Brothers David and Lester Byler have worked in FSF forests since 2019. Using teams of Belgian draft horses and careful directional felling, they minimize disturbance to soil and surrounding vegetation during FSF’s harvests. David and Lester ask that you please do not include them in pictures, though you are welcome to photograph their horses.

Troy Firth is the Founder and President of the Foundation for Sustainable Forests, with over 45 years of experience practicing sustainable forestry and production of maple syrup. Troy is the recipient of the Sand County Foundation’s 2024 Pennsylvania Leopold Conservation Award, 2019 WeConservePA (formerly Pennsylvania Land Trust Association) Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award, and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council’s Western Pennsylvania Environmental Award.

Thomas C. Hoffman, II is a shareholder attorney at Knox Law in Erie, PA. He concentrates his practice on closely held business planning, business succession planning, implementation of sophisticated estate and trust planning, administration of complex estates and trusts, and the tax consequences of these matters. Tom enjoys the outdoors, and is a board member of the Foundation for Sustainable Forests. He is also a Council of Fellows Member for Penn State Behrend, Board Member for both Erie Center for Arts and Technology (ECAT) and the Catholic Foundation of Northwest Pennsylvania, and serves on the Board of Governors for the Hagen History Center.

Lance Irving took the helm of Sand County Foundation’s Leopold Conservation Award Program in 2016 after more than 15 years of experience in the outdoor sporting goods industry, and prior to that as a professional wilderness hunting and fishing guide. As chief sales and marketing officer at two outdoor manufacturing companies, Irving became a recognized leader in the outdoor industry. Since joining Sand County Foundation, Irving has helped grow the Leopold Conservation Award program from 8 participating states to 28. The expansion of the program both geographically and in prominence has helped to promote a land ethic to both the agricultural community and general public.

Pat Maloney is a skilled woodsman and practitioner of sustainable forestry. For some years, he cut trees alongside horse-logger Ray Blystone on FSF-owned properties, and is a maple syrup producer and forest manager at Firth Maple Products. Pat holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from Northland College.

From 1981 through early 2018, Dr. Susan L. Stout was a research forester with the United States Forest Service Research Project located in Irvine, PA.  In 1991, she was named Project Leader there and for researchers in OH, VT, NH and on two experimental forests. From 2018 through 2024, she served as a Research Forester Emerita. Since 2014, she has served on the Council of the Finley Center for Private Forests at Penn State. She is passionate about finding ways to transfer research results to potential users so that both research and practice are improved and including natural resource practitioners and landowners throughout the research process.  Her research interests include natural regeneration, relative density, and the interactions of deer, people, and forests.  She has also been active on issues related to full inclusion of women and people of all ethnicities in forestry.  As a grandmother, she delights in watching her grandson play and grow, especially in the natural world.

Ethan Tapper is a Vermont-based forester, digital creator, and the bestselling author of How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World. For more than a decade, Ethan has been recognized as a thought-leader and a disruptor in the worlds of forestry, conservation, and ecosystem stewardship, winning multiple regional and national awards for his work. His message of relationship, responsibility and hope reaches millions of people each year through his writing, his social media channels with tens of thousands of followers, and the dozens of walks, talks and keynotes that he delivers across North America each year.

In his personal life, Ethan works, writes, hunts, birds at Bear Island, his 175-acre working forest, homestead, orchard and sugarbush, runs three small businesses – Bear Island Forestry, Bear Island Consulting and Bear Island Maple – and plays in his 10-piece punk band, The Bubs. See www.ethantapper.com for more information.

Located on the campus of Allegheny College, the Watershed Conservation Research Center engages in strategic conservation activities and trains future watershed stewards to protect, restore, and enhance our land and water resources for future generations in the upper Allegheny River basin, focusing on the French Creek Watershed.