VisionForestryLLC

Neil Sampson, President, Vision Forestry, LLC.

            R. Neil Sampson is a career conservationist with service in the Soil Conservation Service (now Natural Resources Conservation Service), the National Association of Conservation Districts, and the American Forestry Association (now American Forests). As President of the Sampson Group, Inc., a natural resources consulting firm in Alexandria, Virginia, he also serves as a Research Scientist with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and as an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Idaho.  In 2001, he was the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Visiting Fellow at the Yale School, involved in research and teaching on public policy as it relates to private forest management and sustainable forestry.  He periodically serves as an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Campus, teaching public policy as it relates to private land conservation programs.
            At Vision Forestry LLC, he and partner Larry Walton operate a consulting firm that has managed some 130,000 acres of sustainably-managed forests for a variety of public and private clients in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia.  They have achieved and maintained FSC and SFI certification on the Chesapeake Forest Project, a 60,000-acre forest owned by the State of Maryland since 2003, and FSC resource manager certification through The Forestland Group since 2005. 
            He was a Technical Advisor to the Utility Forest Carbon Management Program of Edison Electric Institute, the International Carbon Mitigation Program of The Nature Conservancy, and the National Carbon Offset Coalition.  He serves as Executive Secretary of the External Review Panel to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
            Sampson is a 1960 graduate of the University of Idaho, where he received his B.S. degree in Agriculture (Crops and Soils).  He earned a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University in 1974.  He has authored three books on soil conservation, and edited many books on natural resource topics in addition to publishing over 100 scientific and popular articles on natural resource topics.  Many of his recent papers can be found on www.sampsongroup.com/Papers/papersdocuments.htm.