Meet the Funga Team: Andrew Stewart

Get to know the Funga crew with this newest installment of our "Meet the Team" series. Come back monthly to meet more team members, hear about their journey to Funga, and understand their vital role in our community.

We’re big fans of the “Today I get to….” mentality. So, what do you get to do every day at Funga?

I wake up every day and have the opportunity, and privilege, to build long term relationships and partnerships with landowners and land managers across the Southeastern U.S. This is not extremely different from the past 10+ years of my career, but the exciting vehicle of solutions that Funga brings to landowners, non-industrial private forest owners all the way to institutional forest management companies gives an exciting new lease on forest health and productivity that is unparalleled. The pride of my career has been building these relationships, personally and professionally, that bring solutions on the front end through reforestation, producing real tangible results that you can touch, feel, see and profit from. Every day is exciting, whether building behind the scenes, navigating partners through opportunities or implementing real-time in the field!

If you had to explain what Funga does to a third grader, what would you say?

Having an elementary school teacher for a wife and elementary school-aged kids, it’s been a funny transition going from just the “Tree Man” to the “FunGuy”. My kids had a hard time understanding what I was actually doing now so we made a normal walk through the woods behind the house into a little field trip! We looked and talked about the trees we saw, and then dug a few holes searching for roots and fungi. For me it was easy to equate the relationship we were seeing there to our family, and the importance of each individual and how we rely on each other to be our best. My son got it first when he brought it full circle back to baseball, and how his teams depended on each other to get better, to win and be the best. “So you put this stuff on trees and then plant them so they can be better and beat all the other trees?” “You got it son!”

Tell us a little bit about your life. How did it lead you to Funga?

Like most folks in the forest industry, I grew up farming, running and ripping through the woods. I housed tobacco in barns made of logs from those very farms, watched some timber harvests over the years on family property. We cut timber and had a neighbor mill most of it into lumber that, after drying, we built the still standing hay barns/equipment sheds/etc. I had a buddy whose family owned a local sawmill where I worked from time to time and learned to cruise timber. I began my journey into forestry at Haywood Community College, where my sawmilling buddy went a year ahead of me. I figured a good two year degree in forest management would get me into the field quickly… but graduating amidst the great recession in 2008, there wasn’t a forestry job to be had. I transferred to NCSU and finished a BS in Forest Management, thereafter starting my career with Weyerhaeuser in eastern North Carolina. Not exactly what and where I thought, I wound up as a production specialist in a pine seedling nursery. Since my life was deeply-rooted in farming, I found a passion that crossed my ag background and forestry education. I managed every aspect of growing pine seedling crops and gained a deeper understanding of orchards and genetics, and eventually transitioned out of production into seedling sales. I then moved to South Carolina as the eastern Seedling Sales Manager, I had the opportunity to travel and build not only widespread relationships, but a deeper understanding of genetics and my influence on the future rotations of wood across the Southeastern U.S. with decisions made at stand establishment. I soon left Weyerhaeuser and joined IFCO Seedlings in the same capacity, moved back to North Carolina and several years later met the Funga team at a Forest Productivity Co-op Meeting. The presentation being given (by one of my now colleagues) intrigued me enough to question what we were currently doing and/or had the potential to do. We set up a meeting with Funga which after some time blossomed into a full blown partnership with IFCO Seedlings, which is now a part of PRT. I transitioned full time to Funga in April of 2025, where I now help lead awareness, education and land enrollment into the Funga program.

What is your favorite part of the job?

My favorite part of what I do is the people, and being able to serve landowners of all sizes and backgrounds with a new solution that doesn’t change management strategies, doesn’t handcuff them with stipulations and brings real financial additionality to those in markets that currently are suffering in parts of the Southeastern wood basket. I still get to work with those that I’ve spent my career serving, and at the same time build new relationships with folks I’ve never been able to reach. Serving others through a mission with lasting impacts years down the road is fulfilling.

What is one workflow/productivity tool or trick that you can’t live without?

Do what you say, say what you mean, and mean what you do. Not so much a tool or trick, but it's something I try to align myself and my family with, that I believe transfers to an individual's worth.

What trivia round would you know every answer to?

Name that 70’s, 80’s or early 90’s country music artist…

Can you share a favorite memory of/with the Funga team?

I’ve been here less than a year, and although a lot of fun has occurred during that time, I'd have to say this past year’s inoculation has been some of the best memories. I'm weird, I love the hot summer Southeastern farming/forestry times in the fields or at the nurseries. It ain’t always the most fun in the moment, but with a good crew, it’s a blast. We had a great group this past season with a core “tough it out, grind and get it done” attitude, and it was a ball. From equipment breakdowns when we were just getting started, getting drenched in Louisiana storms, Grillo’s tailgate breaks, long hauls across the states and evening dinner conversations, it will always be some of my favorite first Funga memories.