‘Engaging private woodland owners to encourage sustainable forest management.’
Extension Forestry Educators lead classes and build programs to engage landowners in the sustainable management of Wisconsin’s privately owned forests. Efforts to reach out to landowners include Learn About Your Land; WI Women Owning Woodlands; Working Lands Forestry; Your Land, Your Legacy; and new landowner engagement. Sign up for our eNewsletter to stay up to date on our offerings.
Johanna Desprez
Natural Resources Educator
Johanna Desprez is the Natural Resources Educator in Forestry located in Madison, WI. Johanna is developing and implementing a program to help connect Wisconsin landowners with foresters to develop land management plans for the landowners in partnership with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Prior to joining UW Extension, she led the creation and launch of the Assessing Vegetative Impact of Deer (AVID) citizen science project with University of Minnesota Extension. While earning her master’s degree in forestry, her research focused on spatial temporal changes of tree species in the Eastern United States, and the impacts of climate change.
Scott Hershberger
Forestry Communications Specialist
Scott Hershberger is the Forestry Communications Specialist. He creates content for the Extension forestry website, social media, and newsletter and helps develop communication strategies for several of the forestry team’s projects.
Scott holds an M.S. in Life Sciences Communication from UW–Madison with a focus on communicating about the changing climate. During grad school, he worked as a project assistant on the Extension Maple Syrup Program. Prior to that, he was a science writer at Scientific American, Fermilab, and the American Mathematical Society. Outside of work, Scott enjoys playing piano, composing music, riding his bike, and birding by ear.
Tony Johnson
Natural Resources Educator
Tony Johnson is an extension educator specializing in ‘working lands forestry’ outreach. With an office at the Horicon Marsh Visitor Center, he provides educational programs and products to support Wisconsin woodland owners statewide.
Prior to joining Extension, Tony worked for the National Park Service, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and in private sector wildlife conservation. Tony’s educational background includes a biology degree from UW-Milwaukee and a master’s in natural resources from Cornell University.
Bill Klase
Natural Resources Educator
Bill Klase is a Natural Resource Educator providing educational programs and materials to woodland owners throughout the state.
Prior to joining Extension Bill spent time in the US Army and in the Peace Corps in Nepal. As a graduate student he taught undergrads how to use forestry tools and navigate the woods.
Olivia Kovacs
Natural Resources Educator
Olivia Kovacs is the Natural Resources Educator in Forestry located in Portage, WI. Olivia designs and delivers outreach and education to women forest landowners and supports the implementation of the DNR Division of Forestry’s Private Forestry Education and Outreach Strategy.
Olivia began her role at Extension in early 2023. Before joining Extension, she worked for the US Department of Agriculture helping implement farm bill programs in southern Wisconsin. Prior to this, she worked in environmental education at schools in South and North America. She loves fostering connections to natural spaces and hearing about your latest stroll in the woods.
Keith Phelps
Working Lands Forestry Educator
Keith is a Working Lands Forestry Educator located in Appleton, WI, specializing in woodland and forest climate change resiliency. Keith holds an M.S. in Forest Resources from Clemson University. At Clemson, he focused on prioritizing forest restoration areas for timber harvesting and prescribed fire using GIS models in the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina.
Before joining UW–Madison Extension, Keith worked in Wisconsin for 8 years in ecological restoration, wetland delineation, and wetland permitting. Keith has extensive experience assisting private landowners with invasive species removal, prescribed fire, and natural resource mapping/surveys. In his free time, Keith enjoys hiking, cooking, drawing, writing poetry, and playing guitar.
Kris Tiles
Natural Resources Education Program Manager
Kris Tiles is the Program Manager of the Regional Natural Resources program. She has been working as a Natural Resources educator with Extension since 2004. Kris’ work covers the areas of forestry outreach to woodland owners and water quality improvement through soil health. She has been part of the team leading a program of broader outreach called Learn About Your Land, for new and beginning woodland owners. She has also worked with communities to facilitate dialogue around sense of place and the environment.
Prior to joining Extension in 2004 Kris worked for Cooperative Development Services working with private forest owners. She also worked for Oregon State University as a researcher looking at spotted owl habitat and in the Peace Corps as an agroforestry volunteer in Haiti.