Foundation Trustees

Foundation Trustees

The affairs of the Foundation are managed by a Board of Trustees consisting of seven members who have an abiding interest in the Foundation.

Robert Crosby is the Manager of Crosby Land and Resources, a family-owned non-industrial private timberland company in Louisiana that has been operating for over 80 years. He has been an active member of FLA since 1991 and has served on the Board of Directors and as the President of the Board.

Barrett McCall is President of Larson & McGowin, which since 1995 has provided a full range of land management and on-demand decision support and consulting services to a diverse group of clients. McCall has been involved in the Forest Landowners Association for more than 20 years, most recently as the current FLA President. A native of New Orleans, McCall earned an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of the South, and a Master of Forestry degree from Duke University. A registered forester in six states, he served as
President of the Alabama Forestry Association from 2011-2012 and lives in Mobile, Alabama, with his wife Rachael, son Charley, and daughter Vivian.

Wayne Alexander inherited his first 398 acres of land when he was 21 years old. His father purchased the 398 acres in the 1940s to raise cattle in East Texas and Northwest Louisiana. When Wayne inherited the land, he started planting forests.

Over the years Wayne and his wife Jennie have grown the family forest to 1,238 acres on six tracts named Three Pines Plantation, Birdsong, Lizzie Burns, Oaklawn, Stirling, and Sligo Plantations. Wayne and Jennie have passed down to their children and grandchildren the importance good stewardship plays in keeping forests healthy and being able to pass forests down to future generations.

Michael Crowell, is President of Crowell Forest Resources, LLC, a family-owned timberland company founded in 1892 withholdings across five parishes in Central Louisiana. CFR is focused on sustainable, long-term timberland management, forest stewardship and wildlife conservation. Crowell, who has a B.S. in Business Management from Tulane University, spent summers during his high school and college years working in all aspects of the family business from site prep and burning to bulldozer work and reforestation. After graduation and a stint in commercial real estate sales in Charlotte, N.C., he joined CFR in 2003 and became President in 2016.

An FLA Board member, Crowell also serves on FLA’s Executive and Membership Committees. He and his wife, Noelle, have four sons.

David Hall (in coral shirt) is the Chief Operating Officer of Hall Timberlands, managing approximately 58,000 acres of family-owned land in East-Central Mississippi. David is a Registered Forester in the state of Mississippi and holds a Bachelor of Science in Forest Management and a Masters of Business Administration from Mississippi State University. Currently, he serves as the Vice-President of the Lauderdale County Forestry Association, is an active member of the Mississippi Forestry Association, an Eagle Scout and Vice-President of Properties for the Choctaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, Vice- President of the Magnolia State Branch of the Quality Deer Management Association, and serves on the Board of Directors for both the Wesley House Community Center and Rotary Club in Meridian, Mississippi. A member of the Forest Landowners Association for over 10 years, he has helped organize local events in both Meridian and Hattiesburg, participated in FLA’s Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., and serves on the FLA Board of Directors.

As a fourth-generation forest landowner from Southeast Georgia, Joe Hopkins has been involved in forestland management all his life. After graduating from Emory University in 1974 and Mercer Law School in 1977, he practiced law until 1989 when he closed the practice to manage personal and family timberland full-time. Joe has been a member of the FLA since 1993, elected to the Board of Directors in 2005, and currently is Chairman of Governmental Affairs. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Georgia Forestry Association since the early ’90s, serving as President in 1997. In addition, Joe was a founder of the Greater Okefenokee Association of Landowners, which was formed in 1994 to coordinate the forest landowner’s needs with the fire fighting and prevention resources to combat forest fires that threaten landowners around the Okefenokee Swamp. Joe has also served on the Joint Georgia House and Senate Future of Forestry Study Committee and Georgia Land Conservation Partnership.

Lee retired in 2017 as Managing Director/Chief Financial Officer of Jamestown, L.P. Jamestown is an international private equity company based in Atlanta, Georgia that specializes in commercial real estate funds for high net worth and institutional investors. Lee was the driving force behind the creation of Jamestown Timberland series of funds.

Lee currently serves on the FLA board of directors, chairs the finance and audit committee, and is also a trustee for the foundation. Lee and his wife Sonya live in Greenville, GA on their family timber farm. The farm also raises registered black Angus cattle.

Lauren Ward is an interdisciplinary leader in forestry, natural resources, and collaborative conservation with a proven track record working on behalf of private forest landowners to build innovative, real-world solutions to challenges landowners face both today and into the future.

An Atlanta native, Ward earned her J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law and also holds a Master’s in Natural Resources and a Ph.D. in Forest Resources from the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at UGA. As a doctoral student, Ward was honored as the inaugural Rob Olszewski Fellow in Forest Policy and Analysis by the Forest Landowners Foundation, which supported her research leveraging social science to understand forest landowners, their contributions to wildlife conservation, and the critical need for regulatory certainty. Following this fellowship, Ward served as the Director of Stewardship Initiatives, General Counsel, and Director of Regulatory Affairs for Forest Landowners Association. After several years leading national- and regional-level initiatives supporting working lands and private landowners, she returned to Forest Landowners in the role of Foundation President in 2023.