How do you find good help these days? Professional certification helps quality talent stand out. If you are engaging in the forest sector, the Society of American Foresters (SAF) has a professional accreditation, the Certified Forester program (CF), that identifies professionals with the credentials required to succeed in the forest sector.
The SAF is the nation’s premiere professional society for the forest sector. The mission of SAF is to advance sustainable management of forest resources through science, education, and technology, promoting professional excellence while ensuring the continued health, integrity, and use of forests to benefit society in perpetuity.
SAF’s certification program is considered the most established program for certification of foresters in the world. The accreditation exam focuses on several areas including resource assessment, stakeholder engagement and collaboration, management planning, and operations. The CF credential recognizes those who excel at the stewardship of our nation’s forest resources and set the standard for their peers. Certification is a commitment to high standards of practice and continuous learning.
Achieving CF status requires meeting educational requirements and years of qualifying experience to qualify for the accreditation exam, and ultimately passing the exam. I found the exam to be rigorous and broad in scope. It covered a diverse array of subject material that cannot be gained easily. Knowledge gained to succeed comes from several realms: boots-on-the-ground, real world forestry, that is critical experience for being an effective forest professional. Success required significant experience with data collection and analysis, management planning, field work, contracting and understanding of processes needed to develop and implement projects at multiple scales. It is not the type of exam one can simply study to pass, real world experience is needed to pass.
The Certified Forester designation is a demonstration of my on-going commitment to maintain high standards of professional performance and the intention to serve clients with integrity and up-to-date knowledge. SAF maintains an online directory of Certified Foresters, you can search by name if you are looking or someone specific, or by state if you are looking for someone in a particular place. The directory is online here. I encourage you to look for certified foresters (spoiler alert, I am one) to support your efforts in the forest sector. The CF after the name is an assurance of integrity, trust, dependability, and the experience to succeed.