Get to know Bill Klase, Natural Resources Educator

Bill Klase, Natural Resources Educator – Forestry

Bill Klase Teaching tree identification Bill Klase Profile picture

I was one of those kids who grew up in the suburbs of Milwaukee and realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the place for me.  After a brief stint in the US Army, I enrolled in college with no real idea on what I wanted to pursue. A friend was in the forestry program and, after talking to him and a professor who would become my advisor, I signed up.  With a bachelor’s degree in forest management in hand, I volunteered to be a community forestry volunteer in Peace Corps Nepal.  As I was teaching the Nepali men how to prune trees and the women how to build smokeless, firewood stoves, I had an epiphany. Helping people get the most out of their woods was what I wanted to do. When I returned to the USA, I got a master’s degree in forestry and landed this job in 2000. Since then I have been developing educational materials for landowners on a wide array of topics related to owning woodland.  But what I enjoy most is holding classes for woodland owners and sharing in the learning process with them.