9/19 Prompted Post: Interview a professional in your field.

Quickly after my interview with a professional in my field, I realized that this was the most effective tool for discovering unanswered questions I’ve had about forestry. I was actually surprised on the answers of the topic of writing in this field too. I was especially surprised on the amount of writing preformed and the close relation to our classroom topics. A one on one discussion with a field forester informed me that even with a field intensive job, writing is still an everyday process.

The questions were:

1.     What is a quick summary of your job description and a quick description of your day-to-day?

2.     What are some challenges that are typically faced in your field?

3.     How do you use writing in your job?

4.     What is your writing process?

5.     Who is your primary audience?

6.     What are some other forms of communication that have an importance in your job?

7.     What should a forester’s main focus on writing be to prepare for the job field or just communication for the job in general?

Answers:

1.     Tony Fox, a state registered forester, is a field forester for a private forests products company in Michigan. He oversees the plan management of a customer’s land; the customer’s land, they are generally working with, needs some type of tree harvesting or tree removal. On a typical morning he meets with the 7 crews to answer questions or concerns those crews may have with the “cutting” that Tony and his team are orchestrating. Him and the foreman plan out the goals for each day on the forest management plan for their customer.

2.     Most of the challenges he faces in his job are competition. Competition with other mill companies and competition with timber. Later he also mentioned that a specific challenge was always meeting the needs of the customer. They are the most important person in the entire management plan and their needs must be met.

3.     The answer to this question was surprising to me in the fact that this proved the large amount of writing that a forester does. He said that he was currently finishing up working on a 30-page management plan. A lot of the writing must be professional. Especially professional for stewardship plans that the federal government requires to be done. Every day some sort of writing is preformed working with his timber group, mostly just writing small notes in the field but still is an everyday occurrence.

4.     Most of the writing process is revision and a compilation of different field notes gathered from every timber group. I came to realize that a lot of forester’s writing needs to be edited so others can fully understand the management plans and goals of the team. Writing for the DNR or landowners requires explanation of things like forestry’s terminology. Revision is mostly so people can understand the writing.

5.     DNR and landowners are the two main audiences. It makes sense because most of the writing is management plans and these are the two audiences that are overseeing and in need of the management plans.

6.     Aside from emailing on a very daily basis, a field forester makes a lot of calls; this is probably the main source of communication for the job. Generally communication with the private land owners requires questions to be answered and is a lot simpler with a phone conversation and provides a more in depth explanation for the questions.

7.     The last question, and I think the most important question for me, was stressed on the idea of listening to the customer. He made it sound like after college it was very easy to become eager about his new job and want to put all his training in action instantly; this isn’t necessarily the best thing to do. Again it all goes back to the focus of the landowner’s ideas are of the most importance and conveying their objectives into the plan should be the first concern for a forester. Listen to them and hear them out on their ideas and relay the education you’ve received into the plan instead of doing whatever you think is the right thing.

Relating everything back to our writing in class, I notice the importance of writing for an audience. The last question of the interview showed me that a forester has a significant audience: the landowner. Writing for their understanding and writing for their goals is the main idea in a field foresters writing. The purpose of their writing is for a management plan and with using forestry education and the ideas of the landowner’s management plan, the plan becomes enacted perfectly by the forester.