John Adler, Owner/Senior Instructor
NEWT co-owner John Adler is among the most recognized logging instructors in the United States. He brings fifteen years of experience as a Game of Logging instructor and has trained hundreds of professional loggers, forest owners, and students throughout New England, New York, and beyond. During the winter months, John owns and operates Eagle Forest Improvement, a logging business based in Chester, VT.
John has worked with a variety of logging systems, ranging from cable skidders to dozers to his current forwarder-based operation. John has a degree in forestry from Paul Smith’s College.
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David Birdsall, Owner/Lead Instructor
NEWT co-owner David Birdsall is a “woods-educator”. He has worked extensively with young adults at Sterling College, the Vermont Leadership Center, and the Merck Farm and Forest Program. Most recently, David has focused on teaching adults in the Vermont LEAP program and the Vermont Coverts Program.
Dave’s experiences in teaching are grounded in his work as a consulting forester, logger, and portable sawmill owner/ operator. During the summer months, Dave leads backcountry trips for his family-owned summer camp, Northcountry Camps.
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Nate Fice, Business
Manager/Certified Instructor
Nate maintains and manages the office for Northeast Woodland Training, Inc. at his house in Sayre, PA. He’s been a GOL instructor and employee of NEWT since November of 2004. Nate’s full-time job and career is with the Pennsylvania Forest Products Association as the PA Sustainable Forestry Initiative Program Manager. There he manages the PA SFI Logger Training program and works with SFI Certified companies.
He was previously employed for 21 years with the Vermont Forestry Division and provided forestry assistance to private landowners and municipalities. He got involved with GOL training after taking all four levels following the 1998 ice storm in northern Vermont. GOL is one of his many passions. He fully supports the program and believes in providing high quality, hands-on, chain saw safety instruction to help prevent and buffer people from the hazards of forest work, while increasing the efficiency of their operation.
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Allan Sands, Certified Instructor
From the time he was 15 years old and first ran a chain saw at Boy Scout camp, to Conservation class at MAUHS, to forestry classes at Paul Smith’s College, to working for a logger between college years, to cutting hazard trees on forest fires and in state parks, to building a log house from scratch, a chain saw has always been an important tool in Al’s life.
After a 36 year career with the State of Vermont Department of Forest and Parks, retirement has allowed Al a chance to do something he really likes and believes in - teach the Game of Logging. He first took G.O.L. Levels1-4 in 2000 after the ’98 ice storm. After the first tree he cut with the new technique he never went back to the old way. He has been instructing classes for Northeast Woodland Training, Inc., since January of 2007.
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Mark Saulsgiver, SilvaSauls, Inc., Instructor
Mark is the owner/operator of SilvaSauls, Inc. a small tree care,
logging, and sawmill company based in Essex County New York. He is a
retired public school music teacher, an ISA certified arborist, and
Adirondack mountain guide. He is a working, practicing logger and
arborist who's business and training focus is on safety and
efficiency.
His climbing skills have been honed with 30 years of rock and ice climbing experience and 15 years of tree climbing experience. He is a five time Game of Logging Professional Logger Regional Winner. He believes learning is a life long pursuit and really enjoys learning a new technique that is safe and efficient. As John Ball likes to say; "We are dealing with large heavy objects, often at great heights, with running chainsaws". It is clearly dangerous work, and I have a goal every day to come home to my wife Terry and two kids; Zak and Zoe in one piece.
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