Jenilee Dean receives 2024 Stewardship Forester Award

The 2024 Stewardship Forester is Jenilee Dean of Northeast Michigan Forestry LLC in Tawas City. She was honored in February to recognize her exceptional customer service to family forest landowners.

The Stewardship Forester Award, given at the annual Michigan Association of Consulting Foresters meeting, recognizes the important role of the 155 private sector foresters who serve Michigan’s 400,000 family forest landowners.

Dean studied biology at the University of Michigan and gained forestry experience on the job. She traveled around Michigan and the eastern United States doing surveys of seedling survival and other forest measurements for large government and corporate landowners. After having children, Dean wanted to work closer to home and focused her efforts on small landowners in northeast Michigan. A few years ago, she started her own company, Northeast Michigan Forestry LLC.

Dean said she appreciates the flexible schedule that a career in consulting forestry provides. As a business owner, she gets to take her three daughters to the woods with her in the summer. Once her daughters Rosalee, Elsie and Sadie were big enough to ride in a backpack, they were out in the woods with their mom helping landowners care for their forest. The girls love going to work with their mom, even if it might be mostly for the snacks and riding the four-wheeler around the woods.

Dean has written more than 100 forest management plans over the last 15 years, covering thousands of acres in Alcona, Alpena and Iosco counties. Her clients use their plans to achieve forest management goals such as planting trees or harvesting timber to improve wildlife habitat. Forest management plans provide a return on investment when landowners use them to generate income with a timber sale, sell forest carbon credits, improve water quality, boost wildlife habitat or lower their property taxes in the Qualified Forest or Commercial Forest programs.

“I really enjoy chatting with landowners and hearing about the history of their property and educating them about forestry," Dean said. "I am beyond blessed to call the forest my office.”

Dean wrote a forest stewardship plan for Jane Krueger after Krueger inherited 320 acres of family forest in Iosco County. Krueger was hesitant about forest management, but learned about her woods from Dean and a local conservation district forester. Together, they came up with a plan and are beginning to implement it. Dean and Krueger recently inspected the property to make sure seedlings were growing back after a timber harvest. Out in the forest, Krueger shared the benefits of the Japanese practice of “forest bathing,” a term for intentionally spending time in the forest for relaxation and mental health benefits.

Dean has numerous credentials to document her professional forestry skills and help landowners enroll in various forestry programs.

She is a member of the Association of Consulting Foresters, a Michigan Registered Forester, a Technical Service Provider, Qualified Forester, DNR timber cruiser and qualified specialist to identify and treat oak wilt disease. If you own forest land, a consulting forester like Dean can help you achieve your goals to manage, protect and enjoy your forest.

Dennis McDougall, with U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, appreciates Dean’s great work too. “Relationships between foresters and landowners are at the heart of successful private forest management," he said. "By listening to the landowner’s vision for their property, the forester develops a unique management plan designed to achieve that vision. Foresters like Jenilee help landowners understand and navigate the world of timber markets and government programs to make sound decisions about their land.”

Interested in managing your forest to meet your goals? Here are two resources to get advice and support: