Shawnee NF Supervisor Receives Rise to the Future Award

National Award presented in ceremony on October 22, 2008.

Shawnee National Forest Supervisor Allen Nicholas was recently honored at the National Rise to the Future Award Ceremony in Washington, D.C. Each year the Rise to the Future program recognizes the outstanding achievements across the nation in the conservation and management of our aquatic resources. This year Nicholas was selected for the Line Officer award for his leadership and support of the Shawnee's Fisheries and Aquatics Program.

Every fisheries biologist dreams of working for a line officer who is committed to building and sustaining a successful fisheries program. On the Shawnee National Forest, that dream is a reality. As the Forest Supervisor, Nicholas has taken a keen interest in the fisheries program. When he arrived on the Forest in 2002, the fisheries program was floundering. From the beginning Nicholas recognized the importance of building a strong fisheries program and has demonstrated his support of the program numerous times.

Under Nicholas's leadership, the Forest has achieved great success and has been recognized numerous times over the past six years. Some highlights include the 2005 Rise to Future Award for Recreational Fisheries Accomplishments, the 2006 Rise to the Future Award for Aquatic Monitoring and, in 2007, the Forest Fish Tales conservation education program was selected as the winner of the 4-H Natural Resources/Environmental Educational Award.

The aquatics program has also been active in mentoring students by hosting two Student Career Employment Program students (Fisheries and Ecology), twenty Student Training Employment Program students and three Hutton Jr. Fish Biologist Scholars. Perhaps the crowning achievement is the number of partnerships that have been forged with local, state and government agencies and with local universities.

These partnerships have enabled the Forest to complete aquatic research projects, stream habitat improvement projects and large lake improvement projects.

Given Nicholas's selfless character he gives credit to those on the Forest who work on-the-ground to make each program successful. However, without the leadership and commitment to the fisheries program these accomplishments would not have been possible. The Forest has achieved great success primarily because our Forest Supervisor expressed a genuine interest in fisheries, valued the goals of the fisheries program, understood the need to protect and enhance aquatic resources and realized the positive benefits (both internally and externally) that a successful fisheries program would bring to the Forest.

Nicholas serves as a shining example of how leadership and support from the line officer position is critical to all fisheries programs nationwide.