Company Profile
FORECON, Inc.
Company Overview
FORECON, Inc. – An Overview
FORECON, Inc. is the successor firm of "C.H. Bauer, Consulting Forester" established on July 1, 1954. Since its founding, the firm has continued to provide an increasing range of expert forestry and related environmental services for private, corporate, industrial and municipal forest landowners throughout the Eastern United States. We currently operate out of seven (7) locations; our main office is situated in Falconer, NY and our field offices are located in Cortland, NY, Hancock, NY, Titusville, PA, Smethport, PA, Elkins, WV, and Oak Hill, WV.
The strength of the firm is in maintaining a staff of well-trained and experienced persons with diverse skills and professional qualifications. Among the 38+ people currently employed by FORECON Inc., there are representative skills in forest management planning, marketing of forest products, forest inventory design and data collection, certified timber and timberland appraising, expert witness testimony, geographic information systems (GIS), forest certification systems (SFI, FSC, ATFS), environmental management systems (ISO 14000), ecological services (carbon sequestration, bio-diversity, and hydrology), forest economics, timberland investments, forest taxation, forest engineering, recreation planning, wildlife biology and municipal/regional planning, surveying, drafting, geology, urban tree management and data processing. Various employees are members of professional associations such as the Society of American Foresters (SAF) (Certified Foresters), the Association of Consulting Foresters (ACF), the Wildlife Society of America, the International Society of Arboriculture, the National Association of Realtors, and the Registrars Accreditation Board. Individual credentials and experience for key staff members can be made available for your reference. FORECON also maintains a working relationship with other professional firms having expertise in archaeology, biology, ecology, engineering, geology, hydrology, etc. Specialists are sometimes retained by FORECON from these firms for special project needs.
FORECON, Inc. has been involved in both small and large scale projects, handling the analyses and inventory of timber resources on small privately held tracts, as well as projects entailing tens and/or hundreds of thousands of acres. FORECON is widely recognized as a full service forestry and environmental consulting group. Our multifaceted approach to resource management provides our clientele with expertise in virtually all aspects of land and natural resource management. These services include forest resource inventory, planning, and management; oil, gas and mineral management, wildlife management, recreation management, forest engineering, forest tax planning, and other ecosystems-related services such as conservation easements, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and hydrology. In total, FORECON Inc. manages about 220,000 acres of high quality working forest for institutional and private investors under various certification systems. In addition, FORECON Inc. manages several municipal watersheds, county-owned forest and park lands, and numerous private non-industrial ownerships throughout the Northeast.
FORECON Inc. is a regionally recognized leader in quality forest and land management planning and implementation. Our firm regularly produces, edits, and otherwise maintains forest management plans for hundreds of landowners representing thousands of acres on a continuing basis. These management plans can assume many forms as they are customized to meet the specific needs of the client and the resource. The preparation and implementation of these plans has included balancing science-based resource needs or limitations with ownership objectives, balancing stakeholder interests, participation in public meetings regarding proposed activities, balancing the financial considerations of forest and land management, and incorporation of sustainability standards such as SFI, FSC, ATFS and/or ISO requirements.
Our firm has been involved in many wood supply and procurement feasibility studies throughout the eastern United States as well, with the most recent projects involving the analyses of timber supply and availability for the proposed development of two separate particleboard plants.
We have participated in many environmentally sensitive projects and represented clients in hearings where our expertise is critical to a proposed project's outcome. We have also participated in many bid solicitations sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, maintaining close professional working relationships with federal and state forestry professionals, not only in the northeast but nation wide. Other projects have included wildlife and plant surveys on the National Forest level, Emerald Ash Borer trapping participation with USDA APHIS, alternative energy (biomass) pilot projects, urban forest management, integrated pest management programs, environmental impact statements (NEPA), environmental permitting, lease administration, wildlife management, resource assessments, wetland mitigation and biologic surveys, and land acquisition projects.
A common thread throughout the various services provided by FORECON Inc. is the strong supporting role played by our GIS department. GIS data analysis, digital imagery analysis, field data management, database services, tabular reporting and GPS data development are but a few of our current abilities in this area. Our GIS staff is highly experienced in the application and development of digital data related to natural resource management. FORECON maintains a broad range of equipment capabilities to assist its personnel in accurate data development and analysis and in narrative and graphic presentations. In addition to owning various items of equipment for "state-of-the-art" forest engineering, data collection, and management practices, the company has strong computer capabilities. These capabilities provide all of our offices with an opportunity to utilize a wide array of software products including Windows based programs including Microsoft Office Professional, ESRI’s ArcINFO, ArcGIS v8.0, ArcIMS, and Fountains’ Two Dog software. FORECON has also developed a proprietary database program that combines GIS functionality with forest inventory data and growth modeling capabilities into a system called TIGER (Timber Inventory Growth Evaluation and Reporting). This database system is an extremely powerful management tool and provides a variety of clients and managing foresters with a wide range of functionality accessed through a secure web portal. TIGER’s functionality includes online map development, stand & stock table reporting, growth modeling (with a variety of USFS-developed TWIGS models), and database querying using the combined strengths of ESRI’s Arc GIS and Microsoft SQL.
FORECON’s Mission is to:
“Meet the ever increasing needs of our clients with responsive, effective and environmentally responsible professional forestry and natural resource consulting services, supported by a deep pool of dedicated and knowledgeable people, using innovative, cutting-edge technology.”
Company History
FORECON, Inc. is the successor firm of "C.H. Bauer, Consulting Forester" established on July 1, 1954. Since its founding, the firm has continued to provide an increasing range of expert forestry and related environmental services for private, corporate, industrial and municipal forest landowners throughout the Eastern United States. We currently operate out of seven (7) locations; our main office is situated in Falconer, NY and our field offices are located in Cortland, NY, Hancock, NY, Titusville, PA, Smethport, PA, Elkins, WV, and Oak Hill, WV.