The Texas A&M University System approved a resolution
today honoring Thomas G. Boggus, the former Director of Texas A&M Forest
Service.
Boggus officially retired from the Texas A&M University
System in May of 2021. The Board of Regents adopted a resolution honoring his
career at Texas A&M Forest Service and highlighting his accomplishments as
Director.
Boggus spent 41 years with Texas A&M Forest Service, and
he was the Director and State Forester for 11 of those years. During that time,
Boggus helped usher the agency into an era of wildfire prevention and mitigation,
securing an additional 160 agency responders and saving the state of Texas
$16.4 billion in property values.
“Tom’s values created a leadership environment that fostered
excellence and enabled the agency to respond to extended wildfire seasons and
natural disasters,” said Mark Stanford, the Associate Director for Texas
A&M Forest Service. “His leadership principles are based on a moral and
ethical foundation that encouraged doing the right thing.”
Boggus’s career is marked by the 2011 wildfire season, the
most devastating and destructive year for wildfires in Texas to date. Sixteen
thousand wildland firefighters were mobilized across the state that year, and
wildfires ravaged more than four million acres of land: but Texas A&M
Forest Service and local fire departments held strong, saving 39,413 homes, while
simultaneously proving the importance and value of wildfire mitigation.
Boggus’s climb to Director, however, was more prominently
shaped by forestry. Boggus graduated from Stephen F. Austin in 1980 with a
master’s degree in forestry, and he joined Texas A&M Forest Service as an entry-level
forester. He was quickly promoted to a supervisory position in 1982, and then he
accepted a leadership position at the College Station headquarters in 1987. When
the Farm Bill of 1990 introduced legislation funding nation-wide forestry
initiatives, Tom became the lead developer for projects that would become
hallmark programs at Texas A&M Forest Service. He was promoted to Associate
Director in 1996, and then Interim Director in June of 2008.
“He just had a way with people,” said Ron Hufford, Executive
Director of Texas Forestry Association from 1984 to 2017. “He could talk with
them, he could laugh with them, but he knew how to get the job done. And people
felt that.”
Tom was elected President by the Board of the Texas Forestry
Association in 2007. In June of 2008, he became Interim Director of Texas
A&M Forest Service, and in February of 2010 he was officially made Director
by the TAMUS Board of Regents. During his two years as interim director, there
was no official search for a replacement.
His accomplishments as Director were numerous and include: building
out the capacity of volunteer fire departments by $16.1 million annually; launching
the Texas Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal (TxWRAP); obtaining $4 million from
the Arbor Day Foundation to help reforest the Lost Pines of Bastrop following
the 2011 wildfires; responding to Hurricane Harvey by mobilizing agency
personnel and assessing storm-damaged trees through Urban Forest Strike Teams; completing
the first ever statewide census of rural forests, showing Texas to be the most
forested state in the continental U.S.; and creating the Leadership Enrichment
Program at Texas A&M Forest Service, which helped establish and strengthen
agency leadership.
Boggus’s legacy, according to him, is the people he helped
develop, and the leaders he empowered along the way. One of these is Jan Davis.
Davis started out as an Oak Wilt Technician for Texas A&M Forest Service.
Today, she is a Deputy Regional Forester for the USDA Forest Service’s Southern
Region, overseeing the Department’s federal forestry funds for 13 State
Forestry Agencies, including Texas A&M Forest Service.
“What I learned the most from Tom is that once you form your
personal and individual leadership style, then own it,” said Davis. “Be that
person consistently when you show up. And don’t be afraid to hire people better
than yourself, or to promote them above you.”
Since announcing his retirement, Tom has moved to
Georgetown, Texas. He lives with his wife, who also retired from Texas A&M
University after 33 years with the Department of Agricultural Leadership,
Education and Communications. Together, they plan on travelling the country,
exploring state and national parks, and following the foliage from Maine down the
coast as the leaves change color.
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CONTACT:
Texas A&M Forest Service Communications Office, newsmedia@tfs.tamu.edu,
979-458-6606