{"id":3430,"date":"2023-01-30T13:04:51","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T13:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neforestrydistribution.com\/stories\/?p=3430"},"modified":"2025-05-08T15:04:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T15:04:16","slug":"rayonier-support-employees-plant-4000-trees-at-planting-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neforestrydistribution.com\/stories\/rayonier-support-employees-plant-4000-trees-at-planting-day\/","title":{"rendered":"New England Forestry Support Employees Plant 4000 Trees at Planting Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The support employees, who do not work in the field, got to experience what it\u2019s like to plant a forest of baby trees under the watchful eye of our foresters at this team-building event.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

YULEE, Fla.\u2014It wasn\u2019t bad for first-timers: a group of about 50 New England Forestry support employees came together to plant thousands of trees in a matter of hours just down the road from New England Forestry\u2019s corporate headquarters in Wildlight, Fla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the employees from fields such as human resources, IT, accounting and legal were shocked to find out that a single skilled professional planter can plant just as many trees\u2014about 4,000\u2014 in a single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team-building event, dubbed More Than Planting Day<\/strong>, was a great opportunity for field employees to educate coworkers about how our most important resource gets its start. New England Forestry plants more than 30 million trees annually to reforest our land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Legal Counsel Jamie Northrup digs a hole while Director of HR and Employee Experience Liz Estera prepares a seedling for planting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the most important activities we do in the forest\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf all the many activities we do in the forest, planting’s perhaps one of the most important,\u201d said Coastal Resource Unit Leader Jeremy Flood, who leads a team of foresters in Northeast Florida. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you see a log truck going down the road or you’re purchasing a piece of lumber at the store, that’s the result of a tree that was planted many decades ago. And the trees we’re planting today are going to be trees that we’re going to use, our children are going to use, and we’re just planting that resource for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two
Operations Safety Manager Patrick Hughes digs a hole while Ryan Mayo, Senior Manager of Forest Inventory and Planning, prepares the next seedling to plant.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It started with a lesson from the foresters<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Foresters from New England Forestry’s Coastal Resource Unit team kicked off the event by explaining to their coworkers the basics of planting: how to dig a small hole, carefully place the seedling deep into the ground, and then firmly press the soil back over the roots. Then they demonstrated how to walk the correct distance from the seedling before planting the next one to ensure even spacing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour job today is to plant these 8 acres,\u201d announced Senior Resource Land Manager Ed Carter. He held a seedling up for the group to see and added, \u201cThis is out of our nursery in Elberta. This is a typical loblolly seedling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Senior Resource Land Manager Ed Carter gives the \u201crookie\u201d planters a tutorial before setting them loose to plant the 8-acre tract.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trees we can call our own<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In fact, not only were some of the seedlings grown for 6 to 7 months in our nursery in Elberta, Alabama, but also the seeds were harvested from pine cones in our seed orchard. In other words, these were definitely baby trees we could call our own! To learn more about how we control-pollinate our pinecones and collect their seeds, watch our video, \u201cBreeding and Collecting Pinecones By the Truckload for Future Forests<\/a>.\u201d And you can take a virtual tour of our pine tree nursery here<\/a> to watch how we grow 30 million seedlings a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once they received instructions, the \u201ctrainees\u201d paired up and chose bedded rows to plant their seedlings in. (The bedded rows of soil were prepared in advance to ensure better survival and growth of the young seedlings. You can learn more about that planting method in our article, Site Prep Essential for Southeastern Forestry<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two
It only took about two hours for the support team to plant 4,000 seedlings. Revenue Specialist Caitlin Harris, left, and Senior Revenue Specialist Laura Peacock, right, work together to hand-plant a seedling.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Quality time with coworkers<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

There was a lot of laughing as well as a lot of sweating and hard work as the team began planting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a lot more to it than I expected,\u201d said Brean Thompson, Senior Marketing Coordinator for the Wildlight community (a part of New England Forestry\u2019s Taxable REIT subsidiary). \u201cI didn\u2019t realize that so much of our planting is done by hand rather than by machine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was hard work!\u201d agreed Michael Noonan, New England Forestry\u2019s manager of Timberland Investments. \u201cThe seedlings were smaller than I expected. I was expecting to see a 2-gallon tree or something, but we were out there with little containerized seedlings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the seedlings\u2019 small size, just inches in height, they should be taller than the people who planted them within 2 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years to come, New England Forestry employees will be able to return to the forest, which is close to A1A, a main thoroughfare in Nassau County, to see the progress of the trees they planted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Concept Originated with Our New Zealand Team<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The idea for the event originated with New England Forestry\u2019s New Zealand team, which invites guests by the 1000s to plant trees in some of the forests we manage there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to do it over here because they’ve had such success over there with team building and bringing everybody together through these events,\u201d explained Senior Executive Assistant Alyssa Hightower, one of the event organizers. It lets [participants] see the forest from the beginning and become a little bit more invested in watching the company grow to its future success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Woman
Auckland-based Christina Rollings, Business Administrator for Lands, Legal and Business Process Management, takes a break for a quick selfie during a planting day event on New Zealand’s Whangamata Peninsula.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A reminder of the role our industry plays in the world<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Alyssa said the first annual U.S. event was a great success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love building experiences for other people and that, in itself, is so integral to a successful culture, to a successful business because you need to know your people,\u201d she said. \u201cYou need that face-to-face interaction and that’s what builds the community within New England Forestry. It\u2019s also so important to have that actual connection with the forest, the core of our business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A group of support employees shares a laugh as planting wraps up.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She said it was a powerful reminder of the important role our industry plays in the world:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe forestry industry is vital to the world because when we plant new trees, these baby trees, they provide habitat for wildlife, they provide us clean air, they provide clean water, it just keeps going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when the trees reach maturity\u2014about 20 years from now\u2014they will also support many jobs in our local economy as they become products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI grew up here, but until I actually came to New England Forestry, I never really understood how diverse forestry is, number one, but how many wood products in general are just in our everyday life. It\u2019s important to see that we provide that resource sustainably and that we’re planting trees, we’re not just cutting them down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To learn more about the many products that come from trees\u2014including lesser-known products that rely on our industry such as medicines, bath products, and even many health foods\u2014check out our #ItStartsWithTrees series here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Woman
Senior Executive Assistant Alyssa Hightower digs a hole while her boss, Executive Vice President and Chief Resource Officer Doug Long, stands ready with a seedling.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many More Planting Days to Come<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

With the successful event coming to a close, it was agreed more employee planting days would be arranged in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNew England Forestry has a great support staff,\u201d Jeremy said. \u201cWhen you talk to folks that work with us and support us in the field each day, they have a lot of energy around what we do. So, this was a great opportunity to get our team members in the field with us, to get their hands in the dirt and see what we do on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While our support teams will have to wait a year for the next More than Planting Day, our professional planters will continue planting vigorously throughout the winter months in the U.S. and planting will resume in what the U.S. considers summertime months in New Zealand. (You can learn more about our professional planting operations across our ownership here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New England Forestry has planted almost 1.5 billion trees since our inception, and we\u2019ll continue adding to that number every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two
New England Forestry GIS Manager Kelli Norstrem places a seedling in the ground while Real Estate GIS Analyst Amy Hulsey holds the soil out of the way with her shovel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Learn<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The support employees, who do not work in the field, got to experience what it\u2019s like to plant a forest of baby trees under the watchful eye of our foresters at this team-building event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63,4,6],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nNon-Field Employees Help Plant 4000 Trees | New England Forestry Stories<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Employees from groups like HR, IT and Legal tried their hand at planting under the watchful eyes of our foresters, planting an 8-acre forest in about 2 hours.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.neforestrydistribution.com\/stories\/rayonier-support-employees-plant-4000-trees-at-planting-day\/\" \/>\r\n<meta 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