As a disabled Vietnam Veteran, Daniel stated, “my greatest honor was having the opportunity to participate with Missing-in-Action work by returning to Vietnam and Laos assisting in recovery efforts of fellow soldiers.”

For over 15 years, Daniel has worked as a Tribal Relations Program Manager on the San Bernardino National Forest in California.  He thinks of himself as an ambassador for the forest representing the federal government working with tribes. Read more »

David Ferrell seems to rebound from setbacks with a vengeance.

During his first semester of college, his mother fell ill and he had to drop out to help take care of her and his four younger siblings. Back home, Ferrell met Charles Minor, a local Virginia man who would become a lifelong influence and who convinced Ferrell to sign up for the Job Corps, his foray into the U.S. Forest Service. Read more »

You might say that Dave Kretschmann has engineered his way into Major League Baseball’s history books. Kretschmann’s work as a research general engineer led him to figure out why so many bats used by Major League Baseball were shattered.

“Since late in the 2008 season, we’ve seen video of every shattered bat in Major League Baseball,” said Kretschmann, who is assigned to the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wis., “We’ve tested hundreds of bats and recorded the who, when, and how of every shattered bat in 2009 and 2010. As a result of the implementation of our recommendations and the work of TECO, an independent certification and testing agency for wood products, there’s been a 50 percent reduction in the rate of multiple piece failures since the 2008 season.” Read more »

Nan Christianson worked in many jobs during her three decades with the U.S. Forest Service.  She considers them all gifts.

“I think that because I’ve been able to work with communities as well as with natural resources, it is fun to go back and see some of the things I have been a part of over the past 30 years that are making a difference in communities and in the mountains today”, said Christianson, Assistant Director for Communications at the Rocky Mountain Research Station, in Fort Collins, Colo. Read more »

Warren Heilman is riveted by numbers, especially those that tell the story of how weather affects wildfires.

Heilman is a U.S. Forest Service meteorologist who conducts studies at the Northern Research Stations’ East Lansing, Mich. office. His work on how weather impacts fire behavior helps firefighters and fire managers better understand how fires spread across the landscape.

His research leads him down seemingly endless lists of questions for which answers are sometimes elusive. Read more »

A few years ago, Iris Estes’ shyness served her well. After all, it didn’t matter to her because she didn’t have to give speeches or talk to groups.

Then Estes landed a job on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Central Arizona as a customer relations specialist. That was the easy part. Her new boss split her duties, adding conservation education coordinator as part of her work. That meant developing and gaining support for the forest’s first formal conservation education program, especially programs for children. Read more »