Robert P. Latham
PERSONAL DATA SHEET
Robert P. Latham
Robert P. Latham is an economist and forester, specializing in the analysis of natural resources. He holds degrees from Utah State University, Yale University, and the University of Minnesota and has forty years plus experience in this analytical work. He is, or in the past has been, a registered professional forester, a commercial pilot, and a certified general appraiser. He is now semi-retired but recently wrote a book, Forensic Forestry, published by CRC Press.
In the 1960's, Mr. Latham worked with the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona, where he was involved with timber sales and grazing permits, as well as other natural resource management. After military service as an air traffic controller, he joined a natural resources consulting firm in California, where his work included timber sales administration, timber inventories and growth studies, and vegetation mapping.
From 1967 to 1972, he was a Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota. His research projects there focused on the use of aerial photos in resource analysis and on the economics of natural resources. He authored numerous publications in scientific and technical journals. In addition, he carried on modest consulting activities and completed the requirements for a Ph.D. in resource economics.
He became a principal in the firm of Hammon, Jensen, Wallen and Associates in Oakland, California, in 1972. He managed the firm's projects that focused on resource inventories and mapping, economic studies, and feasibility analyses. He shared operating responsibilities with four other principals in the firm, which had some 60 professional and technical employees. Projects ranged throughout the western U.S. and Latin America.
In 1977, Dr. Latham sold his interest in that consulting firm and joined the faculty of Oklahoma State University. As Associate Professor in the Forestry Department, he taught aerial photo techniques and the economics and management of timber. His research efforts there focused on private timberlands, particularly regarding buying and selling of southern pine stumpage. In addition to his university responsibilities, he owned and operated Sandrock Ranch, a commercial cow/calf operation in Payne and Noble Counties, OK.
He resigned from the university and sold his cattle ranch in 1982 in order to devote full time to a growing private consulting practice and to the operation of an aviation company. His consulting work, through Duck Creek Associates, Inc, focused on economic aspects of natural resources. Major activities included studies on several Indian Reservations, the Redwood National Park, several oil field projects in Texas and Oklahoma, as well as numerous timber appraisals in the South and in the West. The aviation company provided charter aircraft, pilot training and aerial photography.
In 1987, he sold his interest in the aviation company and moved his consulting practice back to the West Coast. Since then, he has served a nationwide clientele, primarily involved with investments in and economic studies of timber. Analytical projects include taxation studies in Alaska; appraisals in Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington; service as an expert witness in litigation throughout the nation, as well as timberland acquisition work in Oregon. In 2001, he relinquished control of the consulting firm to younger members of the firm but continues to serve selected clients on a project-by-project basis.
In addition to his limited consulting practice, he and his wife own and operate RimRock Timber & Cattle, LLC, a private ranch/tree farm near Silver Lake, Oregon. At the appropriate time, perhaps he will be buried there, under a large ponderosa pine tree.
