Andres Villegas knows a thing or two about trees, and he wants you to know them as well.
Throughout his career in the agriculture and forestry industry, Villegas BSA ’98, has become an advocate and bridge builder connecting rural and urban communities through sustainable food and fiber products.
Villegas was born in Colombia but moved to Athens at 8 months old when his parents, Pedro Villegas PhD ’75 and Angela Villegas MS ’75, returned to UGA for his father to become a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
From a young age, Villegas was interested in natural resources and agriculture. He grew up surrounded by farms on the edge of the Classic City, spent summers on the family farm in Colombia, and he admired the work his father did at the UGA vet school focused on vaccine development for the state’s growing poultry industry.
“Spending time around animals, on farms, and in places where people were working with their hands and their minds, thinking about how they could solve problems and make their farms better every day, was something that I liked,” Villegas says.
Villegas’ career has taken him around the world and back, working in international trade for the Georgia Department of Agriculture, where he helped open exports of poultry to Cuba and pecans to Asia. He eventually transitioned to the private sector and was hired by the Langdale Company, a large timber producer in Valdosta, as its vice president of international sales, domestic marketing, and government affairs.
After his stint at Langdale, Villegas moved on to Weyerhaeuser, another timber giant. While there, he worked in North Carolina, Oregon, and Uruguay. In late 2015, he came back home to Georgia to lead the Georgia Forestry Association (GFA), where he spent nearly a decade as president and CEO.
Georgia is the No. 1 forestry state in the nation and has an extensive international trade network. While working with GFA, Villegas learned how to advocate for Georgia timber farmers—from those working on small family farms to those running large operations spanning thousands of acres.
Today, Villegas is the vice president of public affairs and communications for Rayonier, a timber real estate investment firm with approximately 2.7 million acres of timberland in the U.S. and New Zealand.
Because of Georgia’s status as the No. 1 forestry state in the nation, the state serves an important leadership role. Georgia’s working forests are a model of sustainable forestry, balancing timber production with the conservation of air, water, and wildlife resources.
With the help of researchers at UGA, we’ve been fine-tuning our forestry practices for over 100 years to improve the sustainability of our working forests while supporting a vibrant forest economy that supports over 140,000 jobs in our state and has a $42 billion impact on Georgia’s economy.” — Andres Villegas, vice president of public affairs and communications for Rayonier
Although Villegas no longer lives in Athens, he stays connected to the university, serving on the UGA Alumni Board and the board of UGA’s Advancing Georgia’s Leaders in Agriculture and Forestry.
“The greatest lesson that I have learned from my lifelong association with the University of Georgia is that it is an institution with the power to change the world for the better,” Villegas says. “That power comes from the people, who make UGA a truly special institution that empowers everyone who is a part of it to do better for their family, church, community, and professional endeavors.”
