WRITTEN BY JEN LYNDS
Inside the classroom of the Region Two School of Applied Technology’s Forestry Management and Operations program, Kaley Whitman brushed her hands down the sides of her blue T-shirt.
Whitman and her classmates are learning the skills required for careers as professional loggers. The 16-year-old sophomore at Houlton High School is the lone female in the class.
Whitman was not intimidated by the gender imbalance, and she enrolled in the course to learn forestry skills and to send a message.
“Women can work in forestry just like men can,” she said. “And I was also sick of people doubting me. After every class, I go back and brag to all of my friends about what I learned and what I did in class that day. They are writing with pens, and I am using a chainsaw.”
Houlton’s Region Two School of Applied Technology serves students in grades 9-12 from East Grand, Hodgdon, Houlton, Katahdin, and Southern Aroostook.
The program offers real-world experience and best management practices to ensure that logging is done safely and sustainably.
Students who complete the program are eligible for an apprenticeship through the Certified Logging Program (CLP) and credits through the University of Maine at Fort Kent.
Mark Thibodeau, the instructor for the class, said that logistics require the forestry program to take place at the Southern Aroostook Community School in Dyer Brook. Thibodeau, along with Educational Technician Vernon Upton, teaches students everything from safely operating chainsaws to tree felling and machine operation. The program has a woodlot, provided by Irving Woodlands, located behind the school.
“The most important thing we teach here is safety,” Thibodeau, who has 22 years of experience in the industry, stressed. “It is safety and respect for the machine that you run. I tell the students every day that a chainsaw does not care if you go home at the end of the day.”
To stress this, students in the program receive the latest safety gear. They receive one to two months of safety training, first aid and CPR certification, and OSHA 10 certification to meet safety standards across construction or the general industry.
“The students spend a lot of time in the classroom before they head out into the field,” said Upton. “And we have freshmen right up through seniors. It isn’t like we have students who take this class once and they are done. We have some students who have been in this class their entire four years of high school.”
Nearby, several students sat at forestry simulators that trained them on how to use machinery such as skidders and forwarders. Students practiced operating, loading, and unloading the equipment with the simulators.
The school received a $480,000 John Deere forwarder alongside the two simulators in December 2024, thanks to a Maine Department of Education grant, made possible by Governor Janet Mills’ Maine Jobs and Recovery Plan.
Houlton’s Region Two School of Applied Technology is just one of several educational institutions that are training the next generation of foresters. The University of Maine has the most extended continuously accredited professional Forestry Program in the United States.
Adam Daigneault is the director of the School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine in Orono. There are approximately 100 undergraduates in the forestry program, he explained, and undergraduates don’t just spend all day in the classroom.
Daigneault said that students in the program will spend two-thirds of a typical day “dedicated to forestry or natural resource management,” he explained.
“At least three days of the week, they will be outside for several hours, primarily in our lab, the University of Maine’s University Forest,” he added. “The area that we manage is upwards of 14,000 acres. Lots of labs are carried out there.”
Daigneault said that during those labs, students observe the structure of the trees, the type of management conducted, and the response.
“They also observe which type of wildlife might be out there and which type of wildlife might prefer different types of habitat, which is driven by the type of trees, size of the trees, the spacing of the trees, things like that. I’d say 40 percent of forestry students’ time is spent outdoors,” he said.
In the last 10 years, Daigneault explained, 60 to 70 percent of the students in the program have come from out of state.
“They have largely come from New England, but they are not from Maine,” he said. “But they get linked up with employers here, and they end up staying, so we see a positive impact.”
Daigneault said that he thinks that students are most surprised by the fact that forestry is much more complex than they initially believed.
“The science of forestry is really broad, and it includes landowner and ecological objectives,” he said. “It is not just about how to make the most money by cutting the most trees or anything like that. It is much more complex. We manage wildlife, we manage water and soil quality, and in the last decade or two, we’ve focused on our carbon and carbon sequestration…It is not just about cutting trees for timber’s sake only.”
Back in Dyer Brook, Thibodeau and Upton ushered the students to the 137-acre woodlot behind the school.
Thibodeau climbed into the operator’s cab on the forwarder to guide Kregan Leatham, a 17-year-old homeschooled senior, as he started the machine. Leatham gingerly moved the machine forward and received cheers from his classmates as he used the boom and grapple to pick up logs and return them to a nearby pile.
“We harvest and sell firewood to families in need,” Upton said. “That helps families around here and benefits the students as well.”
Brandon Whitman, 17, is a junior at Houlton High School. He said he enrolled in the course to “try something different,” and is enjoying it.
He said he planned a future in the industry.
“I love to drive the skidder,” he acknowledged with a grin.