ABOUT US
Blue Heron Stewardship LLC is the product of Luke’s past experiences, and is made possible through the support of his family network (especially partner Sarah, and children Thea, Camille and Leif.) Luke’s work is also heavily influenced by past and current professional colleagues.
Luke grew up on a small dairy farm powered in part by draft horses. He set deep roots in ecology and management through working with his family on that farm and in the surrounding forests.
Luke graduated from St. Olaf College with a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in Environmental Studies. After completing a stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala, Luke settled with a young family on the home farm in Barron County, WI, where he eventually started a small business logging with horses. Luke moved to Madison, WI, earning a Masters in Forestry from UW-Madison in 2008. While working with State agencies in forestry-related capacities (including EAB surveys, entomology, lead sawyer work, Forest Economics, and Wood Products and Utilization), Luke completed core forestry coursework at UW-Madison to achieve Cooperating Forester status with the WI DNR.
When Luke became a member of the Adaptive Restoration LLC team, he worked as a land manager, member of one of the region's leading prescribed burn crews, and as a full-fledged forester. We also worked as a team with horses in the winters, implementing “Restorative Forestry” harvests primarily as part of oak woodland and savanna restorations. During this time, Luke became a chainsaw safety instructor, certified by Safety and Woods Worker Training (SAWW) in 2015.
Now, relocated to the heart of the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, Luke and his family continue this work as Blue Heron Stewardship, LLC. Our chainsaw training continues to be certified by SAWW, and has expanded considerably. Our forest management services involve the whole suite of consulting forestry offerings, and include status as Certified Plan Writer for the Managed Forest Law (MFL) and Technical Service Provider (TSP) for forestry services in cooperation with NRCS. We are available for a range of restoration implementation practices, focused on custom timber felling, small scale timber harvests, and forest stand improvement.
When not traveling and training chainsaw users, or working with landowners to manage natural communities, Luke has a hard time not doing that same stuff at home. Sometimes the kids wanna come along on a meander through the property, and sometimes they’d rather not stop to pull weeds or geek out over remnant plants. We don’t have draft horses working in the woods again, yet, but…
Hard to say…
