Earl McCleerey Receives Recognition for 50 Years in Forestry
Earl (Mac) McCleerey has deep roots in Indiana. He said his family was in the Indiana territory before Indiana was a state. One of his ancestors was one of the first school teachers in the area. He has a great grandfather buried in Brown County who fought in the Civil War. McCleerey is proud of his Hoosier Heritage and can’t think of a better place he’d rather have worked.
McCleerey grew up in the Indianapolis/Carmel area and went to Purdue University after High School. He majored in Forest Production. He worked in Kentucky briefly before going into the Army. He served in the military for five years, mostly in western Germany in a special weapons unit. After the Army, he returned to the Division of Forestry in Kentucky for a year while watching for a job back home in Indiana.
When a job came open with the Lincoln Hills RC&D in Cannelton, IN; McCleerey took it. McCleerey still has a great fondness for the Lincoln Hills RC&D. He noted it was the first RC&D to form in the United States; 55 years ago. The Lincoln Hills Forestry Committee, which McCleerey co-chairs, is still active in the area. The Lincoln Hills job covered Harrison, Crawford, Perry and Spencer Counties.
He worked with the RC&D for two years before transferring to the Indiana DNR. He was able to stay in the same area and with his new job as District Forest, he covered Perry and Spencer Counties. McCleerey noted the private landowners he worked with treated him well and he enjoyed the work. His counties were 50% forest, so it was a great place to be a forester!
Earl “Mac” McCleerey at work in the forests of Indiana where he’s spent his career.
The Lincoln Hills Forestry Committee continues to be active and worked with him to provide workshops, field days, events, and lumber studies which allowed him to keep his landowners informed and build good relationships with the lumber industry. He hopes we can continue those good partnerships into the future, though he said there are many fewer loggers and sawmills than there were in the past. There have been some bad years for loggers, and its dangerous work, but foresters, landowners and the timber industry has always worked well together in
his area.
McCleerey did limited consulting work after his retirement and continues to do some today. He enjoys keeping active in the profession. He also co-chairs the Lincoln Hills Forestry Committee which still holds regular workshops and workdays. He’s also Vice President of the Purdue Club which is an organization of former Purdue University alum that raise and distribute scholarship money each year to
local students.
He and his wife Patricia live in Tell City. They have no biological children but sponsored 32 teenage girls over the years through the International Lions Club. These girls, who came from 15 different countries, came to Perry County for a camp and stayed with the McCleerey’s. He said he and his wife thoroughly enjoyed having the girls and as they’ve traveled, they’ve visited some of the girls and their families and the girls have come back to see them. It was a wonderful enduring experience for them.
Asked about the future of forestry, McCleerey said he’d like to see more young foresters since it seems that there are never enough graduates to fill the jobs. In the past when he spoke at High School career days he’d emphasize that being a forester was not likely a job you’d get rich at, but it was a life style where you lived and worked in beautiful country, and breathed clean air and saw wildlife and fish and that he had never had any regrets.
The Woodland Steward periodically receives award notifications that we print as space as allows. The Indiana Society of American Foresters bestowed this recognition in 2019. We offer our belated congratulations to Mac on an outstanding career.