Luther Jones

December 2, 2022

Luther Jones has worked with longleaf restoration efforts for almost ten years and was selected as one of the 2018 recipients of The Longleaf Alliance’s True Longleaf Champion Award for his contributions. Luther retired from USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in January 2018 with almost 40 years of service. During his tenure with NRCS at headquarters in Washington D.C., he worked as a natural resource specialist where he coordinated several landscape conservation initiatives – Longleaf Pine, Gulf of Mexico, Bay Delta, New England/New York Forestry, Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership, and USDA StrikeForce. Prior to that, Luther served as the Georgia USDA Outreach Coordinator and led the state StrikeForce Initiative designed to provide conservation funding to areas of persistent poverty in sixty southern counties. Other positions held in Georgia include Resource Conservation and Development Coordinator, District Conservationist, and Soil Conservationist.

A Georgia native, he graduated from Fort Valley State University with a B.S. in Agriculture in 1982 and the University of Illinois with an M.S. in Agricultural Economics in 1984. Luther now works as a forest stewardship consultant and resides with his wife in Huntersville, North Carolina.