About

For a grade school writing assignment, Chris Long described the scene of a funeral I recently attended. After that, he knew writing would be a part of his life. But life gives us many roads to choose from, and he didn’t pick the right one. He was lost.

Running from the faith at a young age, Chris embraced self and rebellion, a state that would define his high school, college, and young adult years. 

After attending three universities, he graduated with a business degree from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, or SIUC. He embraced a vagrant lifestyle, traveled the United States, and was sporadically homeless. As Chris pursued unabandoned freedom, addiction and depression tied him in chains.

After a stent in Ft Worth, Texas as a camp counselor (where he met the woman he would marry 5 years later), a canoe trip down the Mississippi River with his brother, Mike, and taking up residence in South Dakota, New Mexico, and Oregon, Chris moved back to Illinois where he took his first corporate job at MH Equipment Company. 

Three years later, he’d marry the girl he fell in love with in Texas, Caroll, and a year after that they would move back to Carbondale to join Mike in his tree care business, Lumberjack Tree Care, and start a forestry consulting company, called Long Forestry Consultation.

Two years after that, a serious accident would change Chris’s life. Climbing a tree with ropes and a harness, a tree branch broke. Chris fell nearly thirty feet to the ground, dislocating his right ankle, while suffering a compound dislocation of his left ankle.

Lying in bed for the next three months, Chris had some serious conversations with God. This led him to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Amen.

Long Forestry existed for twenty years, grew to two branches, and spawned a sister company, the Vegetation Management Company, or VMC. VMC was sold, Long Forestry was closed, and Chris Long is writing full time.