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Pinchot focus areas:

Climate & Energy
Water
Forests
Communities
Policy

Senior Fellows

Edgar B. Brannon
Antony (Tony) S. Cheng, Ph.D.
James (Jim) Finley
Patrice Harou, Ph.D.
Dennis C. Le Master, Ph.D.
Catherine M. Mater
Char Miller, Ph.D.
Peter Pinchot
Jeff M. Sirmon
Harold K. (Pete) Steen, Ph.D.

 

Senior Fellows Biographies


Edgar B. Brannon, Jr. (top)

Ed Brannon developed cutting-edge leadership programs for field professionals in the US Forest Service during his tenure as director of Grey Towers in Milford, Pennsylvania. He utilizes his extensive knowledge of the history of forestry and conservation in America to provide programs that help professionals understand and use history to develop leadership skills and tackle complex natural resource issues. Ed has received numerous awards and recognitions including being named a senior fellow of the Forest History Society in 2007, the distinguished Pinchot Medallion in 2004, the George H. Cook Distinguished Alumni Award, Cook College, Rutgers University, for outstanding achievement in professional and civic endeavors, and the Crystal Owl Award from the National Park Service Historic Preservation Training Center for his work in developing and promoting historic preservation. He has his bachelor of science in landscape architecture from Cook College, Rutgers University, a master’s of science in geography from Rutgers University, a master’s in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and an advanced study in managerial leadership and natural resources from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Antony (Tony) S. Cheng (top)

Tony provides experience and expertise in integrating forest conservation with sustainable community development and livelihoods. His work involves examining the impact of different forest policy approaches on achieving conservation and community goals. Tony’s work is close to the ground – designing and evaluating collaborative approaches to forest land management, working with communities to develop mechanisms that increase access to forest land while maintaining accountability, and examining economic opportunities to utilize materials from forest restoration activities. The Mountain West is Tony’s primary geographic area, but he has done work across the U.S. in community-based forestry. Tony is an associate professor in the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship and the director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, Colorado State University (CSU). Prior to joining the faculty at CSU, he received his Ph.D. in forest resource policy from Oregon State University and a MS in forest resource policy at University of Minnesota, and served as a policy research fellow at the Forest Policy Center of American Forests, 1993-1994.

James (Jim) Finley (top)

Jim Finley, Professor of Forest Resources at Penn State University, conducts research and extension education programs on sustainable forest resource management focusing private forestland. In this position he leads Pennsylvania’s Forest Stewardship outreach program, coordinates a 450 member volunteer program, and serves as the Penn State School of Forest Resources extension program. Major research efforts include oak regeneration, human dimensions of natural resources, and sustainable forestry. Recognitions include the National Technology Transfer and Extension Award from Society of American Foresters; The NIPF Education Award from the National Woodland Owners Association and National Association of Professional Forestry Schools and Colleges; and he is a Society of American Foresters Fellow. He is currently the Co-Chair US Forest Service National Roundtable on Sustainable Forestry; Penn State Director for the Sustainable Forest Partnership; and, Senior Research Fellow for the Pinchot Institute for Conservation.

Patrice Harou(top)

Patrice is a Senior Fellow with the Pinchot Institute and a visiting professor with L‚Ecole Nationale du Genie Rural des Eaux et des Foret, Nancy, France. He earned a degree in agricultural engineering at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and his Ph.D. in natural resources economics at the University of Minnesota. Harou has worked for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Honduras and Brazil, and as a Faculty member and director of the forestry program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has researched the forestry incentives systems in E.U. countries at Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg, Germany, and consulted for international organizations, banks, and firms. In 1990, Harou joined the World Bank, where he synthesized research and trained professionals and practitioners of client countries in environmental economics and policy. Today he conducts assessments for the WB’s Independent Evaluation Group. He has written numerous (more than 100) publications on natural and forestry resources and environmental economics and contributed to several books on the subjects.

Dennis Le Master(top)

Dr. Le Master served on the Board of Directors of the Pinchot Institute for eight years (1994-02), and has been the Institute's treasurer (1996-98), vice-chair (1998-00), and chair (2000-02). Dennis received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Washington State University. He received a Ph.D. in economics in 1974 and has since been assistant professor of forest economics and policy at Washington State University (1972-74 and 1979-1980), director of resource policy for the Society of American Foresters (1974-77), staff consultant on forestry for the Subcommittee on Forests, U.S. House of Representatives (1977-78), professor and chair of the Department of Forestry and Range Management, Washington State University (1980-88) and professor and head of the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University (1988-2004). Additionally, Dennis has authored or co-authored over 100 scholarly publications. He is a fellow in the Society of American Foresters and listed in recent editions of Who's Who in America.

Catherine Mater (top)

Catherine provides expertise on a wide range of Pinchot Institute projects based upon her extensive experience in assisting in the development of new engineering technologies and marketing strategies for secondary wood products and special forest products for both domestic and international markets. Catherine has a Master's Degree in Civil Engineering from Oregon State University. She has helped develop strategies to expand value-added wood products manufacturing throughout the United States and spearheaded efforts to identify and develop markets for lesser known wood species and special non-wood forest products such as pharmaceuticals, foods, florals, medicinals and oil extracts from national forest systems across the United States. Most recently, she has assisted softwood and hardwood product manufacturers and producer associations across the United States in identifying markets for sustainably harvested "green certified" wood products, and has served as the project manager for all certification pilot projects conducted on public forestlands in the United States. Working with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Catherine has co-authored a series of textbook case studies documenting the commercial viability of sustainable forest practices throughout the world.

Char Miller (top)

Char contributes both wit and wisdom as one of the nation's foremost scholars on the Progressive-era Conservation Movement and its key leaders, among them Gifford Pinchot. Having received his Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 1981, Miller serves as professor of history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas; and is currently visiting professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College. Author of more than 450 publications on history and conservation, his work includes: Ground Work: Conservation in American Culture (Forest History Society, 2007), Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001, 2004), Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas (Trinity University Press, 2004), and The Greatest Good: 100 Years of Forestry in America (SAF, 2005); he is editor of Fluid Arguments: Five Centuries of Western Water Conflict, On the Border: An Environmental History of San Antonio, Water in the West: A High Country News Reader, American Forests: Nature, Culture, and Politics, and Out of the Woods: Essays in Environmental History. He serves as an Associate Editor of two journals, Environmental History and the Journal of Forestry.

Peter Pinchot (top)

Peter is the Director of the Institute's Ecomadera Project in Ecuador and President of Ecomadera Forest Conservation LLC, representing the non-profit and social venture sides of creating an economic alternative to rapid deforestation in Ecuador’s northern coastal plain. He received his Masters in Environmental Studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Previously, Peter has been an organic dairy farmer in upstate New York, a partner in a ghetto rehabilitation social venture in Brooklyn, NY, founder of the Pocono Streams Project, and for the past 10 years, the Director of the Milford Experimental Forest, engaged in research on white tailed deer management, American chestnut restoration, and community forestry.

In Ecuador, Peter is directing the Pinchot Institute’s program focused on developing a sustainable silviculture and conservation strategy for the native forests of the Choco ecoregion. This program includes studies in forest taxonomy, forest regeneration, more efficient timber harvesting, biodiversity conservation planning, and entering FSC certification. At the same time, Peter is an entrepreneur coordinating the expansion of the Ecomadera business enterprise by building a large community forest landholding, by launching production of engineered flooring and balsa laminates (used in wind turbines), and by establishing a sales network in the US northeast to sell flooring directly to green contractors. Through this process Ecomadera has become a hybrid business venture that combines community leadership, professional business and technical management, private investment, and NGO oversite to create a sustainable local economy based on forest conservation.

Jeff M. Sirmon (top)

After 35 years of service, Jeff retired from the USDA Forest Service in April 1994. While with the Forest Service Jeff worked on three National Forests, in five Regional Offices and served two separate terms in the Washington Office. His most recent assignments were Regional Forester and Deputy Regional Forester in the Intermountain Region, R4 (1974-82), Regional Forester, Pacific Northwest Region, R6 (1982-85), Deputy Chief Programs and Legislation (1985-92), and Deputy Chief, International Forestry (1992-94). While serving in these positions, Jeff was often engaged in the key policy, administrative, and legal natural resources issues of the last two decades. As the first Deputy Chief for International forestry, Jeff led the effort to define this new mission and positioned the Forest Service to be a key player in the development of international forest policy during the preparations for the Earth Summit (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Jeff was a member of the U.S. delegation to UNCED. He also led the U.S. delegation to the 10th World Forestry Congress in Paris in 1991. Following retirement Jeff was invited to become a Senior Fellow where he designed and conducted numerous workshops on leadership ideas for public land managers facing problems and issues without easy answers.

Harold (Pete) Steen (top)

Pete brings to the Pinchot Institute a wealth of experience and scholarship in both history and forestry. Early in his career, he worked in both forest management and forestry research with the USDA Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1969, Pete joined the Forest History Society, serving as its President from 1978-1997. From 1984-1997, he also served as adjunct professor at Duke University in history and at the Nicholas School of the Environment. His research and writing have focused on the history of public lands and the agencies that manage them. Most recently he has begun to investigate the irrigation history of the Rio Grande, which includes State Department involvement that dealt with Mexico's claims to a portion of the water. Steen's major publications include: The U.S. Forest Service: A History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976); Origins of the National Forests (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 1992), and Forest Service Research: Finding Answers to Conservation's Questions (Durham, NC: Forest History Society, 1998), The Conservation Diaries of Gifford Pinchot (Forest History Society/Pinchot Institute for Conservation, 2001), Jack Ward Thomas: The Journals of a Forest Service Chief (Forest History Society/University of Washington Press, 2004), and The Chiefs Remember: The Forest Service: 1952-2001 (Forest History Society, 2004).

 
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