DARRELL FREEMAN
VICE PRESIDENT
PhD, RENEWABLE RESOURCES
ADVISER: DR. ANN HILD

Darrell spent the first few years of life in a small town outside of Dallas, Texas. The formative years were lived in Milan, Michigan where his father worked for the Bureau of Prisons and his mother was a junior high math teacher. Career advances brought the family back to Texas, where Darrell attended all four years of high school in Houston. Being a lifelong hunter and fisher, Darrell earned a B.S. in wildlife and fisheries at Texas A&M University. Following graduation, Darrell ventured to Sarasota, Florida to work for an environmental consultant for two years and then was hired by the Southwest Florida Water Management District as a land manager. Many prescribed burns later, Darrell began working on a M.S. in forest resources at the University of Florida, which he completed in May, 2004. Immediately after graduation Darrell and his wife, Trish, headed to Laramie where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in rangeland ecology. His dissertation will focus on developing a GIS-based simulation model to predict expansion and density of Canada thistle as influenced by fire, grazing, and mowing, in tallgrass prairie remnants of North Dakota.