About Us

Tennessee Heartwood is a registered 501 c3 Non Profit Organization that works to protect public forests, wildlife, and environment as well as support community activism in the eastern United States through education, advocacy, and citizen empowerment.

We monitor and work on public lands ranging from the Cherokee National Forest to the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area and Tennessee's state forests system.

Our work is diverse, ranging from ground-based analysis of public lands proposals to building interpretive trail systems. We like to have fun, too. We lead overnight outings, fishing trips, workshops, and host numerous speakers on a range of ecological topics. We have also conducted forest watch and advocacy training in eight states.

We have also begun to focus on research, including water sampling, rare forest communities, documenting surviving American Chestnut, and data on changing forest composition.

We have also briefed Congressional staffers on National Forest issues and policy in Washington and have testified before the Tennessee State Senate on state lands, which resulted in reforms on timber sale transparency.

Davis Mounger. cofounder, has been working on National Forest issues since 1993, starting with the six National Forest districts (DeSoto, Tombigbee, Delta, Homochitto, Bienville, and Holly Springs) in his native Mississippi, and now focuses on public lands in Tennessee and the surrounding area. Davis has conducted in -the-field forest advocacy in eight state. He has taught high school for over 25 years, including Chemistry, Environmental Science, Biology, English, Theater, French, and Electrical Energy Systems. In his rare spare time, he enjoys playing psychobilly blues punk music on guitar and plays shows with his band (Up) the Dose.

Sheryl Campbell, our coordinator of fundraising and volunteers, co-founded Tennessee Heartwood in 2009. With years of experience in grassroots organizing, she has been the organizational engine of our success. Sheryl is a Home Health Nurse, Musician, and has played trumpet in Chattanooga-area bands like the Midsouth Symphonic Band and Jericho Brass. She also has organized events to provide assistance to homeless veterans.

Board member Anna McCurdy, LPC-MHSP, RYT, grew up in rural Northeast Alabama near Desoto State Park and Little River Canyon. She is an Auburn graduate where she studied Microbiology, Botany, and Psychology. She then went to East Carolina University where she earned two Master’s degrees in Clinical Counseling with a concentration in Substance Abuse. She is a Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselor both in private practice and for a non-profit agency providing mental health and substance abuse treatment for Federal offenders. She focuses on trauma-informed approaches with a basis in neuroscience and an emphasis on Mindfulness. She is a Yoga teacher and manager of Chattanooga Community Yoga and an avid hiker/nature lover who’s hiking claim to fame is her recent completion of the AT Triple Crown in Virginia where she was dubbed ‘MacGyver’ by her trail mates.

Board Member, Rick Foster: "I have twenty years of field and community experience, beginning as a volunteer in a playground committee. Among other things, I hand-pulled an appalling amount of poison ivy at a site politically chosen and organized a plant rescue to move the best to a nature trail area.

That led to my Bachelor of Science in resource ecology & management from U of MI’s School of Natural Resources & Environment. My Master of Science is from ETSU for researching control of an invasive grass in a bog preserve that grew cranberries. I’ve been a graduate student instructor for an introductory biology lab class, with emphasis on ecological principles. I went from a field and laboratory research assistant in U of MI’s School of Natural Resources & Environment’s Soils, Watershed, & Terrestrial Ecosystems lab to manage ETSU’s Herptile Laboratory animals and the Center for Great Lakes & Aquatic Science’s Nutrient Chemistry Lab. I also ran a spreadsheet project to identify and assess trees and other vegetation at risk from construction. U of MI's Center for Sustainable Systems adopted the principle. I’m an original member of the Bog Learning Network.

I’ve made most of my living doing habitat assessment for National Forests & the Nature Conservancy (Getting paid to walk in the woods sounds good but you don’t get to choose your woods.) with some wetland delineation and habitat restoration added in, especially wetland restoration. Other occupations include nature trails, hikes, community gardens, arboretums, wildlife habitat and management, a greenway, and a pollinator garden. "