From the Preface ... 'The conference organizers hoped to accomplish three primary objectives. First was to document how forest vegetation simulation is being incorporated into project-level analysis, watershed analysis, and strategic planning. This provided a forum to learn approaches and methodologies used and as such, presenters were encouraged to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of FVS with respect to those analyses. The second conference objective was to foster the sharing of ideas and analytical techniques by bringing representatives of the FVS user community together in one place. The third objective was to identify future FVS development needs and address opportunities to integrate with other analytical tools currently in use. We feel the conference successfully met its intended objectives.This proceedings presents just a sample of how FVS is currently being used. The U.S. Forest Service and its everwidening circle of FVS collaborators will continue to improve the suite of models and tools that make up the Forest Vegetation simulator. In a few years it will be worthwhile to convene for a second FVS conference so that we may share our experiences, our lessons learned, our triumphs, and our failures.'