MOULTRIE, Ga. – International Forest  Company’s (IFCO) owner and CEO Patrick Mobley announced recently the retirement of Wayne Bell as chief operating officer effective Dec. 31, 2017.

Bell has worked in the seedling business for more than 45 years and had a vital role in taking IFCO from a small seed sales and processing company to one of the largest seedling and genetics companies in the world. He will serve as an adviser to IFCO in 2018.

Effective Jan. 1, Douglas J. (Doug) Sharp, IFCO’s business development manager, will replace Bell as COO to further IFCO’s growing forest regeneration business.

Sharp and his wife Ruth live in Norman Park. He came to IFCO with more than 34 years of experience within the nursery and orchard industry where he spent the last 21 years with Plum Creek leading their Forest Regeneration Group. Sharp was responsible for Plum Creek’s five forest nurseries in the Southeast U.S. and Oregon, three large seed orchard complexes, and all of the company’s reforestation efforts in the U.S. Prior to his tenure at Plum Creek, Doug managed forest nursery and orchard operations for Georgia-Pacific, Jefferson Smurfit, and International Paper.

Chris Johnston, who joined IFCO in 2012 in sales and in 2014 was promoted to sales manager, is now being promoted to vice president of sales and marketing effective Jan. 1.

Prior to Johnston joining IFCO, he was involved in hardwood and pine procurement in Southwest Georgia for over 20 years. He and his Genetic Investment Advisory team are responsible for all of the sales of IFCO seedlings across the Southeastern U.S. Johnston has extensive knowledge of sales management, procurement and operational forestry across the South.

International Forest Company has an aggressive growth history and is the fastest growing forest regeneration company in the United States. It is the largest grower of container seedlings in the Southeastern U.S. and the second largest grower of bareroot seedlings in the U.S. with nursery capacity of 250 million seedlings annually.

A privately owned company headquartered in Moultrie, IFCO produces many forest species including loblolly, longleaf, slash, and shortleaf, as well as wiregrass seedlings.

IFCO’s container nurseries are located in Moultrie, Ga., DeRidder, La., LaBelle, Fla., and Washington, N.C. IFCO also operates four bareroot forest nurseries located in Jesup, Ga., Washington, N.C., Camden, La., and Shubuta, Miss. IFCO has numerous seed orchard complexes in several states in the Southeastern U.S.