PORTLAND, Ore. – The Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI) board of directors has named Jim Paul, a former Oregon Department of State Lands director who also spent more than a decade working for the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), to serve as the Institute’s new executive director.
Paul, who was most recently the assistant director of the Administrative Services Division at the Oregon Department of Corrections, will join OFRI on Sept.15. He began his public service career at ODF in 1996 and would go on to become the agency’s hydrologist and later serve as the chief of two of its three operational divisions. He then worked at the Department of State Lands, where he rose to the position of director before joining the Department of Corrections.
The OFRI board voted to hire Paul on Aug. 25 after an extensive search for a new executive director to lead the Institute and replace Acting Executive Director Mike Cloughesy, who is returning to retirement this month.
“Over the course of his career, Jim Paul has gained extensive forestry and natural resources leadership experience in the public sector,” says Jerry Anderson, OFRI board chair. “The board believes his forestry knowledge combined with experience working for other state agencies makes him uniquely qualified to lead OFRI’s forest and forestry education programs for the public, landowners, and K-12 teachers and students.”
Paul earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Whitman College, attended Duke University’s College of Forestry, and received a master’s degree in forest hydrology from the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington.
About the Oregon Forest Resources Institute:
The Oregon Legislature created the Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI) in 1991 to support and enhance Oregon’s forest products industry by advancing public understanding of forests, forest management and forest products, and encouraging sustainable forestry through landowner education. A 13-member board of directors governs OFRI. The state agency is funded by a portion of the forest products harvest tax.