Newsletter Stories


Friday, 01 August 2003
FSC-U.S. Elects New Board Members

FSC-US is extremely pleased to announce the election of four new members to its Board of Directors. The newly elected members are: Mark Slezak, Timber Manager for Columbia Forest Products in Kalmath Falls, Oregon; Kent Gilges, Director of Forest Conservation Programs for The Nature Conservancy in Rochester, New York; Karen Steer, Sustainable Forestry Program Officer for Sustainable Northwest in Portland, Oregon; and Joshua Dickinson, Executive Director of the Forest Management Trust in Gainsville, Florida. Elected Directors replace retiring Board members and fill the open seat left with the departure of Ned Daly to join the FSC-US staff.


Over 70 percent of the FSC-US membership participated in this year’s election—the highest turnout in the institution’s history. “The high caliber of this year’s candidates and the extremely high voting turnout is a strong indicator of the commitment of our members to FSC-US and the success of FSC in the marketplace," according to Paul Harlan, Chairman of the Board of FSC-US.

“Each of these four individuals bring a set of unique skills and insights to our Board. We welcome them to the organization," said FSC-US President Roger Dower.

MARK SLEZAK is the Timber Manager for Columbia Forest Products in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Columbia Forest Products is the leading manufacturer of decorative hardwood plywood and hardwood veneers in North America with manufacturing plants in Oregon, Maine, Vermont, Arkansas, Georgia, Wisconsin, West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia and across Canada. Columbia Forest Products has been a member of FSC since 1997. Mr. Slezak coordinates Columbia’s chain-of-custody program for the Klamath Falls manufacturing plant and he has been involved with the original land certifications for several landowners in Oregon and Northern California.

KENT GILGES directs forest conservation efforts for The Nature Conservancy with primary responsibility in the Canadian and Midwest regions. In this position, he supports a wide-range of efforts at “working forest" conservation throughout the organization. This includes support for large-scale acquisitions, financing options, partnerships, deal negotiations, and fundraising. Kent has been the Conservancy’s representative to FSC since 2000, and he was primarily responsible for conceiving and initiating the Conservancy’s Certified Resource Manager Program, which certified its first 27,000 acre property in Vermont this year, the Atlas Timberlands, which the Conservancy owns in partnership with the Vermont Land Trust.

KAREN STEER is the Sustainable Forestry Program Officer at Sustainable Northwest (SNW) in Portland, OR, where she manages projects that integrate forest conservation with community economic development. Through SNW’s Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities Partnership, Karen works with rural organizations and enterprises to build capacity, markets and business-to-business networks for forest stewardship and wood products manufacturing. She also leads SNW’s private land and forest certification initiatives, including SNW’s FSC group chain-of-custody certification.JOSHUA DICKINSON is the Executive Director of the Forest Management Trust, a nonprofit organization he founded in 1992. In addition to work in Madagascar, Bolivia and Mexico, the Trust has led the FSC regional standard process in the Southeast; has served as a catalyst, together with the Forest Stewards Guild, in establishing the SE Sustainable Forests Network with the goal of promoting sustainable forest use in the region; and sponsored the first certification of a forest in Florida.