ALBANY, Ga., June 16— F&W Forestry Services, Inc., one of the South’s oldest and largest forestry management and consulting firms, today announced a major geographic expansion of its U.S. operations and the launch of its first foreign base in South America. Both moves are a direct result of F&W’s strategic partnership with RMK Timberland Group, a business unit of Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Bank.

Marshall Thomas, president of Albany, Ga.-based F&W, said the company has moved into the Upper South, Southern Ohio Valley, and Appalachian regions with new offices at Clinton in east Tennessee near Knoxville, Paris in west Tennessee, and Chillicothe in southern Ohio.  A broad swath of Kentucky also will be served by the three new offices.

The new offices join an existing F&W network of 13 offices serving forest landowners in eight states stretching from Virginia to Texas and spanning the Southern pine forest region.

In tandem with its domestic expansion, F&W announced its first venture outside the United States.  It has joined with two South American-based groups to form Mercosur Forestry Services LLC, based initially in Montevideo, Uruguay, to provide forest investment and management services in the lower tier countries of South America. Potential U.S. investors in South American forest and timberland opportunities will be prime business targets.

“The expansions we are announcing are perhaps the most significant for F&W in our 44-year history,” Thomas said.  “Although we have done project work for clients in the predominately hardwood forest areas of Appalachia and the Upper South, the three new offices are the first for us outside the traditional Southern pine region.

“These new offices will provide the same full-service management, marketing, and consulting services for hardwood forest owners that F&W has provided in the pine belt for almost half a century,” he said.

Similarly, Thomas said his firm for several years has been working to build a business in the “Southern Cone” of South America, an increasingly important timber production region in global forestry.  F&W has partnered with two experienced South American forestry consultant/managers—one in Argentina and the other in Uruguay—to provide local expertise.”

“We’re now in South America on a permanent footing with our two partners,” he said.  “Interest in South American forestry by U.S. investors is growing dramatically, and we’re well prepared to help them find promising forestland investments and to manage them to U.S. standards for intensive yet sustainable timber growth.”

Initial operations of Mercosur Forestry Services are in Uruguay but will be expanded into the other Southern Cone countries of  Brazil, Chili, and Argentina, Thomas said. Along with F&W, Mercosur is owned by Luis Romero, a Uruguayan agronomist with a master’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago, and Rick Preve, an Argentine native and Virginia Tech graduate who formerly managed Union Camp Corp. plant in Argentina.  Romero is the principal in charge of the Southern Cone operations.

Thomas said the three new F&W offices in the U.S. are up-and-running, staffed by some 15 professionals recruited mainly from the new service areas.  The three new office managers have extensive forestry consulting and management backgrounds and are experienced in Appalachian and Southern Ohio Valley hardwood forestry.

The new managers are: 

PARIS, Tenn. — Thomas R. Cunningham, formerly partner in Three Rivers Land Management, LLC, Dover, Tenn., serving private and non-industrial forestland owners in western Tennessee and Kentucky; former area forester for Escanaba Timber, LLC, also of Dover; area forester, land manager, research forester for MeadWestvaco Corp. in Tennessee, Mississippi, and South Carolina; master and bachelor degrees in forestry from University of Kentucky.

CLINTON, Tenn. — Rick Sluss, formerly owner/president, Timberwise, Inc., Knoxville, Tenn., which was acquired by F&W.  Sluss has been involved in management and marketing of Appalachian hardwoods for landowners in Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia; is a former procurement forester for Champion International Corp.’s (now International Paper Co.) chip mill at Caryville, Tenn.; and holds master and bachelor degrees in forestry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Peter D. Gayer, formerly the owner of Stone Wall Forestry Consulting, Inc., Forest, Va., providing management for private and industrial landowners in Southern Appalachian area; land management forester and supervisor for MeadWestvaco Corp. in multi-capacities involving company’s forestlands in West Virginia, southern Ohio, and Virginia; master and bachelor degrees in forestry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.