I work as a consultant forester that specializes in turn-key timber sales. The service I provide fully encompasses the entire turnover phase of a stand. When I work with a landowner on a timber sale I take care of everything from the initial assessment to cruising, boundary marking, marketing of sale, contract production and execution, harvest oversight and policing, coordination of site preparation and replanting, and riparian buffer tax credit application (when applicapable). In addition to timber sales I also offer many other forestry and land management related services such as cruising, boundary marking, management plans, stand establishment coordination, and many others.
Education:
I graduated with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Forestry from Virginia Tech. I constantly try to continue to educate myself through attending seminars, reading forestry related literature, and applying what I learned to my fieldwork.
Experience:
I have worked in both the forest products and forestry field. I spent 6 years working for a large private company in which I managed several thousand acres of forestland. Through this experience I refined my ability to apply my forestry knowledge to the field and also how to apply the landowner's objectives to provide for healthy and sustainable forest.
Success story:
I recently worked with a landowner that had a loblolly plantation that had been thinned once several years prior to our meeting. This landowner lived out of town and therefore doesn't get to visit the tract often. When I went into his stand to complete an initial assessment I found that the previous thinning job did not meet a good standard for what I would expect. What I mean is that there didn't seem to be a direction followed for the thinning such as using a basal area target. Some areas of the stand were thinned much differently than other areas. I decided to take tree cores and get a good idea of growth rate so I could give my best advice. After finding that growth rates were slow and had been for several years we decided the best course of action was to clearcut the stand and start over. I completed a lump sum timber sale and the landowner did really well on the final bid. We are currently in the process of setting up the site preparation and will be planting the latest generation trees that will likely out produce the prior stand and shorten the total rotation time frame.

Contact Matthew Colbert

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Matthew Colbert is not employed by or affiliated with the Land Conservation Assistance Network, and the Network does not certify or guarantee their services. The reader must perform their own due diligence and use their own judgment in the selection of any professional.

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