thinking of becoming a forester

[allengohl]

Hey all, I'm kind of in a rut in my current career and have been seriously thinking about becoming a forester.  I just want to hear from some actual foresters about the job.  I've read a lot of the websites about the job and duties, etc, but in my experience they are always over glamorized or straight up lies.  That's what put me in my current career in the first place..
Trying to weigh this decision before I jump head first into a career change. 

What does your typical day consist of? 
What kind of work do you (You you, not general you) do as a forester?
What is the current job market like and how is job security?
What areas of the country are best for forestry jobs?

Thank you in advance for your input. 

[WDH]

I started out cruising timber to evaluate the volume being offered for sale.  Long days in the woods.  Then I became a timber buyer where I negotiated or bid to buy timber from private landowners.  Travel around, look at timber tracts, talk with landowners, etc.  Then, I was a procurement forester where I managed the flow of wood into a large pulpwood and a sawmill from one of the 4 procurement areas.  Lots of travel, talking to suppliers and loggers and interfacing with the mills.  Then I was the manager for all the procurement for the Region.  Set prices and developed procurement strategies.  Lots of office time and meetings.  Lots of people management.  Then, I worked Southwide on developing log quality programs for a number of sawmills.  Lots of travel, lots of meetings, working with mill and local procurement personnel.  Then, I became the manager of the logging system for the Company.  On any given day in the South, we had about 325 logging crews cutting on 4 million acres of Company land and purchased timber tracts.  Lots, lots, lots of travel across the South and West Coast.  Developing pricing systems, improving logging productivity, improving safety systems, managing and developing foresters.

Probably not your typical career path, but rewarding and challenging.  To be successful, you will need to go work where there is a good deal of forestry and timber management being done unless you do something like urban forestry or work with the US Government (Forest Service) or one of the State Forestry Commissions.  This means going where the mills are.  This is primarily the US South, West Coast of Oregon and Washington, the Lake States, or the upper Northeast.  The vast majority of the big mills are in the South.  Georgia alone has 15 pulpmills.  There is a scad of them in Alabama and Mississippi, too.  The Coastal plains of the entire Southeast cost from Virginia to East Texas.  Biggest wood basket in the US is in the South.  Not to say that there is not opportunity in other areas of the Country.

[ppine]

Thanks to WDH. Now there seems to be opportunities in the SE part of the US, urban forestry, and especially private lands.  The USFS has started to get back into the timber management business after largely ignoring it for the last 20 years.  They do not get the amount of applicants they used to.

It can be a tough field to break into. You do it because you have to. Plenty of the guys I went to school with ended up in construction. You have to be driven.  Volunteer some time when you are young to get some experience. Be willing to move to Nebraska or where ever the opportunities are. No body comes out of school and gets a job as a forester working out of Jackson Hole or Mt Rainier. You have to be dedicated to it.

My own career path in forestry involved some logging, running tree planting crews, mensuration and plenty of other stuff. I ended up as an environmental consultant working on forests and range ecosystems.  There were some times it was hard to stay employed, but there were plenty of times I could not believe I was getting paid, like riding around in helicopters in Alaska. Best of luck. If you are not sure you want to be a forester, you may be better off in a different field.

[Texas Ranger]

I have been a forester for better than 50 years.  A consultant for the last 36 years.  I did it all, started out with the Texas Forest Service (13 years) doing everything in the state agency, fire, logging, marking timber, flying SPB and controlling same, public programs, management, etc.  Being a consultant means you limit your activity to making a living, you lose some of the opportunities I enjoyed with the state.  But, I actually got to practice real forestry, some clients have been with me for up to 50 years, and it is a joy to see land that has been under  your hand for that long.  But it is all changing in Texas.  Land base is fragmenting and pride in land ownership is losing a battle to profit.

I am proud to be a dirt forester, I saw a change in the world of forestry, and to me, not the best changes.