About Barbara (Bee) Wheatland
Bee Wheatland was born in Topsfield, MA. She attended Radcliffe College at Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude in economics in 1951. After college, Bee pursued a 50-year career that began as an assistant in the engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and culminated at the New England Journal of Medicine where she helped select and edit articles about discoveries and advancements in the medical field. Although Bee spent much of her life in Massachusetts, her heart was always in Maine where she built a home in Sargentville with a view of the water. She raced sailboats, hiked the trails of Mt. Desert Island, and was an organic gardener before the concept existed.
Bee was keenly interested in anything connected with the Maine woods. As a member of the Pingree family she developed an early passion and dedication to the sustainable management of her family’s working forests. She became involved with forestry ventures that included a state-of-the-art sawmill, maple syrup production, and the development of “green” certified forestry practices in the Maine forest. She advanced these efforts through her participation in the Maine TREE Foundation and the Maine Tree Farm program. Bee believed that all small woodland owners in Maine should have access to well-trained, licensed, professional foresters like those produced by UMaine’s forestry program.
the Wheatland Lab
Upon Bee’s death at the age of 80, her estate established the Maine Timberlands Charitable Trust (MTCT) to provide funds for charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes. Bee’s hope was that the Trust be used to promote the development of forestry or timberland technology, that the results be available to the public, and that the activities support the working forests of Maine. Bee felt that it was vital for the people of Maine to forever enjoy the aesthetic, environmental, and economic values of the forest.
The MTCT generously funded the development of the Barbara Wheatland Geospatial Analysis Laboratory in January 2012. In addition to her desire that all Maine woodland owners have access to the best forestry professionals, Bee was fascinated by computer technology in her later life. Therefore, the Wheatland Lab nicely combines two of Bee’s passions. Thanks to Bee’s generosity, generations of UMaine’s forest resources students will go on to advance the sustainable management of forestland in Maine and around the world.
