Sam Brown came to Maine in 1972 as a back-to-the-lander whose interest in logging eventually led to a Maine forester’s license and a deep concern about how all the pieces of a rural community fit together. He currently serves on the Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District board, and, when the weather is nice, still logs on family land in Parkman and Cambridge.

Tony D’Amato is a Professor of Silviculture and Applied Forest Ecology and Director of the Forestry Program and Research Forests at the University of Vermont. He was a tenured faculty member for seven years at the University of Minnesota and Bullard Fellow at Harvard University’s Harvard Forest prior to joining the University of Vermont in January 2015. His research focuses on long-term forest dynamics, disturbance effects on ecosystem structure and function, and ecological and adaptive silvicultural strategies for conferring adaptation potential within the context of global change and diverse values and objectives. He co-edited the textbook Ecological Silviculture (2021).

Brian Donahue is Professor Emeritus of American Environmental Studies at Brandeis University, and a farm and forest policy consultant. He co-founded and for 12 years directed Land’s Sake, a nonprofit community farm in Weston, Massachusetts, and now co-owns and manages a farm in western Massachusetts. He sits on the boards of the Massachusetts Woodland Institute, the Friends of Spannocchia, and Franklin Land Trust. Brian is author of Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town (1999); The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord (2004) and Slow Wood: Greener Building from Local Forests (2024). He is co-author of Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities (2017) and A New England Food Vision (2014).

David Foster is an ecologist, Director Emeritus of the Harvard Forest, and President Emeritus of the Highstead Foundation. He co-founded the Wildlands and Woodlands Initiative in 2005 and was lead writer of Wildlands in New England: Past, Present, and Future in 2023. David has written and edited books including Thoreau’s Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape; Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England; Hemlock: A Forest Giant on the Edge; and A Meeting of Land and Sea: The Nature and Future of Martha’s Vineyard.

Annie Socci Maloney joined the Foundation for Sustainable Forests team in 2016. Annie holds a PhD in Forest Ecology from Boston University and a BS in Natural Resources from Cornell University. She spent 15 years in wilderness education and leadership development with the Voyageur Outward Bound School in northern Minnesota. Annie and her family live on a farm in northwestern Pennsylvania, where they raise sheep and make maple syrup.

Rick Morrill works as a consulting forester in Northern Vermont, together with his wife, an ecologist, and father-in-law, a practicing forester with over 50 years in the woods. Rick holds a Master of Forestry degree from the University of Maine and previously served as the Baxter State Park Resource Manager. He is a licensed forester in Maine and Vermont and a member of the Society of American Foresters and Forest Stewards Guild.

Liz Thompson, Managing Editor of From the Ground Up, serves on the board of Northeast Wilderness Trust and is chair of the Northeastern Old Growth Conference for 2025. In her work with The Nature Conservancy, Vermont Land Trust, the University of Vermont, and WWF&C,. she co-authored Wetland, Woodland, Wildland: A Guide to the Natural Communities of Vermont; Vermont Conservation Design; and Wildlands in New England. Liz enjoys walking in the woods, often with a camera, noticing the beauty in the ordinary.