Basil Camu loves trees. And soil, wildflowers, insects, bats, fungi - basically everything to do with terrestrial ecosystems. He is fully committed to caring for this beautiful planet. He is a Treecologist, ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, Duke University graduate, and Wizard of Things at Leaf & Limb. Though trees are his passion and profession, he also loves tending to the native flowers in his garden, growing Piedmont Prairies, and propagating plants from seed. Some of Basil's favorite pastimes are hanging out with his wife and sons, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, powerlifting, hiking, and sprinting. His next favorite things in life are reading, garlic, traveling adventures, blazing hot peppers, pickles, and food from Lucettegrace in downtown Raleigh.

Cliff Drouet is a Forester with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement(OSMRE) which is a federal agency under the Department of the Interior. Cliff is working with the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative(ARRI). The program restores old surface mine sites throughout Appalachia by planting native seedlings and establishing wildlife habitats. This reforestation program was started in 2004 by OSMRE and it has evolved into a highly successful program with good seedling survivability and growth. Having native trees growing on old mine sites greatly improves air, water, and soil quality while providing wildlife habitat and recreation benefits on the site. The ARRI program partners with private landowners, federal, and state agencies, non-profits, academia, and corporations to restore old mine sites back to native forests across Appalachia.

Cliff graduated from Louisiana Tech University in 1980 with a B.S. in Forest Management and he is a member of the Society of American Foresters. His professional background includes working as a Procurement Forester for 11 years in the industrial sector then he worked as a Consulting Forester for 25 years. In 2016 he began working as a Federal Forester in Kentucky.

Cliff is a proud military veteran who served for 36 years and completed four combat tours. He is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel with experience as an Engineer and Military Intelligence Officer.

Steven Kiiskila is the Crop and Growing Team Manager at Arbutus Grove Nursery, located at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Each year his team grows 15 million container seedlings composed of 18 or more species, primarily for reforestation throughout Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. He has been involved in reforestation his entire career; from collecting seeds to organizing and monitoring tree planting programs, although his primary focus has been growing seedlings at various nurseries throughout B.C. While employed as a Seedling Reforestation Specialist, he advised nurseries and tree seed orchards on growing practices. In this role, he also guided foresters and others planting trees on seedling stocktype selection and planting practices and established numerous outplanting trials to search for answers in overcoming reforestation challenges.

Steven loves the combination of art and science used to grow forest seedlings, and the fact that as a grower he is always learning something new. One of his favorite tree growing sayings is: “Growing trees is not rocket science, it’s much harder.” He has a Master of Science degree in Forest Biology from the University of Victoria, a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, horticulture major from the University of Guelph, and a Horticulture Diploma from Olds, College.

Matthew Aghai is a dedicated reforestation expert, applied scientist, and executive leader at Mast Reforestation. He currently serves as the VP of Research and Development at Mast Reforestation, General Manager of Cal Forest Nurseries, and advisor to Silvaseed Company.
His recent work focuses on scalable solutions for mitigating climate change through the development of new initiatives to modernize the reforestation supply chain and connect reforestation initiatives with natural capital markets. Matthew has been featured in several national publications for his work and real impacts, including a National Geographic article discussing national seed limitations, Mongabay articles discussing his team’s pioneering work in aerial seeding technology, and also many peer-reviewed publications.
Matthew is also a practiced and enthusiastic public speaker and actively seeks opportunities to engage with anyone and everyone about finding solutions to the challenges facing the world’s forests.