Clint Patterson
Clint Patterson is the Berea College Forester. Originally from St. Elmo, Illinois, Clint graduated with a forestry degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1992. He worked as a forestry consultant and timber buyer before becoming a District Forester for the State of Illinois Department of Natural Resources in 1998. He served as District Forester in Southeastern Illinois for nine years before moving to Tennessee in 2008 to become City Forester in Clarksville. After two years as City Forester, Clint accepted his current position as Forester at Berea College.
The Berea College Forest is one of longest continuously managed forests in the United States, and Clint is excited to be the tenth forester at this historic and beautiful forest where the Bluegrass, Knobs, and Cumberland Plateau come together. Responsibilities as forester include administration of timber sales, development of forest management plans, implementation of timber stand improvement, tree planting, trail maintenance and other related activities. Clint supervises an Assistant Forester, Forestry Technician, and students laborers. Some of the more interesting projects they have been involved with on the Berea College Forest include supplying clear, thirty-foot white oak planks for the Mayflower II ship restoration; using Berea College wood in the building of the College’s LEED-Platinum Deep Green Residence Hall and other building projects, entering into a carbon project which will sell sequestered carbon from the Berea College Forest, and demonstrating harvesting with draft horses.
Clint is especially interested in silviculture, the human dimensions of forestry, and forest history. Clint has completed the coursework for a Master’s Degree in Forestry at the University of Kentucky, and is working on his thesis. His research project explores the use of an expanding gap harvest system for regenerating oak. Clint enjoys working in the forest, riding and driving horses, writing, artwork, and travel.