NNFP Team

Colin Donohue, Executive Director

Colin Donohue serves the National Network of Forest Practitioners as the Executive Director, helping NNFP to nurture sustainable relationships between people and forests by supporting organizations and individuals that help create sustainable forest-related income and livelihoods.

Colin has been involved with a wide variety of forest-related organizations, activities, and issues for over 17 years, most notably, he developed the Sustainable Forest Economies program at Rural Action, bringing it to national prominence in his 9 years there. Rural Action worked with private landowners on a variety of projects from cultivation and sustainable use of Non-Timber Forest Products to innovative projects (Call Before You Cut and New Landowner Welcome Wagon), and development of forest landowner cooperatives to sustainably manage land and market their wood.

He lives in Athens County Ohio in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains with his Fiancee, Ana and his cat Kisa. He enjoys playing bluegrass music and hiking.

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Scott Bagley, Program Director

Scott serves as NNFP's Program Director, which includes leading up the Center for Cooperative Forest Enterprises.

He has had a variety of work experiences that have led him to his work with NNFP, from fieldwork to writing to business planning, and many things in between. He first encountered NNFP back in 2002 while coordinating the Sustainable Forestry Program at Rural Action in southeastern Ohio.

He grew up in northeastern Wyoming, finished high school in eastern Kentucky, then earned degrees from Miami University (Ohio) and the University of Montana. He lives in southeastern Ohio with his wife, Rachel.

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Chris Demel, Financial Manager

Pradeep Edussuriya, Media Specialist

Pradeep was born in Sri Lanka and moved to the United States since 2000. He earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Film from Northern Michigan University and MFA in Film at Ohio University's School of Film. Pradeep is an avid versatile filmmaker, experienced in narrative, documentary, experimental, animation and musical modes. He is familiar with various formats of filmmaking including super 8, 16mm, DV and HD.

Apart from directing his own films, he have also served as a director of photography for various narrative film, documentary and commercial productions. He photographed portions of African American Presence In The Ohio River Valley, a feature length documentary produced by Ohio University's Department of African American Studies. Dating to the time of slavery, the film consists of the preserved narrations of African American oral history in the region. He also photographed sections of Amino Kano: Once Upon Nigeria, a feature length documentary that tells the story of one of Nigeria's greatest political and humanitarian icons. He have also served as an instructor of film and photography for undergraduate, high school, and middle school students.You can view short samples of pradeep's film and photography work at his website http://pradeepedussuriya.com.

John Fenderson, Southeast Regional Director

John is responsible for implementation of projects in the Southern states with a specific focus on working with African American Landowners. He has over 20 years of experience in forestry, conservation, environmental assessment, research and communications. He has worked as a forester and outreach coordinator for both the US Forest Service and the Tennessee Division of Forestry, where he gave presentations on emerging environmental/forestry issues, developed ecosystem services programs, created and organized landowner groups and conducted workshops. As a research associate at the University of Tennessee, he conducted research on carbon storage in forests and wood products, industrial ecology, and carbon credit trading. He also assisted with research on carbon in agricultural soils, and biomass fuel production/renewable energy.

James Ford, Outreach Coordinator, Southeast Region

James has 42 years of experience working with rural landowners. For 38 years he was employed with USDA; Soil Conservation Service/ Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). From 1997 -2006, he was the State Conservationist for USDA; NRCS in Tennessee. For the last four years, he has worked in the southeast with nonprofit organizations helping to build resilient rural communities.

James’ family has been involved in forest and farm operation for four generations. Currently he is the absentee manager for his family farm in Georgia. His hometown community of family farmers still relies on him for conservation and natural resource advice.

James community service involves participation in many farm and conservation organizations. He has served on the Board of Directors of Land Between the Lakes, Georgia Agri-Leaders Forum, Georgia Crop Advisors, and University of Tennessee/Tennessee State Extension Advisory Committee. Currently he is a member of EPA’s Farm Ranch and Rural Community Committee, and 1890 Land Grant Council for Agriculture Research, Extension and Teaching.

James has a B.S. Degree in Agriculture Education from Fort Valley State University, and a M.S Degree in Public Administration from Georgia College, and State University. He was recognized by President Clinton Administration for work on flood recovery. He also received national recognition from U.S. Forest Service for Community Outreach.
James is married and has three children and five grandchildren. He resides in Hermitage, Tennessee.

Harry Groot, Forest Enterprise Consultant

Since 1998, Harry has run his own forest products enterprise providing forest landcare and value-addition services to landowners; and for five years was the primary manufacturer of finished products for the Blue Ridge Forest Cooperative, for whom he was an organizing member and served as its CEO until its close in 2010. He recently worked on a managed-forest carbon sequestration project in the mid-Appalachians recruiting landowners and providing technical services.

Harry has a BS in Mechanical Engineering with graduate work focusing on Management and Quality Systems in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He has over 15 years of manufacturing experience with both Professional Engineer and Certified Energy Manager credentials. He has worked as a business consultant for 22 years, privately, and in the public sector for 8 years as one of Virginia’s Regional Technology Transfer Directors and as an Industrial Extension Agent.

Harry and his wife steward an 110-acre farm in the rural Virginia Blue Ridge Mountain region which they plan to pass along to their daughters and grandchildren. Besides sustainably managing their forest, gardens, and orchard, they raise purebred dairy and meat goats as well as two breeds of Heritage chickens and one breed of Heritage turkeys in collaboration with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. They are also working on a project to establish Karakachan Livestock Guardian Dogs in the US with a few other breeders—and while they all have names, they’re Bulgarian, from whence they came, and none of them plays any musical instruments (to date), however they do a great job at keeping feral dog packs, coyotes, and bear away. Harry, when he has “spare” time, likes to read and listen to music.

Debra McBride, Operations Director

Nora McDougall-Collins, Director of Web Development and Marketing

Starting in Jan. 2009, Nora works with NNFP from Missoula, Montana, where she also teaches a popular series of Web Development courses at Dickinson Lifelong Learning Center. She previously worked for TimberBuySell.com on web development, marketing and sales. During her two years at TBS, the site went from a business plan to a site that received 220,000 visits in its second year.

Nora has been in the web industry since 1997, when she worked for International Newspaper Network. While working at INN, she completed an International Business degree, and while working for TBS, she completed a masters in Computer Science. Her goal is to help small businesses and organizations develop a vibrant web presence.

When not at her computer or teaching, Nora is probably driving her three step-sons to sports practice, working as a writing coach at one of the Missoula High Schools or walking the new lab puppy with her husband, Conrad. Everyone in the family plays acoustic guitar, except Nora and the dog.

Barbara Wyckoff, Leadership and Organizational Development Specialist

Barbara is a certified professional co-active coach (CPCC) by Coaches Training Institute (CTI). She has worked both in the United States and internationally on environmental, community and economic development issues, with collaborations from community groups to international organizations, and from scientists to indigenous peoples.

Bringing experience and solutions from her work with over 40 organizations (including World Wildlife Fund, the Ford Foundation, Rural Action and Appalachia Sustainable Development), Barbara is heading up NNFP's leadership program. Leadership for the Long Haul kicked off a 6 month intensive program to develop the leaders of tomorrow.

Maria Zoretic-Goodwin, Member Relations Manager