NEWT co-owner John Adler, who died November 15, 2025, is among the most recognized logging instructors in the United States. He has been a logging safety instructor and Game of Logging instructor since 1983. John trained with Soren Erichson, who developed the Game of Logging techniques in the 1980’s. John’s first safety training business evolved in to Northeast Woodland Training – incorporated in 2001.
John has trained many hundreds of professional loggers, forest owners, those in the conservation and utility industries, and students in New England, New York, throughout the country, and internationally. During the winter months, John owned and operated Eagle Forest Improvement, a logging business based in Chester, VT.
John worked with a variety of logging systems, ranging from cable skidders to dozers to his more recent forwarder-based operation. John held a degree in forestry from Paul Smith’s College.
John’s legacy of skill development and safety is timeless. His contribution to the forest industry and to Northeast Woodland Training and Game of Logging is, and will continue to be immense.
NEWT co-owner David Birdsall is a woods-educator. After graduating from Paul Smith’s College, David worked as a logger in the Adirondacks. He has worked extensively with students, teaching forestry and logging for many years at Sterling College, the Vermont Leadership Center, and the Merck Farm and Forest Program. David also managed the Vermont LEAP program (Logger Education to Advance Professionalism), organizing and teaching safety and continuing education workshops for loggers.
David’s experiences in teaching are grounded in his work as a consulting forester, logger, and portable sawmill owner/ operator. In addition, David had a long career leading backcountry trips during the summers for his family-owned business, North Country Camps.
Arborist/Logger from Westport, NY in the Adirondacks. Mark is a former public school music teacher with education degrees from the Crane School of Music (Trumpet) and a Masters in Education from SUNY Plattsburgh. He is an ISA Certified Arborist, Rock and Ice Climbing Guide, and seven-time GOL Regional Competition winner.
Mark is the owner of SilvaSauls Inc, a logging and tree care company that prides itself in safe, clean, quality, and efficiently done work. SilvaSauls Inc maintains the right equipment and properly trained crew to remain a very much in demand service business in the eastern Adirondacks. Avid hunter, fisherman and backcountry telemark skier.
Kyle entered the logging industry in 2008 and has since spent the majority of his time felling trees with a chainsaw. Prior to logging, he worked as a tree service groundman and a trailworker. Kyle has a interest in doing physical work safely, efficiently, and well. Teaching with NEWT allows him to share and explore that interest with others.
When he is not teaching, Kyle works as a timber faller for Long View Forest Inc., a full service forest management company based in Westminster, Vermont.
Ian Irwin has been in the woods as long as he can remember. First picking up a chainsaw when he was thirteen he understands its value as an essential tool in the forest. Now able to concentrate most of his logging to family land located near his home in Granby Vermont, he is able to work in the woods most of the year. With rising costs of equipment and instabilities in wood markets he feels strongly that now as much as ever the safe and efficient use of the chainsaw is an important way to manage our timber resources economically. Most importantly he simply loves falling trees. When Ian is not logging or instructing, you’ll likely find him somewhere in the world shearing sheep.
Following 18 years of teaching high school, the last 15 teaching tech center forestry programs, Sam has hung up his full-time teaching spurs and put his hard hat back on to resume his original love of working in the woods.
After obtaining a master’s degree in forestry from UVM, he laid the groundwork for a career as a forest research scientist before the “call of the wild” pulled him away to run a tree service and logging business.
Whether it’s teaching forestry to teens, climbing and removing hazard trees in backyards, processing firewood, or cutting timber and skidding logs in woodlots, the value of safe, efficient, and high-quality chainsaw use has made its mark and Sam is excited to share that knowledge as a GOL instructor.
When he isn’t holding onto a chainsaw he is most likely still outdoors, gripping a canoe paddle or a pair of backcountry ski poles.