Aldo Leopold seated on rimrock above the Rio Gavilan in northern Mexico while on a bow hunting trip in 1938. (Photo courtesy Aldo Leopold Foundation)

Over his 40-year career as a forester, scientist, teacher, and writer, Aldo Leopold brought a greater understanding of our relationship with the natural world at a time when the technological advances of the 20^th century increasingly shut people off from their surroundings. Read more »

Christina Harper engages in a pine stand inventory on the Bienville Ranger District which is home to scarce communities of red-cockaded woodpeckers (Monday, July 30, 2012). Her data is used to develop the necessary forest prescriptions to treat stand structures to meet the forest’s land management objectives including activities such as timber sales or herbicide treatments.

Christina Harper, a new forester on the Bienville National Forest in Mississippi, has travelled a busy road from a special student training program to a full-time U.S. Forest Service employee.

Harper graduated from the Student Career Experience Program, which provides work experience directly related to students’ academic programs or career goals. The program exposes students to public service while enhancing their educational goals. Read more »

Bequi Livingston, Smokey Bear Hotshot Crew, U.S. Forest Service

When she was in high school, Bequi Livingston read a book about firefighting and was quickly intrigued. Little did she know that she would one day become one of the U.S. Forest Service’s pioneer women in wildland firefighting and fight fires for nearly 20 years.

After graduating from college, an article in her local newspaper caught her eye. The article was about the Young Adult Conservation Corps encouraging people to apply for its fire crew on the Smokey Ranger District. Livingston was accepted, but when she excitedly reported to work on her first day on the Lincoln National Forest, her office manager was surprised to meet a woman. Read more »

Originally, the young Lincoln Bramwell wanted to be a garbage man, what we call a sanitation engineer today.

Lincoln Bramwell of the U.S. Forest Service.

“They swing on the back of trucks, find cool stuff occasionally.  I thought that was the coolest job ever,” he said. Bramwell explained that it changed later once “I had to take the trash out as a kid.” Read more »

Alex Asai, civil engineer on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Vancouver, Wash. spent five months in 2011 hiking the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail. Here Asai is on the Willamette National Forest in Eugene, Ore. (U.S. Forest Service photo)

Not many people can say that they took six months off from work to hike from one country to another. U.S. Forest Service civil engineer Alex Asai did. Read more »

Mark Twery, a supervisory research forester on the Northern Research Station

How does a former dancer and theater technician end up in a career in forestry? Meet Mark Twery, a supervisory research forester on the Northern Research Station in Burlington, Vt., who is not only all of the above, but loves his unique job that incorporates forestry with dance. Read more »