Charlie Blinn

Professor
Extension Specialist
he/him/his
cblinn@umn.edu
(612) 624 3788
330B Green Hall

1530 Cleveland Ave North
Saint Paul, MN 55108
United States

Education

Ph.D. Virginia Tech (1984)

External Affiliations

Council on Forest Engineering, International Journal of Forest Engineering

Courses taught
Field Timber Harvesting and Road Planning
Issues in the Environment
Timber Harvesting and Road Planning

Areas of Interest

Timber harvesting, forest roads, forest management, logging, loggers, timber harvesters.

 

Biography

Charlie grew up in Connecticut, going to school in a suburban environment and spending non-school days in a rural part of the state. After high school, he attended schools in West Virginia, Tennessee, Minnesota and Virginia. He joined the Department of Forest Resources in 1984. Married in 1979, he has two sons and one granddaughter.

Research

My research interests are broadly focused on forest management. Specific research areas include: assessing various aspects of logging businesses (e.g., productivity, current and replacement equipment, future plans, attitudes and behaviors towards invasive forest plants), evaluating the influence of various timber sale policies on buyer bidding behavior, examining various approaches for increasing forest management on family forests, better understanding the impacts to forest soils from management and options for mitigating those impacts, and identifying and assessing the effectiveness of approaches used to manage for dwarf mistletoe. I also conduct Extension education programs for loggers and natural resource professionals which focus on a wide variety of forest management topics including applying forest management guidelines, various aspects of timber harvesting and road planning, the status of the logging industry, invasive forest plant species identification and management, and forest-based youth education on the White Earth Reservation.

Select Publications

  • Stockstad  A.B. R.A. Slesak, A.J. Toczydlowski, C. R. Blinn, R.K. Kolka, S. D. Sebestyen.. 2022. Limited effect of precipitation manipulation on soil respiration and inorganic N concentrations across four soil drainage classes in Northern Minnesota aspen forests. Forests. 13, 1194. https://doi.org/10.3390/f13081194
     
  • Sagor, E. S., E. J. Sebald, M. A. Kilgore, C. R. Blinn, S. A. Snyder and M. B. Russell. 2022. Factors influencing family woodland management action after calling a public agency forester. Journal of Forestry. https://doi.org/10.1093/jofore/fvac006
     
  • Blinn, C. R., T. J. O’Hara, and M. B. Russell. 2021. H-2B guest workers and the critical role they play in US forests. Journal of Forestry 119(5):467-377. Available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jofore/fvab022
     
  • Dodson, E. M., and C. R. Blinn.  2021.  Forest operations instructor and student perspectives on rapid transition from face-to-face to online learning in the US International Journal of Forest Engineering. Available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14942119.2021.1907109
     
  • Dodson, E. M. and C. R. Blinn.  2021. How will COVID-19 change forestry education? A study of US forest operations instructors. Journal of Forestry. Available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/jofore/fvab050
     
  • Ganatsios, H. P., P. A. Tsioras, A. G. Papaioannou, and C. R. Blinn.  2021.  Short term impacts of harvesting operations on soil properties in a Mediterranean oak ecosystem. Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering.  42(3):463-476. Available online at: https://doi.org/10.5552/crojfe.2021.1100

 

Honors and Awards

  • CFANS Alumni Society Distinguished Faculty Award
  • Dean and Director’s Distinguished Award, Campus Faculty, University of Minnesota Extension Service
  • Richard C. Newman Award for Community Impact, College of Natural Resources
  • USDA Secretary’s Award for Enhancing the Capacity of all Rural Residents, Communities, and Businesses to Prosper for the White Earth Reservation Science and Math Program Team.
  • Award of Excellence from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry