Dr. Clatterbuck attended the University of Kentucky and earned a B.S. in Forestry with a minor in soils in 1978. After a summer internship position at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he attended graduate school at Mississippi State University and received a M.S. in Forestry in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Forestry with minors in Soils and Botany in 1985. His research project for his M.S. degree, sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, was the physiology of oak acorn storage and germination for nursery operations. His doctorate degree was in hardwood silviculture investigating the growth and development patterns of cherrybark oak and sweetgum in mixed stands. Prior to his position at the university, Clatterbuck was (1) a forest consultant for a private foundation in Arkansas conducting research on management of mixed oak-pine stands (1985-1986); (2) a research forester, ecologist & wildlife biologist (interdisciplinary) with the USDA Forest Service in Sewanee, TN as the primary investigator in the development, validation, and extrapolation of a forest community classification model for the evaluation of wildlife habitat and forest management (1986-1988); (3) an instructor (temporary position for a professor on sabbatical) at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN teaching an undergraduate course and laboratory in silviculture (1993); and (4) budget director, staff planning forester, and assistant state forester for operations and planning director for the Tennessee Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Forestry (1988-1995).