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Natural Areas Training Academy Graduate Profiles
Dave Fox DaveF@nrpsforesters.com
Dave came to Florida on vacation in 1980 and never went back to Ohio except to pack a moving van. While his Masters degree from Duke University had focused on forest soils research, Dave soon found that those jobs were few (unless one possessed a Ph.D.) and so began his career with the Florida Division of Forestry in the Florida panhandle. With relatives in south Florida Dave later accepted the Lee County Forester position where he began his on-the-job urban forestry training.
After marriage, Dave made the move into the private sector working for an environmental consulting company where he was quickly immersed in plant taxonomy, the land development permitting process, wetland monitoring, and computerized mapping. Dave helped move that firm from hand-drawn permit sketches to using AutoCAD for all drawings.
Within five years Dave was offered a partnership in a small consulting company, Forest Resources Management, Inc. (FRM), so he made the jump back to his first love -- forestry. During the early 1990's, and especially after Hurricane Andrew, the interest in urban forestry increased dramatically in south Florida . In response to the demand for urban tree inventories, Dave developed SilviBASE , an urban tree management software system and has since conducted over two dozen municipal tree inventories throughout the southeast.
In 1995 FRM merged with and was absorbed by Natural Resource Planning Services, Inc. (NRPS) and Dave became Technical Services Manager in charge of all things electronic. Actually, he was charged with the implementation of a geographic information system (GIS) and integration of technology within the company, to which was later added computer and network management.
Dave's professional interests include remote sensing/mapping, prescribed fire, the use of GIS and GPS in natural resource management, urban tree management, tropical forestry/agroforestry, and information technology. Dave graduated from the first NATA class in May 2001.
