Kyle Gill

CFC Director of Operations
Director of Operations and Forest Stewardship

175 University Road
Cloquet, MN 55720
United States

Contact me for help with:
  • General CFC or HWRC questions
  • Present and historical programs and land-use at CFC and HWRC
  • Experimental Forest-specific stewardship and recreation questions
  • Field tours or presentations about, “What we do at the UMN experimental forests” or “Contemporary forest management”
  • General forest stewardship questions 
     

Biography

Kyle leads the CFC and HWRC teams as the Director of Operations and Forest Stewardship for the UMN Experimental Forests properties. He seeks to ensure that the facilities and land can be places of applied education, research, and stewardship. He stepped into this role in April 2024 after serving as the Forest Manager and Research Coordinator from 2015-2024.

The philosophies that help to guide his leadership and stewardship include: 

  • Acknowledging Indigenous sovereignty

  • Respecting the agency of the Land and approaching land stewardship with humility

  • Trusting that the only thing that endures is change

  • The Landscape Triad conceptual framework for balancing multiple objectives

  • Employing forest treatment techniques that mimic evolutionary-scale forest development patterns to promote the capacity for resilience and adaptation to changes in climate and other forms of abiotic and biotic uncertainty

He earned his M.S. (2014) in Natural Resources Science and Management and B.S. (2007) in Environment and Natural Resources from the University of Minnesota. For his M.S. thesis, he investigated forest development, dynamics, and relationship to climate of jack pine-dominated forests (FDc12, FDc23, and FDc24) in Minnesota’s central floristic region. In his free time, he enjoys many outdoor recreational activities, including cross-country skiing, running, mountain biking, wilderness exploration, and philosophizing about life’s great and simple questions.