Maryland-based Forest Resources Assn. elects Tom Norris, VP and General Manager of Interstate Resources' Timber Division, as chairman

Allison Oesterle

ROCKVILLE, Maryland , April 23, 2012 (press release) – On April 23, the Forest Resources Association elected Tom Norris, Vice President and General Manager of the Timber Division of Interstate Resources, Inc., to serve as FRA’s Chairman for the coming two-year period.

Norris thanked his predecessor, Dick Carmical, for his leadership during the past two years, singling out FRA’s work in building its membership and solvency during that period, in defending FRA members’ interest in the policy arena, and in leading the search committee that selected retiring FRA President Richard Lewis’s successor, Deb Hawkinson.

Norris outlined his own priorities for his term of leadership: recruitment of new members (particularly among wood suppliers and biomass consumers), helping Deb Hawkinson transition into her position at the head of FRA’s staff, and obtaining a workable alternative to the Administration’s revision of the H-2B visa rules governing foreign employees of treeplanting contractors and other guestworkers. He also placed a priority on re-examining FRA’s dues structure and on providing an orientation to recently appointed FRA Board members.

As Vice President and General Manager of Interstate Resources’ Timber Division, Tom Norris is responsible for sales, marketing, manufacturing, and transportation for Interstate’s lumber and timber operations.

Prior to his 19 years with Interstate, he worked for Union Camp and Continental Forest Industries in a number of upper management positions. Apart from his leadership roles on FRA’s Executive Committee and Board, he has served in several other industry association leadership posts and sits on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forest Resources. He holds a BS in Forest Resources from the University of Georgia and completed the University of Virginia’s Colgate Darden School of Business’s Executive Program.

The Forest Resources Association Inc. is a nonprofit trade association concerned with the safe, efficient, and sustainable harvest of forest products and their transport from woods to mill. FRA represents wood consumers, independent logging contractors, and wood dealers, as well as businesses providing products and services to the forest resource-based industries.

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