Forest Plan Revision Team

I’m the team leader for the Plan Revision team, and I have the pleasure of supervising the awesome core team members. I come to the planning team with 23 years of experience in vegetation management and planning. I was the Vegetation Specialist for the Helena-Lewis and Clark Revision team from start to finish (2013-2021), and found that I truly enjoy large scale land management planning. Prior to that, I was the Forest Silviculturist in Helena for 9 years, and also enjoyed 6 great years on the Bitterroot during and after my college tenure in Missoula. I currently reside in Helena, MT. I’m thrilled to be focused on the Lolo National Forest and to help move us through the planning process!

I'm the newest member of the Revision Team, joining the Forest Service in 2022 as a Presidential Management Fellow. Prior to the Forest Service, I worked at Montana Shakespeare in the Parks brought free theater to rural and tribal communities across 5 states. It’s my joy to continue my work in public service alongside our revision specialists, Lolo staff, and the community of folks that care about their public lands. In my spare time, the only thing that makes me happier than an armful of books from the local library is getting out for a hike with my husband and corgi, Bunsen.

I started my Forest Service career on the Lolo National Forest as a member of a timber crew in 1978. Soon after that, I completed an undergraduate degree in forestry at the University of Montana in 1981 and moved to Whitefish, MT and worked on a number vegetation inventory and mapping projects throughout western Montana over the next 10 years, including several on the Lolo National Forest. I returned to school in 1992, completing a master’s degree in fire ecology at the University of Idaho in 1998. I spent the next 20 years at the Missoula Fire Lab working on fire and fuel mapping projects across the United States. Late in 2017, I moved to the Ecosystem Planning Group of the Forest Service Northern Region to work on the Mid Swan large landscape project. I currently live in Missoula.

I currently call Hamilton, Montana home. I came to Region 1 in 2018 from the planning shop on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest to provide GIS support for the Mid-Swan Landscape Restoration and Wildland Urban Interface Project. I’ve worked for the Forest Service for over 20 years. I started on the Cache National Forest recreation maintenance crew. I explored other resource options such as trail maintenance crew, range crew, timber crew, and wildland fire crew. I still consider myself new to Region 1, and I'm very excited for this opportunity. I look forward to working with the Lolo National Forest staff and the Plan Revision team.

In 2016 I moved to Bozeman, Montana to work as the forest ecologist for the Custer Gallatin National Forest Plan Revision Team. Before that, I worked as an Ecologist in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon and on the Colville National Forest in eastern Washington. My main focus during the Lolo Revision effort will be forest and landscape ecology with particular emphasis on describing and quantifying ecological integrity and desired ecological conditions. I also cover timber management and silviculture topics.

I am a biologist, and along with Craig and Wade I am here to help provide expertise in fish and wildlife management. I began my USFS career in 2019 as the wildlife biologist for the Western Montana NEPA Strike Team. Prior to joining the USFS, I worked as an ecologist with the USGS Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Nebraska for ten years. I was born and raised in Montana and currently live in Missoula.

I am an aquatic ecologist, working from North Idaho. I cover topics related to aquatic and riparian ecosystems, hydrology, and fisheries biology. Educated at Oregon State University, the first 20 years of my career I worked for the Forest Service as a wildland firefighter, fishery biologist, and Endangered Species Act aquatic consultation coordinator for the Wallowa-Whitman and Willamette National Forests. The next 10 years, I worked as District Ranger on the Coeur d’Alene National Forest in northern Idaho, and then in the Regional Office doing large landscape restoration planning in Montana (Swan River subbasin), before joining the Lolo plan revision team in 2022. I spend my free time exploring our National Forests, camping, hiking, biking, kayaking, and motorcycling.

I have been serving the Region as an Economist and Budget Coordinator out of the Regional Office in Missoula since the beginning of 2016. Earlier in my career I worked in the private sector managing Latin America operations for a nature-based tour operator, and more recently I was a Research Economist at the University of Montana. While at the University, I researched the forest industry throughout the Western United States as a USFS cooperator. As an extended member of the revision team, I work alongside our Regional Social Scientist as we help the Forest address socioeconomics in the plan revision process.

Over the past 15 years, I have worked with several federal agencies and organizations. Over the course of my career I engaged in social science related to sage-grouse, sagebrush, grizzly bears, land management planning, equity and justice, oil and gas development, wildfire, resilience, capacity building, natural resource governance, agency investments, adaptive capacity, and wicked problems. As an extended member of the revision team, I work most closely with our Regional Economist to support the Lolo National Forest plan revision process, especially as it relates to socioeconomics.

I’ve been in this position for 11 years. Previously, I spent 8 years as the Forest Analyst on the Hiawatha National Forest in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. During that time, I also served as the analyst for the 2008 Tongass Plan Amendment. I have a degree from the University of Minnesota in Forest Management, and my project was to develop planning models for the Superior and Chippewa National Forest Plan Revision. My current project is working with a forest management model PRISM, initially developed for the Custer-Gallatin plan revision. I’m happy to be working on the Lolo Plan Revision, as I’m always interested in learning new ecosystems and social situations.