Shannon Stewart

Reforestation Advisor

Eastern Texas, Southern Louisiana

I grew up on a small farm in east Texas and had a small life. I didn’t miss anything. But at the same time, being in a small place, you just don’t know what’s out there. Hi, my name is Shannon Stewart. I work for ArborGen, where I started working in the reforestation business, doing research, seed orchard work, nursery work, and management, and now advising landowners looking to reforest.

I’ve been in the forestry business for as long as I can remember. My grandfather was a logger who produced timber and later worked in a wood yard. My grandmother went to work at the local seedling nursery two years after my father was born. So I spent much of my time underneath that logging and seedling umbrella. My father followed in those same footsteps and became a nursery manager. We lived on the facility grounds from 1989 until I graduated high school in Jasper, Texas.

Working as a reforestation advisor comes down to the relationships you build in understanding and focusing on exactly what people desire. I really enjoy meeting people and gathering information about what their goals are. Whether they are trying to make a legacy of their own or carrying on the family legacy, it’s tremendous to be part of that.

Growing up in the business with my family, I learned a lot about forestry and the inner workings behind what we have today. It was our privilege as a family to be part of this. To really use our expertise and help somebody, we have to understand their end goal. To get to that, we ask questions to uncover their goals. Do they want to maximize their investment to get a greater return? Or do they want to create a natural habitat for wildlife? I then make recommendations based on what we know to be the right product or advanced genetics to meet their need

We work t to take as many things into account and make good qualified decisions based on the experience of our team, which is a very dedicated team, and the experience of the others that come before us. So we’re really building on the whole group’s experience. And that’s why we were so dedicated. And we want to do the right things for forestry, create the most intelligent forests we can, and produce the best products for our area.