The award was announced today at the Washington Farm Forestry Association annual meeting in Olympia.

The 250-acre Lawffer Tree Farm, in northeast Clark County, near Amboy, has been in the Lawffer family since the early 1900s, when Randy Lawffer’s great-grandfather bought the property.

Randy Lawffer has been involved in timber his whole life, whether at home on the tree farm or at work as a log scaler. He took over management of the family property from his father nearly 40 years ago.

Randy and Linda do much of the wildlife habitat management, timber harvesting, thinning and tree planting themselves. The couple’s son and daughter also live on and help manage the large property.

Randy and Linda, like previous generations of Lawffers before them, have been planning to pass the property to the next generation. The Lawffers recently established a trust to ensure the financial resources to continue to sustainably manage the tree farm into the future.

The Tree Farmer of the Year is selected by the Washington Tree Farm Program, a nonprofit organization working to provide small forest landowners across Washington the tools they need to sustainably manage private forestlands. Selection of the Tree Farmer of the Year is based on the landowner’s commitment to conservation, community involvement, and advocacy for sustainable forest management.