. And ultimately be the foundation on which all smaller technologies in the near future are built. -The Motley Fool”

2. Always getting better.

In our experience, cloud computing technologies are always up to date and continuously improving. With desktop personal computers, it can be a challenge for providers to keep software up to date when each computer is different. In the cloud a provider completely controls the computing environment. By utilizing cloud-based capabilities, inefficiencies due to infrequent updates or obsolescence is a thing of the past. At the end of the day, a cloud based approach allows providers to deliver more value by keeping tools progressing and with minimal business disruptions.

3. More functionality and flexibility.

Need to enable more than just email on company smartphones? Many cloud-based software are multi-user based (e.g. many can edit at once) with tools which can function simultaneously across multiple devices, users and applications. These phone and web apps can function on a single source of data making it much easier to collaborate and maintain consistency.

4. Reduced (or no) dependency on physical offices.

Since cloud-based computing solutions are in the cloud, they don’t rely on computers in offices. This means software can function independent of office power or internet. One does not need to be at the office to access information, or rely on an office computer because it has a certain software or files on it. Our experience is that cloud-based software is more reliable than software which runs on a personal computer. The value of systems being independent of offices has really hit home during Covid-19 when people needed to distance and still use business tools and data and share information between staff. One client stated that “Had we not worked with you all to move our forest technology to the commercial cloud, we would have been dead in the water for running our operations during several staff quarantines”.

5. More secure.

We know of many organizations which have been hacked or had their server data held ransom in part because they have delayed cloud adoption. These events come at a great cost and disruption to operations. In the commercial cloud (Amazon or Azure, etc) there are much more security options, and the machines being used are kept up to date and secure for you while also being backed up.

6. Highly Configurable.

Cloud-based computing platforms offer “low code” functionality that moderately technical users can manage. This allows components and features to be re-arranged in different ways to meet your needs. Low code, configurable computing is a huge movement for many reasons including reduced costs and avoidance of risks associated with custom on premise software. One our favorite benefits of configurable apps is that we can set up tools for new projects in hours.

In Conclusion:

Many organizations are avoiding adoption of the commercial cloud because they heard something in the news or don’t feel they understand what it is. We hope this post provides confidence as you walk towards a future which will be increasingly digital and where business success is inextricably linked to technology success.

In a follow-on topic we’ll talk about some ways businesses can harness the potential of cloud computing.

SFC is a trusted technology partner and leading cloud solutions provider for numerous wood products and forest management organizations across the southeast.

Mike leads SFC’s Geospatial business line and is a military veteran and technology expert with 20 years experience in forestry technology.

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