Workers, customers key to marketing

News & Observer

Published Sun, Nov 22, 2009 02:00 AM
Modified Sun, Nov 29, 2009 04:41 AM

Grace Ueng is founder and CEO of Savvy Marketing Group in Cary. She advises several local companies and has taught "Entrepreneurial Marketing" at UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School. Over the next few weeks in Work&Money, Ueng will offer her 12-step guide to marketing new and existing businesses. Last week, she discussed strategic marketing and developing a plan (to catch up, go to www.newsobserver.com/business ).

Step 4: Optimize resources.

In a tough economy, getting the most for your marketing dollars is particularly important. If your company can't add to its staff by hiring an entire marketing department, consider outsourcing to get the talent that you need.

At Hosted Solutions in Raleigh, CEO Rich Lee saw an opportunity to attract customers in outlying markets so he created a position, vice president of marketing, and hired Noreen Allen for the job.

Allen, in turn, has gone outside the company to find the right partners, including a PR professional, to help get out Hosted Solution's message. In doing this, Allen has access to senior level talent, but Hosted Solutions' payroll has not taken as large a hit.

Allen also believes that employees are a company's most important marketers. "By exuding passion for the brand, they become a walking billboard for your company," she says. "They talk to their friends and network. If employees feel good, they will become your brand champions."

Building a strong culture within a company can take time, Allen acknowledges. One of her first initiatives after being hired at the start of this year was to refine Hosted Solution's mission, vision and value statement. Then, she created programs around regular communications with the company, including quarterly meetings to share goals and progress, roundtables with CEO Rich Lee, and "plug ins" where the company's seven offices connect for conversations, recognition and fun.

Allen, who created similar programs at SpectraSite, a Cary telecommunications company, said that creating a strong culture drives high customer satisfaction, which in turn yields strong operating results.

Step 5: Conduct actionable market research. Use qualitative and quantitative research tools, including customer advisory boards and satisfaction surveys, to validate your company's market potential, to test name, positioning or messaging, and to get regular feedback.

Sean Murphy of NeoNova Networks said that his company tested a qualitative customer survey and then rolled what it had learned into a quantitative customer satisfaction survey to calculate a "net promoter score."

Companies obtain their "net promoter score" by asking customers: "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?" Based on their response, a customer can be categorized into one of three groups: promoters, passives and detractors. The percentage of detractors is then subtracted from the percentage of promoters to obtain a "net promoter score."

From this, the Morrisville company found many areas worthy of further exploration, including what products to emphasize and what products could be pruned. NeoNova then created an in-depth discussion guide and assigned and trained several team members to interview a dozen affiliates across the nation to truly understand "the voice of the customer."

Instead of conducting annual customer surveys, Cary-based SciQuest conducts research with one quarter of its customer base every three months. Jeff Woody, director of customer support, and Jamie Duke, chief operating officer, put together action plans based on the research to optimize its product releases each year.
SciQuest also has online community forums where users can vote on future features as well as an "open mic" night for customers at its annual user conference.

Such research has contributed to strong business results. SciQuest has seen more than 230 percent revenue growth over the last four years.

BlueStripe Software develops its products in part by having customers come into its Morrisville offices on a regular basis to test the latest versions. BlueStripe's employees then observe their behavior and get feedback that incorporated into the product's design.

Randy Carter, whose title is user interaction designer, also gets a detailed study of the company's customers, their needs and challenges and a detailed list of the tasks they need to perform with the product.

Step 6: Develop your elevator pitch. What and to whom are you selling? What is your unique selling proposition?

The importance of being able to concisely state your pitch cannot be overestimated. How sticky and memorable are you to your customers and prospects?

Dan Clem is director of marketing at AlertNow, a Raleigh company that provides a rapid notification service focused on the education market. The company targets its pitch to the district superintendent and his or her staff. Knowing that their product is not the cheapest option, Clem says, his message is reliability and customer service that answers phones 24/7.

"Make your customers happy," Clem says. "Then they become your sales force."

Of course, once you make your pitch, you have to make good on it. Clem tells a story about one customer who called asking for help in killing three scorpions in a vacation rental cabin. His team did their best to help.
Next week: Stay tuned for the next three steps to becoming a savvy entrepreneurial marketer.

Bad times are the best time to promote a business

BY GRACE UENG - CORRESPONDENT

News & Observer

Published Sun, Nov 15, 2009 06:09 AM
Modified Fri, Nov 27, 2009 06:38 PM

The tendency in tough times is to shut off marketing. But bad times actually are the best time to promote a business, says Grace Ueng, founder and CEO of Cary-based Savvy Marketing Group.

For starters, your message won't get lost in the clutter and you have more room to negotiate on price. Bad times also feed an entrepreneurial spirit as laid-off workers start their own businesses - and those startups need to market themselves to survive.

Over the next few weeks in Work & Money, Ueng, who coaches local executives and lectures at UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, will offer her 12-step guide to marketing new and existing businesses.
Here are the first three.

Step 1: Make marketing strategic. Make sure that management understands that "marketing is too important to be left solely to the marketing guys." Marketing cannot exist and operate in a silo; it should interact with the rest of the organization. The head of marketing should ideally help the executive team develop the company's business plan and strategy. Equipped with this big picture thinking, marketing is in a better position to help drive revenue and add to corporate value.

Investing in marketing earlier rather than later can offer strategic value. Choosing to invest only in a sales force over marketing will only lead to unhappy salespeople later. Highly compensated sales reps should not and do not want to spend their time doing marketing.

Likewise, investing only in research can cause problems if there's no thought put into how to market a new product, or even whether there will be demand.

"Entrepreneurial companies are always resource constrained," says Sean Murphy, vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Business Development at NeoNova Network Services, a Morrisville company that manages IP services. "Development's effort is best leveraged when you understand the voice of the customer. Our executive team has recently made visits to our customers throughout the U.S., not to pitch new products to them, but to really understand their needs and pain points."

Step 2: Devise a marketing plan. While many entrepreneurs wing it, their chances for success are much higher with a plan - hence the saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." If you need outside funding, an executive summary of a business plan is essential.

Often we are asked to help a company write a marketing plan, but we end up helping them with their overall corporate strategy and business plan, which should be decided before putting together the marketing plan.

Once you have a prioritized plan, revisit and track progress on a monthly or quarterly basis. If you don't plan for it, it won't happen. Otherwise you will be reacting and executing, not being strategic.

Compose a realistic budget and tie marketing investment to volume and profit. Create a fully integrated marketing plan. One-off marketing initiatives - ads that neither build on each other nor fall under fully integrated brand messaging - are often a waste of time and money.

Large companies with higher staffing levels can afford to have branding groups in a rigorous review and planning process mode for up to a quarter of the fiscal year. Entrepreneurial ventures simply don't have the resources to invest this much time, but they can mimic a modified process: Review business annually, boil a plan down to addressing three key issues (more than three are too many to remember, and then none will be accomplished well), and then write a plan to guide the next 12 months.

How are you going to resource marketing? What is your budget? What percent is it of revenue? Who will do the work? Companies sometimes have great ideas but no one to execute the tasks or vice versa - know what your talents are and where you need help and fill in as appropriate.

Step 3: Grade your marketing plan. Does your plan contain a solid market assessment, thoughtful business review, definition of the top three key marketing issues, positioning and key messaging, road map for products and lead generation, marketing programs complete with budget?

Have you done each of the following:

Market assessment: How big is the market potential in which you compete? What is the growth rate? How big will it be five or 10 years from now? Who are your direct and indirect competitors? Do you have a competitive advantage that is sustainable and defensible? Ideally, you should. Do you compete in a growing or a crowded market? Are your competitors growing or shrinking, and why? If direct competition cannot be identified, is the market opportunity big enough? Or are you truly a "market maker"? This can be positive in that you are first to market but your challenge will be in evangelizing and educating, which means sales may be slow.

Business review: If your company has been around for a few years, conduct a complete analysis of the business: What are its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats? Review deals to date and the robustness of your pipeline. Review marketing: What in your sales kit is working? Missing? What is the quality of your leads? What should you continue? Stop? What are the three top sources of awareness? Internally: Who is contributing the most? Who is not? What outside marketing partners are working? Not?
In what markets are your customers? What additional markets would you like to target? What are your rates of trial and retention or repeat purchases? Awareness?

Corporate and product positioning: It is important to have a quality foundation on which to build all communications. Positioning can often take hours if not days to think through carefully to net the concise and unique positioning in the mind of your prospect. Whom do you sell to? Who are the decision makers and who are the influencers?

What do you do that no one else can do? This is called a unique selling proposition and is a key question to answer.

"We've invested a lot of time in fine-tuning our corporate messaging - had an outside facilitator manage the process, included all functional groups in the sessions, and then shared the outcomes with customers for their feedback," Murphy said. "We look forward to rolling out the results with our various audiences."

Do not try to do all things for all people - focus and prioritize.

Is your product line too broad? Too narrow? What is profitable - what is not? What is your product road map? You should have prioritized product pipeline to grow your company. How does development get its market requirements? Are you in constant touch with your customers and target market?

Marketing programs: Have clearly defined goals and objectives for each as well as how to measure return on investment before the launch of each program.

Budget: Be realistic. It is hard, if not impossible, to market with no financial resources or people. If possible, spend more in the first half of the year to affect the second half of the year positively.

Wood for energy: The pros and cons of biomass plants

By BOB AUDETTE

BRATTLEBORO -- Would burning wood on a large scale to produce electricity be a boon or a bane?

It depends on who you talk to.

On one side of the divide, proponents of biomass plants point to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, taking advantage of a local fuel source, creating new jobs and reinvigorating the forest industries.

Those who oppose the burning of wood point to its low efficiency, air pollution, the exploitation of our forests for short-term gain.

"Big biomass plants are horrible," said Chris Matera, the founder of Massachusetts Forest Watch, which opposes a wood-to-electricity power plant in Greenfield, Mass. "They use massive amounts of wood to produce a small amount of electricity."

Burning wood for electricity is only 25 percent efficient.

Matera also believes that district heating systems, such as the one Brattleboro Thermal Utility is exploring, is not a solution to the country's energy needs, especially when it comes to global climate change.

The claim that burning wood is "carbon neutral" is "total nonsense," said Matera.

"Burning wood takes a few minutes but it can take 50 to 100 years for a tree to come back," he said.

Thus, burning wood adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere faster than it can be reabsorbed.

But Adam Sherman, the program director of the Biomass Energy Resource Center in Montpelier said district heating systems and large-scale biomass-to-electricity projects shouldn't be lumped together.

"A big inefficient power plant -- that's scary," said Sherman.

While a 50-megawatt power plant, such as the one proposed for Greenfield, needs at least 500,000 tons of wood a year, a small thermal utility, such as the one proposed for Brattleboro, would use 12,000 to 16,000 tons a year.

District heating systems are "a very appropriate use of local forest resources at a much higher efficiency at a scale that is much more appropriate to certain communities," said Sherman.

In Vermont, 42 schools are heating with wood chips, including Brattleboro Union High School. Other locations include the Vermont State House and state offices, the government complex in Waterbury, the hospital in Newport and Middlebury College.

"In Vermont we have created a track record and a path forward on how we can utilize our precious forest resources," said Sherman.

But, added Sherman, any project needs to move forward "with the utmost care, scrutiny and due diligence on sustainability, availability and the reliability of the resource base. The amount of wood that can be sustainable is a very finite amount."

While Sherman and Matera disagree on some points, they both agree that burning wood for electric power generation is not sustainable.

Large-scale biomass plants would leave nothing for cordwood, pellets or woodchips, said Sherman.

"You've exhausted every single drop of sustainability at no more than 25-percent efficiency," he said. "But to say any kind of biomass use would trigger massive change is absurd."

According to a wood fuel study conducted by BERC, said Sherman, conservative estimates reveal there is up to 1 million tons of wood above and beyond the current yield that could be burned.

When burning biomass for any use, whether electric generation or heating and hot water, what really needs to be taken into account is the full cost of the impact on the environment, said James "Jae" Edmonds, the chief scientist for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Global Change Research Institute on the campus of the University of Maryland.

"Whether it's fossil fuels or chopping down the forest, carbon is carbon to the atmosphere," he said.

Biomass as a carbon-neutral fuel source is relative to land use practices, said Edmonds.

"You might actually have far greater emissions," he said. "That's because the carbon tied up in forests, in the soil and in grasses is ‘huge.'"

But if forests are replaced faster than wood is burned, said Edmonds, carbon entering into the atmosphere is removed simultaneously.

"We consider that a wash," he said.

But Edmonds added a caveat: To do so would mean converting land into forest production with consequences that aren't always fitted into the calculation.

"We've got all this land to grow crops to feed people and the other things we use land for," said Edmonds. "If you want to grow biomass too, something's got to give."

Converting land to biomass productions can also drive up the costs of food crops, said Edmonds.

One way the food-crop issue can be confronted, said Edmonds, is if we reduce our consumption of meat. Feed that goes to animals could instead be used to feed humans without increasing the amount of land under cultivation.

"It shifts the diet, frees up the land and makes space for bio-energy," he said.

If adequate planning is brought to the table, said Edmonds, biomass plants can contribute to reducing carbon in the atmosphere if everything from wise-use land practices and modern pollution-control technology is utilized, he said.

"Biomass can be really important in achieving low-carbon stabilization scenarios," said Edmonds. "It's a wonderful renewable. It can be better than any other renewable by a factor of two."

What we need is to put a price on carbon, said Edmonds.

Fossil fuels are relatively cheap because their impact on the atmosphere is not figured into their costs. Because of that, biofuels can't compete with fossil fuels on a cost-benefit ratio.

But if the full carbon impact was taken into account, the price of fossil fuels would rise to a more appropriate level reflecting their total impact on the environment.

All three men said it's important to produce power through a mix of different technologies, including fossil fuels with carbon dioxide capture, bio-energy, solar, wind and nuclear.

"All these things tend to work together or the whole system falls apart," said Edmonds.

"Biomass is not a silver bullet," said Sherman. "It's a piece of silver buckshot."

Conservation and efficiencies can go a long way to reducing our power consumption and precluding the need for additional power plants, said both Sherman and Matera.

Conservation and efficiency are not "chic or sexy," said Matera, but "The amount of energy we can reduce is monstrously more that the amount we can produce by burning wood."

Efficiency and conservation measures can reduce power usage by up to 50 percent.

Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com, or at 802-254-2311, ext. 273.

http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_13673659

IP to close its Franklin, VA, paper mill, Pineville, LA, and Albany, OR, containerboard mills

International Paper (NYSE: IP - News) today announced plans to close its paper mill and associated operations in Franklin, Va., and its containerboard mills in Pineville, La., and Albany, Ore. The company also announced it would permanently shut down the previously idled No. 3 machine at its Valliant, Okla., containerboard mill. The Valliant Mills other two machines will continue to operate. These permanent shutdowns will reduce the companys North American paper and board capacity by 2.1 million tons.

We recognize these are very difficult decisions affecting our employees, their families and the communities surrounding these mills, said Chairman and CEO John Faraci. We have concluded that we have excess capacity in our North American paper and packaging businesses, and these decisions will better match our supply with our expected customer demand.

Since the onset of the global recession, the decline in demand for International Papers uncoated freesheet in North America has accelerated, and consequently the company has decided to further reduce its uncoated freesheet capacity. 

Salesmanship for professionals

By Todd K. Miller, ACF

1. Remember that, like it or not, you are a salesman when making a first contact with a prospective client.
2. Be familiar with the forestland in your work area so when a prospective client tells you where their property is located, you'll have a pretty good idea of what it might look like.  This can lead to discussion of the general area of their property and other work you may have done in the area. 
3. Be prepared to answer the typical questions a prospective client might ask but remember that every landowner is unique  Understand that listening is just as, if not more, important than talking.  Answer particular questions using plain English.  You may think professional jargon is impressive, but non-foresters probably don't know--or care--what basal area is. 
   
4. Seek common ground with the landowner.  One way to gain a prospect's trust is to talk about anything they want to discuss.  For instance, talking about deer hunting may get them to open up and feel comfortable talking to you.
5. It is advantageous to have a mutual friend/acquaintance (e.g. neighbors, fellow church members, others in the community, or a previous client).
6. Make sure you get the landowner's contact information for follow up (e.g. name, address, phone number, e-mail, property description, etc.).  For more information, take a look at the "Initial Landowner Contact Checklist" in the members-only section of the ACF website.
7. Always ask for a decision to close the deal.  The timing of this comes with experience.  Describe the specific services you offer that best serve the prospect's needs and objectives, then ask if it is OK to send  a work agreement for that service (also a checklist on the website).  That way, your prospective client will have it handy when you discuss any other questions. It makes it easier for the landowner to say "yes" to YOUR services if all he/she has to do is sign a work agreement and send it back in a self-addressed stamped envelope. 
8. Lastly, truly believe in what your selling--your forestry expertise.  

Todd K. Miller, ACF, CF
Michigan Registered Forester #616
Grossman Forestry Co.
906-293-8707

www.Grossmanforestry.com

ACF Landowner Client Profile

Andrew Taylor – steward of family farm

Minority Landowner Magazine

Caswell County Landowner Andrew Taylor and County Ranger Steve Thompson discuss Forest Stewardship objectives on his property.

Andrew Taylor was like many landowners who are unsure of the best approach to take in managing their own forestland, until he discovered North Carolina’s Forest Stewardship Program.

The Forest Stewardship program is designed to encourage and help those who want to manage their forestland for its natural beauty, wildlife habitat, recreation, or productive timber. The program is also intended to help landowners protect clean water through appropriate soil conservation practices.

Taylor’s journey into stewardship began when he decided to sell timber on the 100 acres of the 320 acre family farm in Caswell County that he owns with his siblings. At the time he didn’t know the N.C. Division of Forest Resources (also known as the N.C. Forest Service) was available to help him and sought the help of a timber buyer.

Taylor and his siblings grew up on the farmland, which has been in the family since 1892. However, little work had been done on the land for a long time, a situation Mr. Taylor wished to correct by becoming a good steward of his land.

After reading about a landowner meeting in the newspaper, Taylor decided to attend and was introduced to David Halley, a consulting forester, and discovered all the benefits of working with the N.C. Forest Service and the Forest Stewardship Program. Part of the meeting involved a tour of properties that had been managed for forestry. Taylor approached the consulting forester about his own property and later the two would tour the family farm where Halley made some suggestions, including working with the N.C. Division of Forest Resources. Taylor admits that he didn’t know the services that were available to him until he met Halley.

“There is a lot of information I could’ve had before I planted, a lot of stuff I had done on my own, stuff that came naturally as an old farm boy, but I still needed help, I was just asking the wrong people,” Taylor said. “After I got involved with the [North Carolina] Forest Service things became productive.”

Steve Thompson, Caswell County Ranger, wants people to know that there are services available to landowners through the N.C. Division of Forest Resources.

“Ideally, we will write a management plan that works with the landowners objectives,” Thompson said. “Some of Mr. Taylor’s stands are not healthy enough to be productive so we’re working with him on that,” Thompson said. “Some of what they are doing includes some site prep work on areas that he wants to plant on several acres. Mr. Taylor has an interest in the land and he’s willing to do the work,” Thompson added.

Taylor’s other goals include restoring trees in harvested areas, thinning trees under the southern pine beetle program and wildlife management. A hunt club leases the property and helps him with keeping the borders well marked.

“If people’s goals change we’ll steer them in the right direction.” Thompson said.

He added that the N.C. Forest Service tries to look at all the objectives of the landowner and works together with other agencies to help them achieve the goals outlined in their stewardship plan. Any good stewardship plan will incorporate a number of public agencies working together to assist landowners by providing educational, technical, and financial assistance, according to Thompson. These resource professionals help landowners realize the benefits of being good forest stewards.

“The key to the success of the Taylor property, or any stewardship property, is to have good communications between the landowner, the consultant, the N.C. Forest Service and any other agencies that are integral to the plan,” Thompson said.

The Forest Stewardship Program recognizes landowners that promote total forest resource management and offers technical assistance in developing stewardship management plans based on the landowner’s objectives. The time schedule for completing the plan is based on the landowner’s resources and ability to conduct the work, with the recommendations focusing on practical modifications of existing conditions rather than costly investment. The program is open to any private landowner who has 10 acres or more of forestland.

Thompson says they get a lot of work through word of mouth, sometimes more than they can handle. In fact, while in the process of helping Mr. Taylor they were introduced to his neighbor who is now also receiving services from the Forest Service and engaged in Forest Stewardship activities in as well. Taylor’s family, who owns the other 220 acres of land, also has a stewardship plan in place.

Mr. Taylor wishes he had known about the opportunities the Forest Service offered earlier but says that he is pleased to be able to move ahead with their assistance in the future. His main goal is to create a healthy stewardship property for all the children and grandchildren of his family so the Taylor family legacy will continue for generations to come.

SOURCE: North Carolina’s Forest Stewardship News, Fall 2009, Vol. 21:3

Scientists race to prevent ash tree's extinction

By MELANIE S. WELTE (AP) – 10/8/2009

DES MOINES, Iowa — Mark Widrlechner is out to save a species from extinction.

It's the native ash tree, and although it provides $25 billion worth of timber and decorates backyards across North America, an unstoppable bug has slowly killed millions of trees in 13 states and could cause the species' ultimate demise — unless Widrlechner is successful.

The horticulturist for the federal Agriculture Research Service in Iowa is heading an effort to collect tens of millions of ash seeds from across the U.S. that can be frozen and ready to plant when researchers figure out how to kill or control the emerald ash borer.

The process is tedious since seeds must be hand-picked from branches only in the fall. But scientists hope to avoid what happened to the American elm, chestnut and butternut trees, which were nearly wiped out by disease.

Widrlechner said the ash borer is especially devastating because it can kill very young trees and reduce the possibility that the species develop a tolerance.

"This one to me looks like it's much more likely to lead to extinction if we don't do anything about it," predicted Widrlechner, who also is a professor at Iowa State University in Ames.

Ash trees are used commercially for baseball bats, kitchen cabinets and other products, and dominate the landscape in parts of the Midwest.

In Kansas and Nebraska, they account for 25 percent to 35 percent of trees and up to 60 percent in some North Dakota communities. In Iowa alone there are an estimated 88 million ash trees, state experts said.

The eastern U.S. produces nearly 114 million board feet of ash saw timber valued at $25 billion, according to the 2009 manual by the Department of Agriculture on the emerald ash borer. The potential impact on the urban landscape could include 30 million to 90 million trees and cause $20 billion to $60 billion in damage, the report estimated.

The insect is native to Asia and was first identified in the U.S. in 2002, when it was spotted in Michigan. It's now found in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The adult beetles are relatively harmless and nibble on leaves, but the larvae are deadly. They drill into trees, eat through the vascular tissue and stop the flow of water. An infested tree can die within a few years, and the emerging generation of beetles moves to other trees, Widrlechner said.

Federal and state agencies tried to limit the ash borer's movement through quarantines, but scientists agree that there's no way to stop the insect's spread unless new techniques are developed.

"This pest is one like we've never dealt with before," said John Bedford, pest response program manager with the Michigan Department of Agriculture. "It doesn't seem to leave much in its wake."

In parts of Michigan, "a majority of the ash trees are dead and gone," he said.

Crews have collected at least 2 million seeds from stands of green, white, black, blue and pumpkin ash — only about 10 percent of the number needed to ensure the diversity of each species is represented, Widrlechner estimates.

Noel Schneeberger, an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service, said billions of ash trees are scattered across the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The seed collection project began in New England in 2007, then expanded to Wisconsin, Illinois and Missouri. It also includes the Forest Service, the National Resources Conservation Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Interior Department, several state forest agencies, American Indian tribes, botanical gardens and even people with ash trees in their yards.

Ash seeds grow in clusters on branches with anywhere from a dozen to 50 seeds hanging in a group. The seeds are hand-picked in the fall and put in paper bags, then dried and sorted. Seeds shared with researchers are put in large jars and refrigerated, Widrlechner said.

Seeds in the "base collection," which will be used to replenish the ash species, are sealed in plastic and stored in a walk-in freezer. Some remain at the North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, and some are sent to the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colo.

A similar but smaller project by the Department of Agriculture and North Carolina State University is under way for the Eastern and North Carolina hemlocks, which are threatened by the Hemlock woolly adelgid.

Large-scale seed collections were not taken before diseases nearly wiped out Dutch elms between 1930 and the mid-1970s and American chestnut trees by the 1950s. Butternut, a hardwood native to eastern North American forests, is still affected by a canker disease.

Schneeberger hopes the ash tree will avoid a similar fate. He said the problem shows that urban areas must use a variety of trees, noting that many ash trees were largely planted to replace dying elms.

"We need to pay attention to planting the right trees for the right place in urban areas and diversify the urban canopy," Schneeberger said. "We don't plant one street full of ash, for example, we plant a variety of species."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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