Meran Paul, Staff Writer
The Babson Center for Global Commerce continues its tradition of inviting business leaders to speak with students and offer insights about their industry by welcoming alumnus Chris Elwell (C ’95) back to the Mountain to serve as a Graham Executive-in-Residence. Elwell is a partner and Managing Director at Timberland Investment Resources, a timber management firm managing over $2 billion in assets for institutional investors.
Elwell oversees the design and deployment of forest management and decision-support systems. A graduate of Sewanee, Yale University, and Kennesaw State University, Chris brings a rare, multidisciplinary perspective to the sector. He blends biological science with financial strategy and relational database management.
During his visit, Elwell sat down with The Sewanee Purple to discuss the nexus of ecology and finance and how his time on the Mountain prepared him to lead in the evolving world of nature finance.
How did a major in Natural Resources at Sewanee lead you to a career in business and finance?
It has been an interesting journey. I really didn’t know much about finance while I was at Sewanee. In fact, I will reveal that the class I was most worried about failing in Sewanee was ECON 101. It was at Yale, working towards a master of Forestry degree, that I got really turned on to the interplay between forestry and finance. I also developed an early interest in information management and relational databases. I realized there was this incredible nexus between what’s happening in the forest, the financial metrics, and how we can track that through data. My career has been about putting those together, leading to my current role, where I manage investment analysis and information systems for a timberland investment firm.
How do you say that your liberal arts background has given you an edge?
I’m very proud to have studied science in the liberal arts setting. I think that’s very meaningful. Science tells us how things work through predictive models, but science is often reductionist – it simplifies. A liberal arts education that reminds us that any of these models sit in the context of a lot of other human dimensions and social aspects. For instance, forests have intrinsic value of biodiversity, scenic value, and cultural value that go far beyond the logs we produce or sell.
I was also an American studies major here, and I enjoyed the literature and history aspects of that. It taught me that the forests we see today are the result of many, many things that have happened before them. So understanding how people have interacted with those forests, what this forest might hide, what it might reveal, makes science much richer in my mind.
You described your time in the Kappa Alpha Order as a laboratory for organizational governance. What lessons from those chapter meetings do you still use today?
My time with Kappa Alpha has been very enjoyable, particularly in the college years. Certainly not without its stresses of trying to get something accomplished among a group of young men. I think we succeeded most of the time in accomplishing our goal of having a good time. Maintaining the chapter house is still an open question. I understand, driving by it today, that it is still standing. So I think we’re on the winning side of that.
Several things stand out to me, however, on the organizational governance part. First, the ability to interpret the mission of a larger organization and translate it into daily action. Our firm’s mission is to “unlock the value of the world’s forests,” and my experience in leadership taught me to ask: What does that mean for what we do on Monday or Tuesday? The other thing is the human relationships of building an organizational understanding, a structure, a spirit that people enjoy working together and see value in working together. That takes a lot of effort. It’s a lot easier to put a bumper sticker on a car or put a t-shirt on, say “hey, we all got KA on our t-shirt. Or, in this context, my firm, Timberland Investment Resource, saying “we have TIR on our shirt”.
Finally, it also teaches you fiduciary responsibility. In a fraternity, you’re making decisions about money contributed by many people. Today, as a guardian of our investors’ money, that same sense of responsibility, spending it wisely, appropriately, and safely, is of utmost importance.
You began as a technical forester for MeadWestvaco (a former packaging company that produced paper and office products). What was the catalyst that moved you toward the investment side of the industry?
I joined the industry in 2000, a time when Wall Street was scrutinizing vertically integrated paper companies. Historically, these companies owned massive amounts of timberland simply to guarantee a wood supply for their mills. However, investors were beginning to realize that the land was often worth more than the mills themselves, especially land near growing residential areas. Watching the company navigate these corporate raider years triggered my interest in the financial viability of the land as its own asset. I realized that in a massive corporation, I might be waiting years for senior leadership roles to open up. I wanted more responsibility and a deeper understanding of the “why” behind the numbers. This led me to take a leap into a commercial analysis group at a paper mill while simultaneously starting an MBA. I eventually finished my degree at Kennesaw State after joining Timberland Investment Resources (TIR). Ultimately, it was a desire to keep learning, a trait I trace back to my liberal arts roots, that fueled the transition from managing trees to managing the capital that grows them.
As a Managing Director, how do you balance your time today? Do you still find opportunities to go out into the woods, or do you spend most of your time working behind a desk?
Sadly, I spend most of my time behind a desk, interacting with forests through computer screens. I appreciate and value the time that I have spent in the woods. In similar terms, as I advocate studying science in the context of liberal arts, working with forests through data is very much benefited greatly by having physically worked in the forest and put my hands on lots of trees, looked at lots of trees in lots of different settings. It sounds silly, but the quantity of time that I’m putting my brain and eyeballs into the woods is important to build intuition, experience, and judgment. That’s what I’m really getting to, having the judgment. Is this data right? I do like to take time away. The work-life balance part, and this gets to spending time in the woods, which I don’t do as much now, from the work setting, is that my family owns a tree farm in Vermont. It’s a nice pressure relief valve.
You have a very specialized role, one that blends technology, finance and forestry. What is currently the most rewarding part of your job?
Foremost, what’s rewarding is seeing the folks that I work with develop and build out their professional capabilities to do more than they could do before, to take on more responsibility. Number two is to see that the investments that we’ve made on behalf of our clients are performing well. We’re navigating some fairly difficult economic situations. We have too few homes being built. We have global trade issues in terms of being able to export logs to different places. It can be a tough market environment, but we are continuing to grow value for our clients and create real investment returns.
Finally, I find it rewarding to contribute to the advancement of forestry in two ways. One is how we apply information management to forestry. The second is how we use the forest to accomplish nature restoration, to provide not just suitable, but good habitat, quality habitat for the species that depend on the forest.
What advice would you give to a Sewanee student who is passionate about natural resources and finance? How can they best prepare for a multi-disciplinary career like yours?
I think I have three responses to that. If you’re going to be dealing with natural resources and environmental services, you must spend a lot of time outside. It’s meaningful to get to know the environment, to understand how it works, and to observe all the wonderful things in nature. Nature shows us incredible evolution and specialization. There is a lot to be amazed by.
The second is to read a lot. We only have 24 hours in a day, but reading allows you to move through time. I really enjoy reading forest research. I’ve only seen so much forest, but if I read this research, I understand the challenges, the forests that people were dealing with 50 years ago or more. Balancing that with novels and biographies of successful people is a great way to build one’s experience base beyond one’s age.
The third response is to take advantage of all these opportunities to meet different people in different settings and just expose yourself to lots of experiences. Working in different places, traveling, would be some easy examples.
Since you read a lot, do you have a favorite novel?
It’s hard to pick, but I have a deep appreciation for William Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom!” I love the idea that you could start on almost any page, and as long as you read your way back around to that same spot, you’d have experienced the whole story. You just have to find a way in.