Services
What I do, and who it's for
Eight things I do. Start wherever your situation fits. If nothing quite matches, call and describe the ground. That happens more often than you'd think.
Forest health
Why Are My Trees Dying?
Red needles, boring dust, pitch tubes at the base of the trunk. I can tell you what's doing it and whether it's coming for the rest of them.
Read more →Wildfire
Wildfire Protection & Defensible Space
The house first, then the stand. You get a written plan you can hand a contractor, and a list of the cost-share money you qualify for.
Read more →Planning
Forest Management & Stewardship Plans
What you've got, what it needs, and in what order. It's also what most cost-share programs want to see before they'll fund anything.
Read more →Stand improvement
Forest Thinning
Most stands here carry more trees than the ground can water. Thinning picks which ones get it. Sometimes the work pays for itself.
Read more →Valuation
What Is My Timber Worth?
A count of what's actually standing out there, before anybody makes you an offer. The mill will do this free. The mill is also the one bidding.
Read more →Timber sales
Selling Timber Without Getting Taken
Marking, contracts, picking a logger, somebody on site while the work happens. Most of what goes wrong gets decided before anyone starts a saw.
Read more →Restoration
Replanting After Fire, Beetles, or Harvest
Sometimes ground comes back on its own and planting it is wasted money. Sometimes it won't, and every year you wait makes the job harder.
Read more →For land trusts
Baseline Documentation Reports for Land Trusts
Forest condition inventory, photo points and mapping for conservation easement baselines. Built to hold up to IRS substantiation and Land Trust Alliance practice.
Read more →What happens after you call
The same shape whichever of the eight above you land on.
Step 01
You call or write
Tell me what you own, roughly where it is, and what's worrying you. Fifteen minutes on the phone is usually enough to work out what you're dealing with and what it would take to answer it properly.
Step 02
I walk the ground
Most questions about a piece of forest can't be answered off a map. I come out and look at what's actually growing, what's dying, and what's sitting too close to your house. You're welcome to walk it with me, and most people do.
You get: A read on what you've got and what it needs
Step 03
You get a scope and a fee in writing
Before any billable work starts you'll have it in writing: what I'm going to do, what you'll be holding when it's done, and what it costs. If the number doesn't work for you, that's the point to say so.
You get: A written scope and fee, before anything starts
Step 04
The work happens
Field work, measurement, mapping, whatever the job turned out to need. If I find something out there that changes the picture, you'll hear it from me at the time rather than reading it for the first time in the report.
Step 05
You get the deliverable, and a straight answer
The plan, the inventory, the valuation, the prescription, whatever we agreed on. It comes with my read on what to do first, what can wait, and what public money is out there to help pay for it. What happens next is your call.
You get: The document, plus what I'd do first
Also within scope
Real work, usually folded into a bigger job instead of sold on its own.
Mapping and GIS
Stand maps, boundaries, acreage and treatment units. Comes as a deliverable inside most of the work above. It isn't sold on its own.
Forest roads and access
Layout, grade and drainage, stream crossings, and access assessment for landlocked or awkward ground. Usually handled as part of a harvest or a purchase review.
Timber marking
Marking crews and quality control for harvest and thinning units, including contract marking for agencies and larger owners.
Carbon inventory
Carbon stock estimation where it's genuinely needed. Read the honest answer on carbon markets before commissioning any.
Agency and contractor capacity
Sale prep, layout and administration on contract for agencies, nonprofits and prime contractors who need overflow capacity.
Grant and program administration
Scoping, procurement, budgeting, invoicing and reporting for HOAs, fire districts and conservation districts sitting on wildfire or restoration funding.
Questions that come up before the work does
Most people ask the same few things before they ask about an actual job. I wrote the answers down. They’re free.
How to Hire a Consulting Forester in Montana
Who does what, who's free, who works for whom, and the questions worth asking before you sign anything.
What Forest Work Costs in Montana, and What Moves the Number
Nobody publishes this. Here's what moves the number, and the state and federal money that'll cover a good chunk of the work.
Carbon Credits for Montana Forest Land
Usually the answer is no. Worth knowing why before you sign anything that runs twenty years.
Not sure which of these you need?
That's the most common way people arrive. Erik Snow will ask what you own, what's worrying you, and what you want the place to look like in twenty years, then tell you which of these eight it points at.