Episode 6: My Journey

I joined the Forest Service in 1970 following graduation from the College of Agriculture and Environmental Studies (now the School of Biological Sciences and the Environment), Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I had started as an Agricultural Engineer, switched to department of Horticulture and Forestry, and graduated as a Landscape Architect – a little of everything.  Uncertain, but looking to change my life and get out of the East.

Married, and a little uncertain of a career path, I literally stumbled on to the Forest Service and found out they hired landscape architects.  Perfect.  I found there were trainee positions open in Region 1, I applied, and two weeks later was offered a job.  I am not kidding.

During the summer of 1970 in Missoula, Montana, I attended a presentation of the University of Montana School of Forestry findings on timber management practices on the Bitterroot National Forest (referred to as the Bolle Commission after Dean Bolle). The study was commissioned by US Senator Metcalf.  It was a packed house in the high school auditorium.  The Forest Service was not used to being challenged by a forestry school.  I had no idea the Forest Service had any critics. I also realized why I had been hired – the agency needed to find a way to address the public’s dislike of its timber management and its impact on the landscape.

I was assigned as the first Landscape Architect on the St. Joe and Coeur d’Alene NF, now a part of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest.  This was my first exposure to line officers.  The Forest Supervisor on the Coeur d’Alene invited me to shadow him.  I observed how he interacted with staff officers.  Compliance relied on the agency culture to do what the Forest Supervisor told you to do. Very gruff guy.  But not so in private.  It was clear that he had what was referred to as a traditional “management style.” 

I transferred to the Lewis and Clark National Forest, Belt Creek Ranger District.  A small remote district about 70 miles from Great Falls, Montana. As a “specialist,” I would not be considered unless I had Ranger District experience.   The district personnel included the Ranger, a clerk, a timber/range Assistant Ranger, one Fire Technician, and a summer crew of four forestry students–mostly Vietnam vets.  It did not turn out to be a very long stay. Working at a remote Ranger District was not as great an experience as I had imagined.  After a year, I was offered an instructor position at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.  I jumped at it.  I was bored out of my mind at Belt Creek.  No TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, or friends.  This is not for me.  Or was it?  I can never seem to make up my mind. I was not sure if I wanted to continue at Rutgers or go back in the Forest Service.  I picked the Forest Service.

Alaska 

I was offered a Landscape Architect GS-11 position on the Chugach NF, Anchorage, Alaska.  After nine months in Anchorage, I was detailed to the Regional Office in Juneau. I found myself on a planning team tasked with developing the first Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP).  The new Regional Forester, John Sandor, wanted to resolve the heated conflict between the Forest Service, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, timber interests, and a very determined environmental community.  The conflict, looking back, was a backlash slow in coming.  In 1951, the Forest Service, under pressure from the State Department, had negotiated two huge 50-year timber sale contracts with Japanese government “companies.”  The harvesting was from the shoreline, and mostly old-growth Sitka spruce.   It was a mere four years since the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  The only part of the United States ever invaded and occupied by the Japanese was an island in the Aleutian Chain.  

Actions have unintended consequences.  Looking back, it was a lose-lose.  None of the players, including the Forest Service, would go down without a fight.  Sandor’s solution was to use the negotiation process for the TLMP to address the conflict.  Foresters have always believed in plans that look decades in the future and often a century or more.

We were charged with finding a compromise agreement using the planning process.  We were a skunkworks, and not trusted by the old guard.   Any implication that the Forest Service would not meet its obligations under the 50-year timber sale contracts was not acceptable.  But, to us on the team, and we knew it was the only way forward. We just did not say it out loud. Sandor was rolling the dice.  He knew all the Tongass Forest Supervisors did not trust what we were doing.  After years of meetings, drafts, negotiations, and 350 cases of beer, the TLMP was on the street.   We were all spent.   We had done it.  Or at least could say it with a straight face. 

I had been promoted to a GS-12, and before I left the Alaska Region, I was appointed head of Land Management Planning, a GS-13. The Regional Forester knew my desire to be a Forest Supervisor.   My experience working on this team made me raise my expectations for my career.   Our team leader had been selected because of his reputation as a person of high character and high standing in the community, maybe the only one who had the respect of both the newly established Southeast Alaska Native Corporation and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.  My experience working shoulder to shoulder with this most creative (and at times irreverent) group of Forest Service employees altered my perception of a career in the Civil Service.

When TLMP was “over,” all of us moved on with our lives and careers.  We faced a challenge we thought we could overcome, but never did.  We made headway, but they are still fighting over the use of the Tongass National Forest. 

Planning, oh Planning

A few comments are needed about land use planning in the US Forest Service.  It involves the agency’ belief in the importance of rational plans. Here are a few facts. The 60’s had an awakening of the need to protect the environment.  The 70’s had intense conflicts.  To address the problem, Congress passed the Resources Planning Act in 1974.1  The Forest Service had a big hand in writing the bill (as always). The concept rested on the assumption the agency could, based on facts of course, set a long-range target – termed outputs -and break that down to medium range targets – for example timber harvest 10 years in the future.   Then the Forest Service lost a suit on the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. Clearcutting was ruled a violation of one of the Forest Service’s founding laws, the Organic Act of 1897.  This triggered a crisis, given that the Forest Service relied heavily on even-age management and believed it was supported by scientific research.  In some instances, it was, but the public did not care about science.  Public opinion thought clearcuts are not good forestry. The fallout from that decision resulted in an amendment to RPA – the National Forest Policy Act of 1976 (NFMA).  The bill created an oversight mechanism called the Committee of Scientists.  This committee, which numbered more than a dozen highly respected scientists from across the nation, met quarterly to oversee the process.  The Forest Service established a national Land Management Planning team to guide its implementation.  Each of the nine Regions had a “representative” who served as the liaison with each Region.  I was appointed the Alaska Region’s representative.

The Chief’s office wanted a common shared process so each national forest plan could be compared, and the total of the outputs could be added up to achieve the RPA’s projected targets.  Planning has its own lingo, such as aggregation, dis-aggregation, targets, inputs and outputs.  The national team decided to use a new approach pioneered by the military called operations research.  The language makes no sense to the average citizen. Colorado State University was tasked with developing a computer-based mathematical program to implement the process on each National Forest.  You can set the objective function (another one of those terms), determine the relationships between inputs and outputs subject to certain underlying (and largely invisible) assumptions, identify the full range of alternatives, and gloriously select the one that produced the greatest net public benefit.  The mechanism was a linear program that was assumed to mimic real world interactions.  

My participation with the national interdisciplinary team and staff, introduced me to a group of very smart people.  Behind the scenes, there were some real bomb throwers igniting difficult conversations that challenged approaches to the current Forest management ideologies. They disguised their (at the time, adverse) tactics well. I admired them regardless of whether I agreed with them because I felt they were brave for sharing their personal insights that bucked the norm. However, in hindsight, and on the other side, the underlying assumptions of the lead team seemed naïve. The team leaders periodically served trays of Kool-Aid to keep everyone on board.  I never drank mine. I couldn’t find a way to conform to their assumptions, but at the same time, I didn’t want to start over. At the end of the day, my opinion was an amalgam of both sides’ views represented in that team- an amalgam of conventional and unconventional forest management procedure: I wanted to have Alaska follow the process, but NOT start over.   This experience gave me the understanding that Forest Plans are a social contract, not only between the interest groups and the agency, but also between interests. (How in the heck do you program that? Through a lot of time and negotiation.) This experience with RPA/NFMA proved valuable to me in my assignments on the White Mountain National Forest and the Flathead National Forest.

After my service as the Alaska Region’s rep, I got antsy to move on. The Regional Forester was a graduate of the mid-career program at Harvard.  He suggested I think about it to have a better chance of becoming a Forest Supervisor.  I took his advice, applied, and went.  I wanted to be a line officer, not a staff specialist.  I was in the first class of the newly expanded Kennedy School of Government.  Upon graduation in 1980, I was offered the job as Deputy Forest Supervisor on the White Mountain National Forest.

  1.  In researching for this paper, I looked up the current RPA document on the web site.  No doubt a lot of learning has happened.  The new Plan is much more user friendly, is written for the public, not other planners, and it looks good! ↩︎