The Consultant - 2018 - 18

CHAPTER PROFILE

associate member category that allowed
for student membership. This long-term
effort is now reaping dividends for the
South Carolina Chapter.

MECHANISMS TO ENCOURAGE
STUDENT MEMBERSHIP
The South Carolina Chapter has spring
and fall technical meetings, usually in
Columbia (the center of the state) as a

one-day event. This allows the students
to leave Clemson very early and just make
it for the start of the meeting. Student
registration fees are kept low through
subsidies. While the technical program
is important, students also recognize the
networking opportunity. Members go out
of their way to interact with the students,
even providing opportunities for them
to moderate or introduce speakers. The

Your clients trust your
experience.
You can trust ours.

Forest Management Plans * Timber Cruising * Wildlife Management Plans * Timber Sales
Growth Studies * Reforestation * Property Inspection * Boundary Lines * Mismarking of Trees
Member Pricing * Prescribed Burn Liability * Smoke Damage Liability
Pesticide and Herbicide * Errors and Omissions * Quick Quote Turnaround

We can also help with
your clients Hunting
Lease & Timberland
Liability Insurance.
18
887606_Outdoor.indd
1

23/10/17 10:54 pm

meetings end with a social event, perfect for the students to get to know new
professional acquaintances. The meetings
are held at a Forestry Commission education facility in a state forest among the
longleaf pines. What better place for the
students to feel comfortable introducing
themselves to ACF members?
To expose Clemson forestry students
to consulting forestry and ACF members,
the South Carolina Chapter agreed to
provide management planning opportunities for Clemson's Forest Resource
Management Plans "capstone" course. In
this field project, students develop management plans for ACF member client
tracts. The students meet with the ACF
forester, who explains the management
planning process and provides landowner
contact information. Next, the students
meet with the landowner to obtain tract
information and management objectives.
Then the students do the field work and
develop the plan. They meet with both the
forester and landowner and present the
final product. The forester and landowner
then provide feedback to the professor on
plan quality and their impression of the
students' professionalism.
ACF members spoke to several forestry
classes and added a consulting focus to
appropriate courses. Tom Henderson
spoke to the forest economics class, for
example, and ACF President-Elect Mike
Wetzel lectured at the Management Plans
course. Both also supplied clients for the
management planning exercise. Wetzel
first spoke about the fundamentals of
forest management plans from a consulting perspective and expectations for
the class field projects. He closed with a
discussion on consulting forestry and ACF
as an organization. He used the "ACF
Initial Landowner Contact" and "Forest
Management Plan Checklists" as teaching tools.
Wetzel was peppered with questions:
How does a consultant get paid? Do you
walk the tract with the landowner? How
long did it take for you to prepare this
plan? (He provided a sample management plan.) How do you obtain timber
volume information for a management
plan; what level of field work is expected?
THE CONSULTANT

2018

http://www.outdoorund.com http://acf.outdoorund.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Consultant - 2018