Jill McPherson – more like ‘McFearless’

“The only way out is up”: a powerful and simple quote I was able to grab from the undeniably outstanding Jill McPherson. She’s the Forestry Club president at MHCC and this week’s focus among the awesome students here on campus.

Jill is a second-year student at Mount Hood working in the Natural Resources Technology program. Being a transplant from Las Vegas, she only moved to the PNW a couple of years ago. She says she was in a sausage shop in Portland when a “serendipitous man” struck up a conversation about nature and told her all about MHCC’s NRT program.

Now, Jill hopes to graduate with a four-year degree in forestry and in ecology, hoping to get into a career that combines nature and the world we live in today and how people interact with the ecosystems around them – claiming that one of the best things about this Mt. Hood program is the diversity in opportunities that it creates.

She then explained how “Nothing exists in a vacuum; it is all connected.” In this way Natural Resources students can learn about nature as part of a full spectrum and really focus on it for holistic and educational purposes.

What’s more, the Forestry Club at MHCC is the perfect way to dip one’s toes into the ecological world with weekly meetings full of outdoor activities. Jill was the student to revitalize the club after it had been wiped out by COVID. She says her main goals of re-establishing the group is to “create a space for a community to gather and learn,” adding the only reason she is in charge is because she had the dream and the ambition and gumption to pull it off.

Not only is this busy bee a full-time student, running the Forestry Club and hosting weekly events, she is also a part of our new MHCC community garden project that is planned to be started this spring.

If you are interested in the great outdoors or connecting with your community, please contact the amazing Jill Mcpherson to get more involved, at [email protected], or at 702-595-6615. For more on the Natural Resource Technology Program, see: https://www.mhcc.edu/NRT/