April 15, 2022
Kingwood Forestry Services invests $30K for UAM grad student fellowship
By Lon Tegels
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Fast facts:
- Kingwood Forestry Service Endowment established
- Forestry graduate student receives financial bump
- Forestry consultants invest in students at UAM
(694 words)
(Newsrooms: With art at https://flic.kr/p/2neBm5n and https://flic.kr/p/2nevNgg; video at https://youtu.be/KC8C4kkE6K8 )
MONTICELLO, Ark. — Kingwood Forestry Services is again giving back to the University of Arkansas at Monticello, establishing a $30,000 endowment to help University of Arkansas at Monticello graduate students with their forestry studies.
Kingwood, based in Monticello, provides consultancy to private landowners, including investment, appraisal, site preparation, planting and economic advice. The owners, John McAlpine of Monticello, and Carl Herberg of Texarkana, Texas, said the $30,000 endowment will provide one scholarship per year.
“We expect it to be $1,000 to $1,500 a year going toward the student,” McAlpine said, adding that the funds will be determined by the UAM Foundation on how much will be available depending on the return.
“John and I are both second-generation foresters,” said Herberg. “His dad was a forester; my dad was a forester. When I started in Monticello, it was apparent to me how much UAM was feeding into Kingwood Forestry Service. To this day it feeds a lot of hires and that’s been very beneficial to us as a company.”
Kingwood Forestry Services is a private landowner consultant. The company provides professional forestry services such as investment, appraisal, site prep and planting, hunting leases and economics advice for private forest landowners.
“We’re very excited about the development of this Kingwood Forestry Fellowship,” said Michael Blazier, dean of UAM’s College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources. “This fellowship will provide some additional financial aid for our graduate students who are coming in to do research on topics relevant to the forest industry.
“Kingwood’s relationship with the College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources is a really tight one and we are really grateful for their support and encouragement,” Blazier said. “They already provide a scholarship for our undergraduate students. They have always been very facilitating in helping with our teaching.”
Serving South Arkansas
Kingwood Forestry manages nearly 400,000 acres in southern Arkansas.
“UAM is a good school because it serves all of south Arkansas which is the core of where a lot of our management tracts are,” Herberg said. “Our headquarters his here in Monticello and it’s important to us to reinvest where it’s going to be most beneficial to the region and the market that serves both Kingwood and the folks in the area that are going to school here.”
Herberg said forestry is attractive to students for many reasons.
“You can be either inside or outside. You can do both urban forestry; you can be in the woods primarily,” he said. “There are state jobs that allow jobs in research, whether you’re a numbers or science person, whether you’re from Chicago or Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
“Our big word is silviculture. The definition of silviculture, in short, is timber management,” Herberg said. “It’s the art and science of managing a forest. If you’re not big on the science and math part, there is also the art part. It gives you opportunity from both sides of the fence.”
Investing in the future
“As a company, we like to invest in people. We would like to hire nice sharp people
to come and work for us, but even if they go somewhere else in the profession, it
helps the overall profession,” McAlpine said. “That’s why we like to invest in education
of students who can contribute to our profession.”
McAlpine said he and his wife are both graduates of UAM and his daughter is a UAM student.
McAlpine joined Kingwood Forestry right out of college 24 years ago.
“One of the biggest things we see with this fellowship is to be able to give back to the university and help draw students to this profession,” he said. “This is a profession that we need more deep-thinking graduates; undergraduates as well as graduate students, to help advance and tell the good story that we’re doing in forestry in the state.”
McAlpine, a first-generation UAM student said that “this is a university where anybody can come and succeed if they are willing to put forth the effort.”
The Kingwood Forestry Fellowship should have enough equity that it will be available by the fall of 2022, said McAlpine. Interested students can apply for the fellowship through the College for Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources at CFANR@uamont.edu or call 870-460-1052 for more information.
About the College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Arkansas Forest Resources Center
The College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the Arkansas Forest Resources Center, a University of Arkansas System Center of Excellence, brings together interdisciplinary expertise through a partnership between the University of Arkansas at Monticello and the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. The College and Center are headquartered at the University of Arkansas at Monticello campus, but their programs range statewide with the mission of developing and delivering teaching, research, and extension programs that enhance and ensure the sustainability and productivity of forest-based natural resources and agricultural systems. Academic programs are delivered by the College of Forestry, Agriculture, and Natural Resources through the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Through the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, research is administered by the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, and extension and outreach activities are coordinated by the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.
The University of Arkansas at Monticello and the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offer all of their programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and are equal opportunity institutions.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
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Media Contact:
Lon Tegels
College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources
University of Arkansas at Monticello
Arkansas Forest Resources Center
U of A System Division of Agriculture
tegels@uamont.edu
870-460-1852
@UAM_CFANR