Dr. Rebecca Franklin is the Program Director for Forestry Resources Technology at Central Oregon Community College. She also teaches at COCC as a professor in dendrology, natural resource conservation, resource sampling, and forestry. A large part of Rebecca’s commitment to educating the workforce of the future is creating connections between students and local agency and private industry professionals in outdoor laboratory settings so that thye may begin their careers with practical, hands-on and field-based skills. Rebecca has done research, field work, and agency work in seven western states and is currently interested in the geobotany and endemic plants of Oregon. She received her bachelor’s degree in Forestry from Humboldt State University and her PhD from the University of Arizona where she completed her dissertation on Dendrochronology in the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research.