Eighth-graders fanned out across Downing Research Forest behind Philomath Middle School on Friday morning, climbing into logging equipment, watching wildfire burn demonstrations and learning to plant Douglas fir seedlings as the Paul and Genie Mortenson Forestry Expo Day returned for the first time since 2019.
Roughly 125 students cycled through stations staffed by Starker Forests, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Miller Timber Services and the Oregon Department of Forestry — a familiar lineup of partners for an event that first launched in 2014, even if the faces behind the learning stations have changed.
“I think it’s all the same partners but a lot of them are different people — you’ve had people move on or retire from the different organizations,” said Corinne Walters-Finster, a Starker Forests educator who helped coordinate the event.
The event is named for the late Paul Mortenson, who worked for Starker Forests from 1974 to 2012, and Genie Mortenson, a longtime teacher at Philomath Elementary.
This year’s stations gave students hands-on exposure to the breadth of work that falls under the forestry umbrella. ODFW set up a wildlife station with animal pelts and a telemetry demonstration showing how biologists track tagged animals. Miller Timber Services brought a forwarder and moved logs around. ODF parked a wildfire brush truck on site and ran burn-table demonstrations. A new addition this year was a drone station.
“We’re just hoping people know a little bit more about what people in forestry actually do,” Walters-Finster said. “On top of that, I don’t think people know all of the different careers that are involved in forestry. They often think like logging, especially in our area here, and that’s a great job, but it’s not the only job.”
For Riley Stevenson, the expo represents something personal. A 2008 Philomath High graduate, Stevenson went to work for Starker Forests straight out of high school and now serves as the company’s logging supervisor.
“It’s more just an overview of forestry as a whole and the different aspects we have — logging, tree planting, wildlife technology as well as wildfire,” Stevenson said. “So it’s just an overview so that they can see what we do and all the different routes you can go at in forestry.”
The pitch is also strategic. Philomath High School’s forestry and natural resources program, taught by Simon Babcock, has long been a draw for students considering careers in the field — and the expo serves as a soft introduction.
“We’ve used this to help promote our high school forestry program to try to pique some interest here at the eighth grade so when they get into high school that maybe they want to sign up for Simon’s program and continue on,” Stevenson said.
The timing of the event has shifted. In past years, organizers tried to schedule the expo just before eighth-graders signed up for their freshman classes. The district has since moved class registration earlier in the year, so this year’s expo arrived after students had already made their selections.
“This is way better weather than we’d probably get in January or February, so we’re like, we’ll just do it now and at least they grasp it and then in the future in high school, if they want to sign up, they’ll have an idea of what’s going on,” Stevenson said.
Stevenson added that misconceptions about the industry persist.
“I think there’s a few misconceptions that everybody’s a logger in forestry and there’s just so much more that goes on,” he said. “There’s tons of fire opportunity, there’s a lot of wildlife opportunity and now with the way technology is going, there’s just way more technical skills and technical devices that we’re implementing now and using that there’s just a bigger grasp of people that can come into this industry.”
Stephen Coskey, a 2013 Philomath High graduate, ran the tree-planting station at this year’s expo. He now works for Starker Forests, where his duties include reforestation, planting, burning, mechanical site preparation and some seedling research.
His station turned the work into a relay — tubing trees, planting trees, counting Douglas fir seed and building boxes where trees go.
Coskey’s path from middle-schooler to forestry professional traces back to the same program the expo is designed to feed.
“I went to middle school here and did the forestry program with Simon — that’s where it started,” Coskey said. “He got me connected with Starker Forests through an internship and if you find something that you actually feel passionate about, that’s where it starts.”
Babcock, who has taught hundreds of students through the high school’s forestry and natural resources program — Stevenson and Coskey among them — said the expo “shows what alumni can do to give back to what started them with their careers.”
Walters-Finster said she hopes students walk away with at least a baseline understanding, even if forestry isn’t ultimately their path. “Even if they decide it’s not for them, then they know a little bit,” she said.
