The State Senate confirmed Roseburg Forest Products President Allyn Ford’s appointment to the State Board of Higher Education this month. Ford has extensive experience in nonprofit organizations, but his company’s environmental record is controversial.
Board president Paul Kelly cited Ford’s administrative experience and past support of state schools as qualifications for the board.
“Allyn’s commitment to education access and his lifetime support of Oregon and Oregonians in getting into and through college will make him a wonderful addition to the board of higher education,” Kelly said.
Forbes magazine ranked Ford’s company the eighth-largest landowner in the country, with 750,000 acres in California and Oregon.
The company’s practices have drawn criticism and protests from environmental groups such as Earth First, whose members said they were unhappy with Ford’s appointment.
“If Ford treats state education like he does old-growth forests, this appointment will be bad for Oregon,” said University junior John Zatkowsky, an Earth First member. “His short-term profit strategies won’t work for Oregon schools.”
Zatkowsky was involved with the Earth First protests against RFP’s logging this summer.
Ford is also secretary and treasurer of the Ford Family Foundation, a grant program specializing in rural student scholarships for higher education. Ford also has a history of contributing both money and time to the University, which led him to receive the school’s annual Pioneer Award in 2006.
In August, Ford donated $45,000 to Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes, a group working towards defeating the tax hikes Kulongoski
recently signed into law.
“The governor makes appointments based on the best interests of the board in question,” said Kulongoski’s spokesperson Anna Richter Taylor, in response to public questioning. “But he remains solidly in support of the tax increases.”
Ford replaces John von Schlegell on the board. Von Schlegell resigned from the position this summer, criticizing the board’s lack of adjustment in the changing economy.
“If people just wait around for more money and don’t change the system with pretty radical changes, we’re just dying a slow death,” von Schlegell wrote in an e-mail.
Ford will hold this position until July 2013, at which time he can run for re-election.
[email protected]