Pete Ses­sions believes the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca is the great­est coun­try on Earth and is a strong advo­cate for civil­i­ty among our elect­ed offi­cials. As a Mem­ber of the 118^th Con­gress, Pete is a voice of bal­ance, rea­son, and com­mon sense.

He was first elect­ed to Con­gress in 1996. Through­out his 24 years in Con­gress, Pete has been an inte­gral play­er with­in the Repub­li­can Par­ty. He spent a decade in Repub­li­can Par­ty lead­er­ship and was instru­men­tal in the House Major­i­ty bal­anc­ing the fed­er­al bud­get from 1998 to 2001. Pete was Chair­man of the Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­gres­sion­al Com­mit­tee from 2009 through 2012, lead­ing to a net 63-seat vic­to­ry in 2010. From 2013 to 2019, Con­gress­man Ses­sions served as Chair­man of the House Com­mit­tee on Rules, where he revived bipar­ti­san efforts and accel­er­at­ed the Repub­li­can agen­da in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. He is cur­rent­ly a senior Mem­ber on the House Finan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee and is the Chair­man of the House Over­sight and Account­abil­i­ty Sub­com­mit­tee on Gov­ern­ment Oper­a­tions and the Fed­er­al Work­force.

Con­gress­man Ses­sions will pro­vide an update on the Farm Bill and oth­er forestry and land own­er­ship and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment relat­ed issues. He will also be rec­og­nized as TFA’s Fed­er­al Leg­is­la­tor of the Year.

Fritz Mason is Pres­i­dent — Lum­ber for Geor­gia-Pacif­ic where he man­ages the lum­ber man­u­fac­tur­ing port­fo­lio, which includes 13 sawmills across the Unit­ed States. Geor­gia-Pacif­ic is known for being a pio­neer of South­ern Yel­low Pine, one of the prin­ci­pal sources of soft­wood prod­ucts in the Unit­ed States.

A vet­er­an of the wood prod­ucts indus­try, Mason has over 30 years of expe­ri­ence in var­i­ous roles across the indus­try, includ­ing over 16 years lead­ing the team at Geor­gia-Pacif­ic. He has a life­long con­nec­tion to lum­ber man­u­fac­tur­ing as his grand­fa­ther man­aged a sawmill in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Through­out his career, Mason has been active­ly involved in mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion­al activ­i­ties relat­ed to cedar, red­wood, and treat­ed appear­ance lum­ber prod­ucts as well as struc­tur­al fram­ing wood prod­ucts and has held key posi­tions in lum­ber man­u­fac­tur­ing, wood treat­ing, and sales and mar­ket­ing. He cur­rent­ly serves on board of direc­tors of the South­ern Pine Inspec­tion Bureau, the Bina­tion­al Soft­wood Lum­ber Coun­cil, and the Amer­i­can Wood Coun­cil where he is a past Chair­man.

Mason holds an MBA from Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty and a BS in Forestry from Hum­boldt State Uni­ver­si­ty and is a mem­ber of the Boone & Crock­ett Club. Fritz Mason will dis­cuss G‑P’s hold­ings in Texas and what the future will bring.

Pete Stewart is a 27-year veteran of the forest products industry. In 2000, he founded Forest2Market, the only transaction-based wood fiber pricing service in the industry. Twenty years later, Forest2Market is a provider of wood raw material pricing data and supply chain expertise to the forest products industry worldwide.

In 2019, when Battery Ventures partnered with Forest2Market and Fisher International, Stewart – a long-time trusted advisor to the executive management of major pulp and paper and other forest products companies globally – became President and CEO of both firms. Upon the acquisition of Tecnon OrbiChem in 2020, Stewart became the CEO of all three companies, which were subsequently rebranded into ResourceWise.In 2022, ResourceWise acquired Wood Resources International and PRIMA Markets, expanding its wood fiber pricing globally as well as its expertise in low-carbon fuels, respectively.

As the CEO of ResourceWise, Stewart identifies acquisition opportunities and works tirelessly to integrate new price-reporting companies and their employees into the ResourceWise family and culture. A Texas native, Stewart has a BS in Forestry from Texas A&M and an MS in Economics from the University of Georgia.

Stewart will present a look at current and future markets and give an overview of the European Deforestation Regulation at the General Session on Thursday.

Alex Hin­son was appoint­ed as Resource Man­age­ment Ser­vice’s fifth Pres­i­dent and CEO on Octo­ber 1, 2021. He pre­vi­ous­ly led the firm’s Invest­ment Team as Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Invest­ments. In that role he direct­ed port­fo­lio man­age­ment, invest­ment strat­e­gy, client rela­tions and invest­ment research. He also sup­port­ed RMS’ busi­ness devel­op­ment, prod­uct devel­op­ment, trans­ac­tion man­age­ment and busi­ness strat­e­gy ini­tia­tives. Pri­or to join­ing RMS, Alex worked at Plum Creek Tim­ber Com­pa­ny, a for­est real estate invest­ment trust (REIT), where he held a vari­ety of lead­er­ship and man­age­ment roles of increas­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty. These includ­ed lead­ing Plum Creek’s glob­al mar­ket devel­op­ment efforts; over­see­ing its for­est inven­to­ry and plan­ning activ­i­ties; ana­lyz­ing tim­ber­land acqui­si­tions and dis­po­si­tions; ini­ti­at­ing and man­ag­ing retail land sales; and, sup­port­ing its com­pa­ny­wide tim­ber mar­ket­ing and sales efforts. Ear­li­er in his career, Alex worked as an invest­ment ana­lyst and apprais­er for a large forestry con­sult­ing firm and man­aged his family’s farm­ing oper­a­tions in South Car­oli­na, where he was raised. Alex has served on the RMS Invest­ment Com­mit­tee and Board of Man­agers for a num­ber of years. He holds a BA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia; a MFR degree (Mas­ter of For­est Resources) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Georgia’s War­nell School of Forestry and Nat­ur­al Resources; and, an MBA from Van­der­bilt University’s Owens Grad­u­ate School of Management.

Dr. Mar­i­anne Patinel­li-Dubay’s work at the Hunt­ing­ton Wildlife For­est, a 15,000-acre research and demon­stra­tion for­est owned and man­aged by the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York Col­lege of Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Forestry, is focused on the design and deliv­ery of edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams in ethics applied direct­ly to forestry and nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment. Fore­most, she teach­es FOR 421: Prac­ti­cal Ethics for Resource Man­agers along with a pro­fes­sion­al series of lec­tures and work­shops for foresters across indus­try sec­tors nation­wide.

Dr. Patinel­li-Dubay serves as Chair-Elect of SAF’s New York State Chap­ter and as a mem­ber of the Nation­al Ethics Com­mit­tee. She writes for pop­u­lar and trade pub­li­ca­tions on the philo­soph­i­cal and eth­i­cal dimen­sions of forestry, and she has been invit­ed to speak at forestry gath­er­ings through­out the North­east and at SAF’s Nation­al con­ven­tion, The Annu­al Foresters Forum, the Tim­ber Har­vest­ing and Pro­cure­ment Short-Course and the Nation­al Mature and Old Growth Sci­ence Sum­mit. Every aspect of her work-life is in ser­vice to an opti­mistic future for forestry; for pro­fes­sion­als and for the wood­lands and com­mu­ni­ties that they stew­ard. Dr. Patinel­li-Dubay will give an ethics pre­sen­ta­tion dur­ing the after­noon Gen­er­al Ses­sion on Day 2.

Matthew Reibenstein owns Royal Design Build Co. in Montgomery County, Texas. He has been building and developing custom homes and communities around Montgomery County since he graduated from Texas A&M University. As an accredited builder, Matthew serves the President of the Greater Houston Builders Association. During his first decade in the industry, Matthew turned heads by winning the inaugural Excellence Under 45 Award presented by the Texas Association of Builders in 2014. This was followed by the 2017 GHBA Custom Builder of the Year award. He and his team have also won multiple Texas Association of Builders STAR Awards and other prestigious acknowledgements for their commitment and integrity to the building industry.

Reibenstein will present Homebuilding in the Greater Houston region and Issues faced by builders statewide.

Terry Anderson is a biologist, forester, and a conservation entrepreneur, who has spent the last 33 years successfully operating in a broad range of eco-system markets. His most recent endeavors include the development of a vertically integrated series of companies that include Conservation Equity Management, a private equity investment firm, Conservation Equity Partners, a natural resource consulting business, Habitat Select Nursery, a native plant materials nursery as well as Wildlife Systems, an outdoor recreation enterprise.

Anderson also volunteers at Stephen F. Austin State University and Texas A&M with lectures on conservation finance, habitat management, and wetland ecology. He acts as a Board Trustee for the Texas Wildlife Association Foundation and is philanthropically involved with the Texas Wildlife Association, the Texas Forestry Association, and the Shortleaf Pine Initiative.

His ethos of ecological stewardship, land management, restoration processes, and relationship building have served as a foundation for the successful development of these endeavors. Anderson has a passion for revitalizing ecosystems and restoring native species and was recently recognized as a Land Steward of the Year, by the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society. He received his B.S. in Forestry with an emphasis in Wildlife Management from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1991.

Morgan Treadwell, Ph.D. is an associate professor and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension range specialist. Her research and extension focuses on prescribed fire and grazing management to optimize native plant diversity, suppress brush, and maintain grassland and savanna systems. She ranches with her husband and 3-year old daughter in Schleicher and Menard Counties running Dorper sheep and a commercial angus cow calf operation. Treadwell Cattle Company was recognized as the 2020 Outstanding Rangeland Stewardship from Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association as well as the 2020 Excellence in Range Management from the Society of Range Management. Morgan will present at the Fire With Purpose Session on Day 1 of Annual Conference.

As a Program Coordinator for the Texas A&M Forest Service’s Fuels Program, Andy McCrady works within the agency’s Mitigation and Prevention Department to coordinate wildfire fuel reduction activities statewide in Texas.

After completing bachelors and masters degrees is Forestry and Wildlife Management at SFA’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry, he worked as a private wildlife management consultant focusing on deer ranches, habitat management, and prescribed burning.

In 2013 Andy left the private sector for a position with the Texas A&M Forest Service. Currently as Statewide Fuels Program Coordinator he oversees 6 grant programs for private landowners, and numerous public land projects annually. He is a TDA licensed Lead Burn Instructor, NWCG Type 2 Burn Boss, SAF Certified Forester, ISA Certified Arborist, and Certified Wildland Fire Practitioner by the Association of Fire Ecology. In 2024 he received the Lead Ignitor Award for Texas at the Great Plains Fire Summit.

Andy will present at the Fire With Purpose session on Day 1.

Jamie Sow­ell is the Fire Man­age­ment Offi­cer for the Nation­al Forests and Grass­lands in Texas. The for­est is nation­al­ly rec­og­nized as an inno­v­a­tive fire pro­gram uti­liz­ing part­ner­ships, Shared Stew­ard­ship, and Good Neigh­bor author­i­ty to lever­age fund­ing and increase capac­i­ty to aggres­sive­ly apply pre­scribed fire for fuels mit­i­ga­tion at a land­scape scale in the west­ern most range of lon­gleaf pine, and with­in two of the nation’s most pop­u­lous metroplex’s. (Hous­ton / Dal­las – Ft. Worth). Jamie is one of the pri­ma­ry lead­ers and dri­ving forces behind the expan­sion of the pre­scribed fire pro­gram on the Nation­al For­est and Grass­lands in Texas into one of the largest pre­scribed fire pro­grams in the nation. He leads a fire orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes inter­a­gency, inter­gov­ern­men­tal, and com­mu­ni­ty coop­er­a­tion to reduce wild­fire risk at the land­scape lev­el. His pas­sion for work­ing across bound­aries to devel­op solu­tions to com­plex chal­lenges is direct­ly linked to the expe­ri­ence of see­ing what is pos­si­ble when every­one has a com­mon vision and works togeth­er toward com­mon goals. Jamie will par­tic­i­pate in the Fire With Pur­pose ses­sion on Day 1.

Justin Penick is the own­er and oper­a­tor of Acorn Forestry based in Lufkin, Texas. Acorn was estab­lished in 1999 to pro­vide turnkey refor­esta­tion and restora­tion ser­vices to landown­ers and assist them with build­ing lega­cy prop­er­ties they can pass from one gen­er­a­tion to the next. Acorn cur­rent­ly work as far west as New Mex­i­co, east to Geor­gia and north to Illi­nois. Justin was also the first licensed pre­scribed burn­er in Texas and cur­rent­ly sits as Chair­man of the Texas Pre­scribed Burn Board. Justin will par­tic­i­pate in the Fire With Pur­pose ses­sion on Day 1.