I was fortunate enough to become the site manager for Devon in the late summer of 2010, taking over from James Mason, who now works exclusively in woodland restoration for the Woodland Trust. There are some truly beautiful and remarkable woodlands in Devon and it’s a privilege to manage these including the Hall Farm Estate at Harford which was the former home of the Woodland Trust Founder Kenneth Watkins. I have worked with woodlands for many years, beginning as a contractor and then realising this was far too much like hard work and became a site manager for Tilhill, first in the South East working on projects like the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and then in the South West in more traditional estate management. I also worked as the Forestry Advisor for nearly 5 years on a woodland creation project called the South West Forest Project in North Devon that established around 3500 hectares of new woodland in 10 years. In the four years before joining the trust I worked on the establishment of a wood fuel supply business called Forest Fuels.