Happy Birthday...To Us!

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) started as part of a vision by members of the respective trade delegations from Canada and the United States as a side outcome of the Softwood Lumber Agreement 2006 (SLA) between the two countries.

Just over a week ago we had the privilege of providing a report to the Softwood Lumber Committee -- another creation of the SLA -- that includes representatives from both governments who meet at least annually to review progress under the agreement.  While four organizations were granted one-time funds as part of the SLA, the Endowment was one of only two newly created institutions that resulted directly from the agreement.

Six Years, Seven Initiatives...
The Endowment, comprised of a thirteen-person independent Board of Directors and its lean staff of five with headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina, hit the ground with speed and enthusiasm for the challenge.  Our goal:  to advance healthy working forests across the U.S. and to aid rural communities that depend upon the health, vitality, and productivity of those forests.  The first six years, marked less by our official charter (September 26) and more by assembling of the Board and retention of our first staff member (November 1), has flown by.

While we are still a young organization and clearly still learning, we are proud of the foundations that have been established in those first six years.  Among them:

• A strong, creative, resilient Board;
• A nimble and productive staff;
• A roof of our own;
• Emerging and maturing work across seven relevant initiatives;
• Asset creation
• Growing Markets for traditional products;
• Exploring and growing markets for non-traditional products;
• Forest retention;
• Forest health;
• Forest investment zones;
• Woody biomass; and,
• A growing list of outstanding collaborative partners.

The Challenge Ahead
One of the things that the Endowment's Board and staff does at each gathering is to review our mission as rooted in the SLA 2006 and affirm an admonition set-forth in one of the side-letters to that agreement -- that all we do shall "ultimately benefit the North American forest industry."

Among our values are to be transparent, focused, and to not fall prey to trying to be all things to all people by instead attempting to do a few things well and "do what others can't or won't."

We know we have a long way to go, but we are committed to doing all within our power to make sure that those who had the spark of an idea of what the Endowment could be will be able to say, "Well done!"

Carlton N. Owen