About the California Forestry Association
Numerous associations have been formed in California over the years to represent various interests in forestry. They have represented various regions, manufacturing facilities, or general forest management. The most prominent ones were the California Forest Protective Association, the Western Lumber Manufacturers Association, and the California Forestry Association.
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On October 8, 1909, representatives of the leading timber companies and individual owners of timberlands in California came together in the Merchants Exchange Building in San Francisco to organize the California Forest Protective Association (CFPA).
The meeting was chaired by T.B. Walker of Minneapolis, President of The Red River Lumber Company, the largest private timber owner in California. The meeting was brought about with the assistance of G.B. Lull, California State Forester. Walker spoke of the most pressing matters facing the industry at the time. This included a lack of fire protection, a lack of knowledge about reforestation, and a concern over the taxation of timber and timberland.
E.T. Allen, U.S. District Forester of Portland, Oregon, was an invited speaker at the meeting. He took the position that reforestation and fire protection problems could be better worked out by the owners themselves than by legislation. Allen had been the first State Forester of California in 1905 and an conveyed some good advice for the California lumbermen: "The public and the lawmaker have got to be shown the importance of our industry...show them that if they force cutting by taxes and assess cutover lands so high that you must
abandon them to be burned, such lands will pay little taxes after that."
In the early 1950’s, a new association - the Western Lumber Manufacturers Association (WLMA) - was formed. The primary focus was on management of public lands in the western United States. The association analyzed issues, policies, and statutes relating to the sale of timber from those lands. It was led by George Craig, and later, Bill Dennison. Increasingly, the association focused on the important issue of timber supply. In 1972 WLMA re-organized into the Western Timber Association (WTA), and its mission remained focused on public lands.
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On April 4th, 1988, recognizing the similar issues facing both organizations, the California Forest Protective Association and the Western Timber Association merged and formed the Timber Association of California (TAC). This organization was faced with the challenges of numerous legislative proposals and ballot propositions that proved contentious. On April 5, 1991, TAC re-formed and became the California Forestry Association (Calforests).
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Today, Calforests continues the mission of its predecessors by advocating for scientific forest management and includes many of the original objectives for which these associations advocated.
Gil Murray
Gilbert “Gil” Murray, was graduated with a BS in Forestry from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the California Forestry Association (CFA) as the Vice President of Private Land Resources, Gill spent more than 16 years with Collins Pine Company in Chester, California. He was promoted in April, 1994 to President of CFA . On April 24, 1995 Gill sadly became Ted Kaczynski's, aka “The Unabomber’s”, final victim upon opening a bomb sent to his office in Sacramento, California. Kaczynski, who had been living in a tiny cabin near Lincoln, Montana for nearly 25 years, was arrested on April 3, 1996. Two years later he would be sentenced to life in prison.
Gil was beloved as a soft-spoken man who enjoyed practical jokes, he was raised in Southern California and survived a tour in Vietnam. He was an excellent skier who consistently placed among the top competitors in an annual race among Northern California foresters. He was a cherished leader of the profession, and has been greatly missed by all he knew him.
