Extension Agents and Volunteers Assist Honda Tree-Planting Effort

Auburn, April 17, 2002---Executives with the new Honda Manufacturing Plant in Lincoln 
recently presented local Extension agents, Master Gardeners and other volunteers with a tall 
order: helping newly trained employees and their families plant 2,300 trees along the front of the 
new facility.
“They want their buildings and grounds to blend in with the natural landscape as much as 
possible,” says Dr. David West, Calhoun County Extension coordinator, who designed the layout 
for the planting and organized local Master Gardeners and other volunteers throughout Alabama 
to assist with the planting.  
West, who holds a Ph.D. in forestry science, offered Honda one other suggestion: 
planting the area in native trees.  He then worked up a list of 25 different tree species native to 
Calhoun County and four adjoining counties. 
“We’re planting them at random so that, in time, the area will look like a real forest.”
Master Gardener volunteers, who assist Extension agents by providing horticultural 
information to local clientele, were also available during the planting to provide hands-on training 
and Extension tree-planting publications.
“This is the type of educational work we do,” says Dr. Dan Spector, chairman of the 
Calhoun County Master Gardeners.  “We’re essentially an extension of the Extension System, 
and by the end of the day, we hope to educate more than 2,000 people in tree planting.”
The planting coincided with the Honda Manufacturing Plant’s Open House, Saturday, 
April 13. 
Honda employees will not be the only ones benefiting from the tree plantings.  The 
project also served as a hands-on classroom for Auburn University urban forestry students, who 
earned class credit for taking part.
“One of the things we like to do in the urban forestry class is provide students with real-
life situations,” says Dr. Brenda Allen, an Extension forester and Auburn University associate 
professor of forestry.  “This planting gives us a real-life situation where they’re working with a 
community project with volunteer involvement.”
 “As I like to tell my students, urban forestry is as much about people as trees.”
Other Auburn University students are also benefiting.
After choosing to locate in Alabama, Honda purchased a 1,350-acre site for plant 
construction, but currently plans to develop only about 700 acres for use with the manufacturing 
facility.  Much of the rest may be used for hunting, fishing, walking trails and other forms of 
outdoor recreational activities for the plant’s employees. 
Four Auburn University seniors and a graduate student are working on a plan with Honda 
to determine how this land can best be used to benefit nature and employees alike.
Local students have profited too.   Members of a local school-sponsored Junior Master 
Gardener Club and their teachers visited the plant on April 12 to place and distribute trees, 
though rainy weather prevented most of these activities.  The group also toured the plant to learn 
about how technology is being used in the facility.  Honda provided transportation and lunch for 
the students.
The tree-planting project marks a milestone in a relationship between Honda and the 
Calhoun County Extension office that began before the company chose to locate in Alabama. 
“When the plant was first being considered, Dr. Allen and I were contacted by ADECA 
(Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs) and asked to come and look at the 
site,” West recalls.  “We were told that Honda was interested in ways to save trees during 
construction.”
West was determined from the start to ensure the relationship between Honda and his 
office remained mutually beneficial. 
	“Honda intends to be actively involved in the community through volunteer and youth 
programs,” West says, “but I’ve never wanted our relationship with them to be a one-way street in 
which only we profit.”
“I wanted them to know from the beginning that our office wanted to help them be 
successful and sought nothing in return.”  
(Source:  Dr. David West, Calhoun County Extension Coordinator, 256-237-1621)