We invite you to explore our work. Recent projects and presentations are listed below. You can explore additional work using the various tags in the right hand column.
Shanna Ratner, principal of Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. was a founding member of the National Network of Forest Practitioners, serving on the organization’s Executive Committee, and as Chair of the Research Subcommittee.
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. worked with the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce to identify seven key sectors – Industry, Tourism, Real Estate, Cultural Affairs, Retail, Financial and Professional Services, and International Border Businesses…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. surveyed members of the Learning Cluster to determine the variety of approaches being used to build rural community capacity, resulting in a report entitled Community Capacity Building, What Is It? for the Aspen Institute.…
On behalf of the Burlington Community Land Trust, Yellow Wood worked with potential vendors of the Burlington Public Market to explore cooperative marketing arrangements. Yellow Wood helped determine which groups would be most ready to participate…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. facilitated a series of focus groups on starting a value-adding forest landowners cooperative to be coordinated by the Maine Low Impact Forestry Project of the Hancock County Planning Commission. Participants included approximately…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. worked with NESARE in piloting an outcome-funding approach to grantmaking. The work included two year’s participation in the design process, proposal reviews, interviews with potential grantees, committee work to select…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. assisted in developing methods for low-income people to estimate the demand for a cooperative specializing in the restoration and maintenance of wooden windows. Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. analyzed secondary data, conducted…
Yellow Wood Associates was invited by the Aspen Institute to deliver two training sessions to Ford Foundation grantees during the Community-Based Forestry Demonstration Program Meeting in Memphis, Tennessee in December 1999. One training focused on…
The Burlington Public Market Steering Committee retained the services of Yellow Wood to explore the feasibility of developing a year-round, indoor public market in Burlington, VT. Yellow Wood identified and surveyed Vermont producers to determine their…
Yellow Wood provided written and oral testimony for the foundation in the Act 250 review of the Town of Milton, Vermont in their proposal to expand sewer service along Route 7. The purpose of the evaluation was to review the adequacy and/or deficiencies…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. delivered its interactive workshop, You Get What You Measure®, for state government employees at Vermont’s Cyprian Learning Center, a state personnel training center. Follow-up from the initial workshop included working…
Awarded a grant by TVA Rural Studies to conduct research. Yellow Wood Associates produced a paper on the role of the informal economy in rural communities. The paper reframes rural development in terms of the whole economy, and begins to articulate…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. provided an inventory and assessment of hiking and walking resources in the Lake Champlain Basin. The work was undertaken as part of a bi-state Lake Champlain Byways Management Plan, and produced a database and maps with…
On behalf of local business people, Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. prepared an independent analysis of the potential economic impacts of a proposed national chain hotel on the existing lodging industry in Middlebury, surrounding areas, and downtown Middlebury.…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. evaluated the feasibility of establishing a facility and demonstration forest to support and coordinate progressive logger training for the region encompassing northern Vermont and New Hampshire. This project was based…
On behalf of Funding For Our Future of Potsdam and Canton, New York, Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. prepared an independent analysis of the potential economic and fiscal impacts of the proposed Wal-Mart on existing business in and around Potsdam and…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. designed and delivered measurement training, including an intriguing exercise about assumptions, to the staff of Rural Development Initiatives, Inc. in Oregon. In preparing for this work, we developed a complete workbook…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. worked with conservation commissions in Starksboro and Huntington, Vermont to develop a community-based education program designed to help communities appreciate forests as economic, environmental and social assets. The…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. coordinated the design and implementation of public involvement needed in assessing the management of 700,000 acres of New York State multiple-use forest land for SmartWood certification. Activities included press releases,…
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. designed, facilitated and transcribed the results of a one-day visioning workshop as part of the St. Lawrence County Agriculture and Farmland Protection Planning process.
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. worked with industry groups, staff and legislators on a three-phase strategic planning process with the Agriculture Development Division of the Vermont Department of Agriculture, Food and Markets.
Yellow Wood Associates, Inc. delivered a workshop, “Adding Value From Stump to Mill,” focused on alternative approaches to marketing wood products, at the Vermont Wood Product Manufacturers’ Association annual meeting.
