Cultivating Future Foresters: Inspiring Youth with Hands-On Industry Tours
Earlier this year, I wrote about my experience taking a student to see a logging job and a sawmill. In summary, it went well, and that young man now has “forestry” and “forest industry” on his list of careers he’s exploring. Is it certain he’ll enter the industry after college? Of course not, but his interest has gone from non-existent to very strong, based purely on exposure to the range of opportunities across the forest industry supply chain.
I ended that post with the following:
“I encourage each of you to find a young man or woman who might be interested in the industry and spend a day with them. It turns out that being exposed to opportunity can lead in great directions.”
With high school off and college students home for the summer, I want to challenge each of us to find a student (or students – two or three isn’t a whole lot more work than one) and expose them to opportunities in the industry. From forestry to logging to manufacturing, our industry offers a full range of opportunities for young people to find and grow a career.
Well, what do you do on your tour day? Show them your job and the job of others in the supply chain. Maybe walk them through forestry, logging, and manufacturing. Here are some things I will be using when I take students out:
- Ask questions about what they know about the industry, and listen to their answers. In many cases, the knowledge can be incorrect or incomplete, but it lets you know the base level of information that exists and can tip off areas of interest to pursue.
- FRA has a great Wood Supply Chain Schematic and video that lets you walk through the process of growing, managing, and harvesting a forest and the range and interdependency that exists on the manufacturing side of our industry. Share this, and let them ask questions about how things fit, what different people do for work, and what happens if a piece of the supply chain breaks down.
- Show the before and after. Yes, you can visualize what a forest will look like post-harvest, but that’s because you’ve studied and practiced the art of forestry for decades. If you’ve got an ongoing harvest you can visit, that can be a great example of before AND after in one spot, and if you can visit a piece of land maybe ten years post-harvest, that lets someone envision the full cycle.
- Ask about areas of interest from the student(s), and find things that match their energy. I took a young man I knew through my son’s Boy Scout troop to see a modern sawmill because he has a strong interest in robotics, and he left with a new appreciation and interest in forest product manufacturing.
It’s common sense that young people choose to pursue careers they’ve been exposed to. As an industry, if we’re going to thrive in the future, we need to be making sure that youth from a range of communities and backgrounds have the chance to learn about our industry, and envision a place for their future self. I challenge you to take a day and a student and do your part. Let me know your experience at [email protected] , and I will share some of that in the future.
