A Leader in Forest Management
from Trust the Leaders Issue 12, Summer 2005
Fifty years ago in the small town of Lyme, New Hampshire, Fred Wagner formed a company dedicated to managing forest investments in New England. Over the past 50 years, Wagner has grown from a small New England firm to a regional leader in forest management that oversees timberland investments for more than 20 clients who own 2.5 million acres of forestland in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Ontario, Canada. With over 75 employees, Wagner is dedicated to managing the biology of these forests and the business side of these investments.
Wagner’s focus has been on the naturally regenerating forests of eastern North America. These forests are a mixture of hardwood and softwood trees encompassing an amazing diversity of species, which are well suited to long-term management for value growth. In many cases the trees harvested today are the fourth or fifth generation of trees harvested from the land. Red spruce, balsam fir, white pine, sugar maple, yellow birch, black cherry, aspen, red oak and yellow poplar are some of the most common and valuable species Wagner manages.
Wagner’s 55 foresters deal daily with more than 200 customers who buy wood to make lumber, furniture, plywood, paper and a variety of other products. In each state, the foresters must comply with a web of regulations that includes standards for timber harvesting and road building, as well as for the protection of threatened and endangered species, other wildlife habitat, water quality, shoreland areas and wetlands. Interacting with town, county and state officials, wildlife biologists, neighbors and tourists is all part of the job. It is said that landowners have a social license to manage their land responsibly— Wagner’s foresters make sure their license is in good standing.
While the field foresters are the key to the company’s success, Wagner has a technical staff that makes sure those foresters have all the information resources they need including up-to-date aerial imagery, inventory estimates, GPS coordinates and maps of every kind. Another key component of the business is making sure the cash flows correctly and quickly to investors and the contractor logging force. To this end, Wagner has filled a room in its converted farmhouse with an array of the latest technology, establishing seamless connections and data redundancy with its field offices.
Compared to other regions of the United States, there is a relatively small amount of public land in the Northeast, and therefore private forestland is used heavily by the recreating public. All Wagner timberland is open to the public, and the company allows the traditional activities of hunting, fishing and hiking, along with increasingly popular sports like snowmobiling. This continues the century-old practice of public use of these private lands.
Over the past 50 years, Wagner has grown from a small New England firm to a regional leader in forest management.
This public use of the northern forests has in turn spawned a strong tradition of forest conservation. Wagner is in the forefront of selling land and easements to conservation organizations and public agencies to protect unique areas and working forest landscapes. Wagner has sold wetlands to national wildlife refuges, mountains with popular hiking trails to local land trusts, extensive river and lake corridors to the State for public recreation and conservation, as well as “no-development” conservation easements on hundreds of thousands of acres.
In the past 15 years there has been a major change in timberland ownership in North America. Substantial tracts of timberland owned by vertically integrated forest products companies have been sold to generate investment capital and increase business focus. The majority of the buyers of this timberland have been institutional investors like pension funds, endowments and foundations that view this asset class as an attractive asset that lends diversification to their portfolios.
In late 2003, Wagner acquired 629,000 acres of land in Maine and New Hampshire for investors from MeadWestvaco Corporation. MeadWestvaco decided to sell this land, but wanted to retain the right to purchase pulpwood from the land for the next 50 years. They also wanted the new owner to continue managing the land under the principles of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), subject to third-party audits to attest compliance with the standards. With the help of the timberland specialists at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, Wagner was able to complete this complex transaction with speed and confidence, and, to date, Wagner’s ongoing relationship with MeadWestvaco has been excellent, attesting to the level of foresight and detail brought to bear.
From the small town of Lyme, New Hampshire, Wagner Forest Management looks forward to its next 50 years of providing timber management services to clients Wagner Forest Management looks forward to its next 50 years of providing timber management services to clients throughout the northern forest.
