Mary Tyrrell FES ’97 was recently named executive director of the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry by the group’s director, Chad Oliver, a professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
The operations of the Institute, a small organization on Prospect Street affiliated with the environment school, are designed to facilitate leadership through innovative research programs and activities, education and outreach to understand and support sustainable forest management worldwide.
“[The Institute] is very excited about hiring Mary Tyrrell as its executive director,” Oliver said in an e-mail. “Mary has an important combination of expertise on forestry concerns and management experience. She has the trust of the forest industry, environmental groups, government agencies and the Yale Global Institute faculty.”
Besides a master’s degree from the environment school, Tyrell holds an M.B.A. from Boston University and a B.A. in mathematics from New Hampshire. Prior to 1995, she had an extensive career in international electronics manufacturing management. Before joining the Yale Forestry Forum in July 2000, she was the program director at the environment school’s Center for Coastal and Watershed Systems. She most recently served as director of the Institute’s Program on Private Forests.
“The experience that she brings from private business and her experience in forestry will be very helpful,” Lloyd Irland, a lecturer and senior scientist at the environment school, said. “She basically is going to be able to specialize full-time in overseeing the activities of the Institute. Having her be the executive director enables us to have someone spending more time on that subject than we ever did before.”
Tyrrell is also a member of the Mill River Watershed Association’s board of directors, the Land Care Committee of the Connecticut, the Massachusetts Northeast Organic Farming Association, and the Town of Hamden’s Natural Resource and Open Space Commission.
Now, as executive director of the Global Institute, Tyrrell said she is eager to put her experience to use on an international stage.
“The Institute was started around 2000, and the first few years under Gary [Dunning] it was about building and consolidating activity,” Tyrrell said. “Now, with me coming in, I see this as an evolution. I think we’re expanding more now into the global arena.”
Tyrrell will be succeeding Dunning, who had been the Institute’s executive director since its formation. Dunning will now serve as program director of The Forests Dialogue, an international organization committed to the conservation and sustainable use of forests.
“Gary Dunning has done an excellent job during his four years as executive director of Yale’s Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry,” Oliver wrote in an e-mail. “He initially organized it, gave it credibility and has left a strong legacy.”
Tyrrell will look to build on Dunning’s accomplishments.
“The Global Institute’s intent is to look at forestry from all aspects — from private enterprise, public environmental concerns, policies and rural communities, to name a few,” Oliver wrote in an e-mail. “Hiring Mary does signal that the Global Institute is very serious about having an executive director who will bring three things to it: a rigorous, analytical perspective; a desire to be inclusive of all parties and a strong concern about the world’s forests.”