Once again this year the New England Regional Council on Forest Engineering (NERCOFE) is offering a program to encourage student participation in our annual meeting to be held at the University of Maine in Orono on March 10-11, 2008.

Students are asked to participate in the research, production or presentation of a professional poster that will be displayed during the meeting. We will cover meeting registration and banquet fees, as well as reimburse travel expenses (up to $500 per university) for students participating in the poster session. This is a good opportunity for students to learn more about some of the issues related to forestry and forest operations as well as to meet professional foresters and other forestry students.

This year’s poster session topic is "Advances in Technological Harvesting Equipment” (i.e. communications, on-board computers, GPS, etc.). Posters will be judged by selected members of NERCOFE. The student(s) with the winning poster will be presented with a plaque for their school, a NERCOFE hat, and one-year free membership to COFE. They will also be recognized at the banquet on Monday evening. Their school name will be engraved on a permanent plaque that will be displayed each year at the conference. Please read the guidelines for the poster session.

If you have students who would like to participate in this year’s conference and poster session, please complete the student registration form and return it to me. Please note that only students participating in the poster session will be waived the registration fee and be reimbursed for travel expenses. Students wanting to attend, but not participating in the poster session, should sign up using the regular registration form and send in with payment.

We look forward to hearing from you and hope for your school’s participation. Any questions or comments may be directed to Cindy Paschal at paschal@umenfa.maine.edu or 207-581-2841.