About Timberland Strategies

Timberland Strategies LLC is owned by J. Brian Fiacco.  We have a group of peers, with a diverse group of specialties in the assessment of timberland related issues, which work together to accomplish our objectives. Each member of the team has a long history of accomplishment in the timberland and forest products industry and each is a specialist in a particular arena of that industry. Every one has worked with me at some point in our careers and each has been carefully selected to bring something unique to the team.

Bio for J. Brian Fiacco

J. Brian Fiacco’s primary area of expertise is in timberland valuation, marketing, and resource analysis (including woody biomass and its evolving impact on wood demand). Clients include industry analysts, institutional investors, TIMOs and the forest products industry. He is the owner of The Timberland Blog (“Examining the changes in timberland ownership and what those changes might mean.”) which is very widely read by investors, foresters and timberland owners. He maintains a database of all large timberland transactions in the U.S. plus acreage estimates for the top 50 plus timberland owners. He monitors the publicly traded timberland owners including Weyerhaeuser, the timber REITs (Plum Creek, Potlatch, and Rayonier) and others. He also monitors trends in timberland prices and stays current with timber pricing, inventory and production levels.

While employed with MeadWestvaco and its predecessors, he was responsible for timberland acquisition/disposals, developing appraisal systems, development of wood supply plans for the pulp mills and monitoring the U.S. and global wood supplies. At various points in time he was also a District Forester, the Forest Resources Information System Manager, Technical Manager of the Timberlands Division, and Division Information Officer of the Forest Resource Division. He also served as Vice President of both Westvaco’s real estate development subsidiary and MeadWestvaco’s Forest Technology Group which delivered a web-based information system to TIMO’s, the forest industry and state forestry organizations.. Fiacco has an M.B.A. degree and a B.S. in Forest Management. In addition to his consulting work, he also owns and manages Tree Farms in NY and SC.

Bio for Brad Franchi

Brad Franchi is a President of Forest Strategies, a firm providing consulting services in the timber and forest products industries. Mr. Franchi also owns, buys, and sells timberlands in SC and Ohio. He has more than 23 years of experience in managing forestry and paper duties including financial planning, regulation, and overall forest management in natural resources and industrial sectors in the US. Mr. Franchi is knowledgeable on International Due Diligence and has Sarbanes Oxley Audit experience. He has expertise in managing forestry data analysis, valuation, purchasing, and divestiture operations for large and small tracts of timberlands. Mr. Franchi has worked with Wall Street and provided consultations on Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT), valuation of timberlands, general forestry, and pulp and paper manufacturer.

In addition to the above experiences, Mr. Franchi has quite a bit of experience conducting international Due Diligence, with experience in the EU and Canada. Mr. Franchi has served on several European acquisition projects, as well as representation to the Chicago Climate Exchange CCX. Mr. Franchi has a long relationship with American Forest and paper Association and is a founding member of the SFI steering team, as well as the Chairman of the SFI label program, becoming the first large and integrated forest products company to earn the right to display the sustainable forestry initiative logo on its retail products .

Bio for Richard H. Odom

Rick has 25 years experience with geospatial technologies in education, research and business consulting. He has worked as the Northeast Regional Sales Manager for Space Imaging, as the GIS/NAIS Coordinator for VA Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, as Vice President, Strategy for Questerra, as Environmental Services Manager for the Forest Technology Group, as GIS Programmer/Analyst for Westvaco’s Forest Resources Division and as a Forestry Instructor at Haywood Community College. He has

• extensive hands-on experience with ESRI product line, Erdas Imagine and Idrisi; experience with image analysis, softcopy photogrammetry, terrain modeling, data visualization and GPS technology.
• Highly proficient with other software for project management (MS Project, Visio), graphic design and presentation (PowerPoint, Macromedia products, CAD) and statistical analysis (SAS, Systat, Excel).
• Extensive experience with many types of geospatial data, spatial analyses and GIS/IT platforms.
• GIS database design and development for forestry, wildlife and agricultural systems.
• User-level experience with SQL (Oracle iSQL*Plus, Ingres SQL), MS Access and GIS-based data query tools
• Experience with web site design and Content Management Systems.
• Excellent writing (technical and non-technical), graphics and presentation skills.

Here is a list of Rick’s technical publications, and here is a project list.

Bio for Dr. Steve Prisley

Steve is an associate professor of forest inventory and geographic information systems in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech.  He teaches in the area of geographic information systems and conducts research in spatial analysis, forest inventory and analysis, and carbon storage assessment.  Steve has over 13 years experience in the forest products industry with Continental Forest Industries and Westvaco.  For each company, he held the position of manager of resource information, where he was responsible for oversight of the forest inventory and mapping programs, supervision of a team of software developers and data managers, as well as strategic planning and analysis. In addition, Steve has been employed by the US Forest Service and US Geological Survey’s EROS Data Center.  He served on the Second Blue Ribbon Panel on Forest Inventory and Analysis and the Forest Science and Technology Board of the Society of American Foresters.  Steve worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on two reports dealing with carbon sequestration in forests: the Special Report on Land Use, Land-use Change, and Forestry, and a report on Forest Degradation.  As part of the scientific team developing these IPCC reports, he was awarded a certificate of recognition for contributions to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC.

Bio for Gerald “Jerry” Stuckey

Gerald Stuckey, CFE, founded TimberWatch, LLC in 2004.  TimberWatch provides services in auditing, security surveys, woodland arson investigations, tracking domestic terrorism, and fraud and timber theft investigations.  Jeery’s expertise is a result of 48 years in the timber industry most of which were with MeadWestvaco where he was activity involved in wood procurement, chip procurement, timber sales, and timber security.  He continues to be very active in promoting timber security and is considered an expert in the field throughout the United States and Asia.  While working for the World Bank, he went to Laos on two missions, where he worked with other security specialists and law enforcement agencies from various parts of the World.  As a result, he was one of the authors of the World Bank’s publication, “Timber Theft Prevention, Introduction to Security for Forest Managers”. 

 

Jerry attended Clemson University and holds a B. S. in Business from Baptist College of Charleston. He is a Certified Fraud Examiner, as well as a SC State Constable and a Registered Forester in South Carolina.  Over the years he has been a member of many forest products organizations and a past chair of several including FRA’s National Forest Products Security Committee, Southern and Southeast Forest Products Security Groups, and Region 8 Purchasers Committee. His most significant role while residing as chair of the National Security Committee was the establishment of regional security groups throughout the United States.

 

As training is one of the most important functions of any timber security program, Jerry enjoys teaching foresters (our first line of defense), contractors, auditors, law enforcement and others, timber and timberland security topics.  He has participated with South Carolina’s ’Timber Operators Professionals” program by instructing license contractors and foresters in wood dangers, updates on forest industry thefts, and eco terrorists activities.