Tom Worthley is Associate Extension Professor for Forestry at the University of Connecticut. A graduate of the University of Maine, he is also a Conservation and Wetlands Commissioner in the Town of Haddam, a member of the Haddam Land Trust, the Society of American Foresters and with his wife, Catherine a woodland owner in Higganum.

He has invested a 40+ year career with industry, consulting and academia in the notion that if woodland owners can derive benefit, reward and satisfaction from being woodland owners, then the woodlands are at lower risk of being converted to something different.