Amelia Swan Baxter

Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree’s natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

She has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, speaks Spanish, and has worked internationally with thought leaders in the Responsible Business movement. When left to her own fancies, she can be found gardening, biking, and mushroom hunting.

Derek Mayhew

Derek Mayhew joined Roald Gundersen Design in 2004 and has been with Whole Trees since its inception. He heads up operations and manufacturing for Whole Trees, as well as working closely with Gundersen in the management of the Driftless Farm forest land. He believes that this job is on the cutting edge of real meaningful changes in the way we manage and cohabitate with Earth’s forests. Derek finds that his work with trees has a way of seeping into all aspects of his life, but he also spends his time in parenting his six year old son and planning the design of his future brewery on the moon.

Mitch Reynolds

Mitch is a former radio journalist, news director and owner of a tree service. He has witnessed Whole Trees Structures develop from the beginning as an admirer and joined the crew in 2019 to help eagerly and energetically spread the sustainable vision of using un-milled timber as a key structural component in current and future building practices. He has a degree in history and is currently pursuing an MBA. Mitch spends his free time adoring his wife, building stuff, developing his step back three-pointer, fixing his motorcycle, protecting his poodles from extreme weather events and assessing the actual value of a situated ethos.

Michaela Harms

Michaela first joined WholeTrees in 2014 and after a few years working in international Mass Timber certification has returned to the team. She is a systems-thinker passionate about sustainability with an array of research and development experience across the wood construction supply chain. By incorporating sophisticated engineering models and standards-compliance alongside strategic management, she works to accelerate innovation in diverse and emerging markets. Her experience sits at the unique crux of manufacturing efficiencies, engineering management and business development to drive solutions and leadership in the building products sector. Beyond her professional life, she is an avid backwoods explorer, sauna advocate and vintage vehicle connoisseur.

Robert Mini

Robert joined WholeTrees in March 2008 as an entry-level carpenter and has grown into a lead foreman and our go-to artisan craftsman with gusto. His attention to detail and ability to execute detailed projects in scales as small as serpentine wood benches to as large as entire commercial structures remains a huge asset to WholeTrees’ functionality. Rob has studied and built bamboo structures in Hawaii, bringing knowledge of re-purposing invasive wood species into viable round timber structural components. Elusive Works is Robert’s thriving art studio where he crafts wood-turned bowls and large-scale murals.

Robin Schnitzler

As Whole Tree’s Architectural Project Manager, Robin is the link between the architect, engineer, sales team, and production. She guides projects to fruition drawing on her background in architecture, construction project management and systems change model. Robin believes in the innate and powerful wisdom of both trees and human beings, and that by having trees in our living spaces, we are reminded of our sacred connection to the earth. She is a “drive-by photography” enthusiast, capturing the beauty of the passing farmscapes while en route to camping in the woods. Robin is also a yogi, kayaker, and musician.

Sam Anderson

Sam joined WholeTrees as a designer and estimator in December 2020. He was raised on a farm in a small town in northern Minnesota and moved to Minneapolis to study Architecture and Norwegian. Professionally, he has worked in furniture fabrication, landscape and architectural design, and spent several years contributing to the historic preservation efforts at Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. After a brief stint living and working in Chicago, he has returned to Madison with the hope that the future of architecture will look and feel more like our forests. Sam spends his free time playing guitar and writing music, napping with his pug, exploring the Wisconsin landscape, and making breakfast sandwiches.

Owen Hoffman

Owen joined WholeTrees in August 2011 as an entry-level carpenter and quickly established himself as the critical conduit of communication and details.He has been a steady hand at the Giles Residence from before day one. Throughout his childhood, Owen grew up assisting his father in building multiple homes from the ground up. Working for WholeTrees, he finds timber framing and joinery his greatest areas of interest. After the many long days working on-site, Owen spends his free-time playing hockey in a men’s league and disc golf.

Jesse Pauls

Jesse joined the Whole Trees team in October 2016. He grew up in Muscoda where Whole Trees operates one of their kilns. His main focus is on supervising his team who processes whole trees for the company to implement in their many projects throughout the United States. Jesse‘s employment background includes apprentice toolmaker and custom woodworking. On his time away from his awesome job he can be found spending time with his four children and tinkering with Radio Control cars.

Bellinger “Moose” Badger

Belly joined WholeTrees in 2020 bringing with him a profound understanding of nature’s support of positive work environments. He is a driven health advocate and provides a sense of balance and excitement to any situation he finds himself in. Belly spends his days joyfully accepting pets from his many co-workers, clients and the passing delivery drivers. He excels at bringing emotional intelligence to focused business. Beyond his busy business days, Bellinger loves forest parkour and running alongside his mother on bike rides in his blaze orange vest.

Greg Cabral

Timm Locke

Timm Locke serves as our West Coast Sales Engineer and Senior Strategist bringing to WholeTrees an extensive background in marketing communications, business development and wood products. Most recently he was a major cog in Oregon’s push to build markets and a supply chain for mass timber, resulting in the state earning a reputation as epicenter of the early mass timber movement.

Born and raised in Western New York, Timm followed his bride home to Oregon and immediately fell in love with the vibe, and the trees. Long a passionate wood advocate, that passion was re-ignited when he realized the vital and immense role forests and wood products can have in halting climate change.

Timm loves his work as well as his play. At any moment you might find him on a racquetball court, at a music festival, hiking, playing with his dog Stella, enjoying a cold microbrew, tending the garden, playing cards, or just chilling at the lake. And always rooting for the Bosox.

Tom Gorman, Ph.D., P.E.

Tom Gorman is the Lead Scientist for WholeTrees R+D Grant Program. He is a vital resource and collaborator for our team as a pioneering expert in small-diameter utilization research. Gorman has been a staple at the University of Idaho since 1987. Prior to his work at the University, Tom was a Research Engineer at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory. While working on his college degrees he spent most summers working for the US Forest Service in the Bob Marshall Wilderness outside of Augusta, Montana and on the Kenai Peninsula near Seward, Alaska. He is a licensed professional engineer in Idaho, Montana, and Washington and a member of the Forest Products Society, the Society of Wood Science and Technology, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He has served as a consultant and expert witness in the area of wood products evaluation and testing.

Russell Miller-Johnson, P.E.

Russ has become the go-to engineer for WholeTrees projects with his profound understanding of timber and interest in sustainable engineering design. Miller-Johnson, P.E., Team Leader and Senior Engineer at Engineering Ventures, PC, has over 28 years of progressive experience in the integrated business practice of structural engineering design, management, and leadership. His focus is on advancing sustainable structural engineering practices at multiple levels. He is currently an active member of ASCE SEI’s Sustainability Committee. He has presented at Structures Congress’ on both sustainability issues and case studies. He has led the structural engineering effort for several LEED certified projects; as well as developing his offices’ LCA procedures, green specifications, and detailing approaches.

Amie Sullivan, SE

Amie is the lead consulting engineer for WholeTrees’ continued research to optimize truss designs. Her structural engineering expertise mixed with her acute sense of design and understanding of mass timber markets has made her a valuable asset to the WholeTrees R+D team. She leads her team at KPFF Consulting Engineers toward improved small-diameter round timber truss designs to cater to the breadth of the commercial construction market safely, sustainably and beautifully. Amie completed her engineering degree at University of Washington and has been working as a structural engineer in the Pacific Northwest for 15+ years.

Aurimas Bukauskas

Auri is a PhD researcher at the University of Bath’s BRE Center for Innovative Construction Materials, in the United Kingdom. Auri completed his Bachelor’s degree in Building Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015, where his thesis explored low-impact modular construction systems using small-diameter round timber. Auri’s PhD research focuses on new computational tools to help architects and engineers design structures using round timber and reused steel elements. In his spare time, Auri enjoys kayaking, sailing, and playing American and Irish fiddle.

Luella Schmidt

Luella is the founder and president of Fine Point Consulting. She supports WholeTrees’ growth with more than 15 years of financial and accounting management. She has extensive experience selecting, implementing, and customizing accounting software and systems. She has also assisted companies in raising venture capital, developed sophisticated budgeting and financial modeling tools, initiated and refinanced debt instruments, and performed due diligence for corporate acquisitions. Her professional experience spans a variety of industries including start-ups, professional service firms, energy, not-for-profit, biotechnology, and medical device companies.