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| Skip Mourglia receives the 2001 Forest Conservationist of the Year award for her outstanding efforts in advancements in forest conservation. |
A resident of Monett, in southwest Missouri, Skip is one of the busiest consulting foresters in the state. Her professional time is divided between both rural woodland management and urban residential tree services. When she isn’t managing timberlands, marketing timber sales or preparing tree damage appraisals, she is designing and planting treescapes and managing urban trees for optimum health. Known in her neck of the woods as "the Tree Lady," Skip is a Certified Arborist and spends the growing season tending tree plantings for corporate clients like Bass Pro Shops and Silver Dollar City as well as numerous local homeowners.
Skip graduated from Southern Illinois University in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science in Forest
Resource Management. She moved to Missouri in 1982 when awarded a contract to inventory forestlands on the Mark Twain National Forest. By the time her inventory contracts ended in 1988 she had walked over 130,000 acres of the Mark Twain National Forest and all of Peck Ranch Conservation Area in Carter County.
In 1997, the Missouri Forest Products Association asked Skip to design the Forest Management and Best Management Practices training for loggers in their Professional Harvester Training Program. She trained loggers in many locations throughout the state and feels this assignment was her largest contribution to improving forest conditions throughout the state.
Skip is currently assisting the Science Horizons project in southwest Missouri, designed to encourage 6th-8th grade girls to consider science careers. Whenever possible, she volunteers with the local schools to engage students in tree planting and maintenance projects.
She and her husband, Rex, have three children: Caleb, 14, Rachael, 12, and Marc, 11.