Achievement & Recognition
Recognizing, highlighting and celebrating achievement, whether in stewardship, commitment or dedication to Oregon's forests and forestowner community,
is a cornerstone of the Oregon Tree Farm system.
The Hagenstein Family Forestland Achievement Award
The Hagenstein Family Forestland Achievement Award was established in 2014 to honor individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to the health and sustainability of family forestland management. Bill Hagenstein was a forester who spent his professional life promoting the management of the country’s northwest forests and was one of the 13 men who met in the old Portland Hotel to certify the country’s first tree farms.
The award was renamed in his honor in 2016.
Dick Beers
2023 Recipient
Dick has spent much of his life crunching numbers: logs, timber, taxes. He graduated from the second Master Woodland Manager class offered in Lane County in the mid-1980s. He still shares ownership and active management of R&R Beers Tree Farm, a hundred-plus acres in the upper Indian Creek drainage that had been his great uncle's property, originally homesteaded in 1895. In 1998, he and his brother, Robert, were named Lane County Tree Farmers of the Year. Over the years, they have thinned and replanted around 20,000 seedlings. Dick has served as treasurer for many organizations, including the Lane County Small Woodlands Association and the Oregon Tree Farm System. He has also served on the Siuslaw Watershed Council and the Cal Young Neighborhood Committee. Although 2023 has marked Dick's retirement from many of his extracurricular commitments, he remains a much-beloved figure and stalwart of the Oregon woodland community.
Mike Cloughsey & Dick Courter
2018 Recipients
Mike Cloughsey (left) has been supporting the management of family forestlands since he took on the Douglas County OSU Extension position in 1987. He has also served woodland owners as the Lane County Extension agent, the OSU Director of Outreach Education and Assistant Forestry Extension Program Leader, and in his role as the Oregon Forest Resources Institute Director of Forestry. He has promoted educational opportunities for family forest landowner throughout his forestry career in Oregon.
Dick Courter (right) has been assisting woodland owners since establishing his consulting business in 1978. In addition to his consulting work, Dick has been a leader in the Tree Farm program for over 20 years, both in Oregon and at the national level.
Celebrating Commitment over Long Term
As every forestland owner knows, forest management is a long-term venture. The time between planting a seedling and harvesting a tree can span much of a human lifetime. Becoming a certified tree farmer is a similarly long-term commitment, with multiple management plan revisions and certification visits along the way. While every year is worthy of celebration, some milestones deserve special recognition.
