Meet
Windham County Forester
Bill Guenther!!! |
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Windham County forester Bill Guenther feels like he's got about the best job in the state of Vermont. Bill knew early on, at about age 8, that he wanted to be a forester. His stumbling block was that he found out he had to have a college degree to have the sort of position he wanted. After
several starts and stops, and being delayed by the military draft, Bill
finally received his B. S. in forest Management from the University of
Vermont just shy of his 30th birthday back in 1982.
He had always wanted to spend as much time outside as possible and also have the opportunity to provide forestry education to private landowners. After graduating from UVM, he started with Chase Forestry in Hartland, Vermont and worked as a private consulting field forester for two years. While with Greg Chase he conducted extensive timber inventories and developed Use Value Appraisal Program forest management plans for their client base, primarily in Windsor County, Vermont. Greg & Bill also offered timber harvesting services with their 4WD Kubota tractor. Bill felt that having the opportunity to do logging as well as putting together management plans offered him a more complete look at forestry.
In 1984, he filled an opening with the State of Vermont Forestry
Division, and he began his public career working on state lands in the
Springfield District. After a two-year stint there, Bill was promoted in
1986 to Windham County Forester in Brattleboro.
He pulled up his roots in Norwich, Vermont and moved down to Windham County's shire town of Newfane. His friends from central Vermont joked that he was moving down to the "banana belt", as southern Vermont is often referred to by those north of Route 4.
In his position as County Forester, Bill oversees more than 130,000 acres enrolled in the Use Value Program on more than 1,100 parcels. He also manages several municipal forests, does diagnostic shade tree calls, offers forestry programs for schools from K to college level and works with a few urban & community forestry groups.
Bill feels that it is important to manage forest land for a variety of
uses. Wood is a wonderful resource and it should be an integral component of the extractive resources that we humans use because of its renewable nature in a relatively short period of time. Also though, he feels that wilderness areas are important at the right place, time and scale so that we have places that are free from the heavy-handed influence of humans.
Windham County has a wealth of diversity in both its people and its
forest. Multi-generational natives to newcomers and ex-commune folks
from the 60's have chosen to make Vermont's southeastern most county their home. The forest mix is incredible here where many northern boreal species and many more southern species tend to merge. Such examples would be the spruce-fir boreal forests of Stratton Mountain to the oak-hickory types found along the Connecticut River.
After being on the job for 18 years, Bill still finds that each new day has
a refreshing charm to it and he feels blessed to have found his dream job!
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You can contact Bill with forestry related questions at:
Bill Guenther
Windham County Forester
11University Way, suite 4
Brattleboro,VT 05301
802-257-7967
bill.guenther@anr.state.vt.us
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