Everyone's gotta be jealous of my job.
I have the best job in the world.
We try to make sure that the forest is healthy
and to meet the needs of the wildlife.
We're here to protect the
natural resources for the future generations so everybody
can enjoy these natural resources.
The paradigm of the Forest Service has shifted and they're not so much as treating
trees as a crop but treating trees as a resource in the ecosystem and
getting into landscape ecology.
Some of the best people in the world work for the Forest Service.
They're very dedicated to the work that they do.
They're very helpful and mentoring is a large part of what most of the
bosses do.
The Forest Service has
so much to offer.
There's such diversity in so many different fields that are covered.
What a smokejumper does is he's rapidly deployed to a very small fire which is
the most efficient way to catch them.
I'm a firefighter.
I fight fires because I love it.
The Hill Tact is a person who repels from a helicopter and
is a person who takes initial attack on a fire.
A Hot Show Crew is a highly organized twenty person crew
and that's all they do is suppress wildfires.
I think firefighting is one of the most challenging parts of working for the Forest Service.
Basically everyone is expected to participate in some role in fire.
I'm able to be a mother. I'm able to be a wife and I'm also able to do my job and do it well.
I'm an Information Assistant.
I'm a field planner.
I go out and I look at the shrub and I look at the ground vegetation and I come up with plans
or alternatives
to reduce the chance of catastrophic fire.
Urban forestry is the transition between city
and the National Forests. It's that wild urban interface. Major metropolitan areas
generally have urban forestry situations.
One of the
recent projects that I worked on was to decrease the risk of fire
in the urban wildland interface.
I do enjoy being a district ranger.
On any given day as a district ranger, you get a lot of phone calls. You get
permitees coming in, needing you go out to check on the range. You go down
to the barn. You get on a horse and you go out and
check out and see what's going on.
I work in recreation and I like to work with volunteers
and I like to do environmental
education and recreation
allows me work in those two areas.
We need people with backgrounds in business administration,
psychology,
teachers,
vocational instructors.
We need accountants and financial management specialists, just
as much as we need researchers, and wildlife biologists, and soil scientists.
I'm the regional remote sensing assistant. I interpret satellite data and aerial
photography and make maps out of that.
I do love my job.
My job is to buy supplies, services, and construction work
through contracting processes.
I'm the director of
public affairs for the Southwestern region of the Forest Service and in doing
that I get to
help folks with understanding the Forest Service through publications and media and
news outlets.
Supervisory telecommunications specialist.
My job at the Forest Service is
to design, install, maintain the telecommunications system.
The Forest Service employs a lot of different kinds of research scientists.
There's soil scientists. There are entomologists who look at insects,
pathologists who look at
disease.
There's the wildlife biologists.
A lot of work now in water quality and so there's hydrologists as well.
A large part of
becoming a hydrologist is understanding
how water
interacts with the ecosystem.
I'm the forest protection officer. I'm able to educate people.
Landscape architects go out and design recreation areas, campgrounds,
accessible
facilities, visitor recreation centers,
a whole myriad of things.
As a criminal investigator, I conduct
fire investigations, timber theft.
We investigate marijuana gardens on Forest Service land.
The variety, it's endless.
No other job would you have the opportunity
to come out to such beautiful surroundings and be out on a daily basis.
Plus get to work with some of the best people in the world. People that
love their jobs
and love being in the out-of-doors.
The really nice thing about my job is that I get to come out into the woods
in addition to being in the office.
Those of us who work in the offices contibute to the
value of our natural
resources by providing services to the field offices, ranger districts
located all throughout the state.
Buying supplies and
services that they need to do the job out there.
We do work with universities. There's international work that goes on as well.
If you work in the Institute of Tropical Forestry,
you work with people who work with tropical forests all over the world.
They bring new technology, new equipment as necessary. You have all the tools you need.
The co-op program is a program where a
student can work part time for the Forest Service
and can still go to school.
When you work in the woods, you see how
the ecosystem works
and so
when then you're in a lab or you're studying it in school, you can relate to it.
I started an internship for the Forest Service when I started my graduate career.
For me, as a student as my education grows, I hope to
increase my pay opportunities as well.
The opportunity for future advancement is there.
Most of the Forest Service Job Corps Centers
are located on National forest land
that's being managed for multiple use
and one of the uses is the development of human beings
along with natural resources.
The greatest challenge I've come up with is people skills. We're definitely
with the public, talking with the public, informing the public of things we're doing
and getting them to participate in things were doing. That's real important.
Absolutely. I mean to get people to take care of the forest.
You know there's a lot of damage that gets down out here.
So to get out and talk to people and feel that you're really
making some sort of a difference in the way
people interact with the environment.
The population of disabled people in the United States
is growing everyday.
I believe that because I'm in a chair
that I can give something back
by designing accessible sites.
I work with really highly motivated,
skilled individuals that enjoy the job. It's probably the best job I've ever had.
The Forest Service really has been very good with my needs.
When I told them what my needs were, they provided exactly what I needed right away for me.
Basically whatever I need on a regular day-to-day basis to perform my job, the Forest Service provides for me.
For a person with disabilities, I think it's a wonderful place to work
I thought that
the ability to travel to other places in the country
would be absolutely wonderful.
We have urban foresty responsibilities in all areas of
the United States.
I've worked in Idaho.
I've worked in Michigan and now I've moved back home and now I work in New Mexico.
You gain experiences
with different settings and peoples that you always carry with you.
In northern New Mexico, we work with
local communities that are Hispanic or American Indian, and
understanding their culture and their values, and their values are very closely tied to
land,
has really been inspirational to me and my family.
I trained in Missoula, Montana
Southern California on the Cleveland National Forest.
You could work in the Alaska region, the Eastern region. the Southwestern region.
I was attracted to the idea that I get a chance to travel around with the Forest
Service. Being in rural Oregon is different
from being in central Florida. Once I got out here, I kinda just felt at home.
The Southern region includes
places such as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and a lot of the southern
part of the United States.
The opportunity to live in a town that's rural
that's small,
that's in a mountainous setting
and where
the lifestyle for your family is obviously slower pace
and it's enjoyable,
The Forest Service has all those different types of places
that can accommodate different needs for people.
It's excellent pay.
Has medical benefits, dental benefits,
retirement benefits.
The government retirement system is one of the best
systems in the country.
You have maxiflex work schedule
so I can work
and then choose to take
a day off and go back to college which I'm doing right now.
The benefits are comparable to the private sector that I was in.
We also have flexiplace
to where if you have an agreement
with your supervisor,
you can work out of your home
on a laptop. That works really well.
The benefits really make up
you know so much of the job.
This is a really good time for people to consider a career with the Forest Service.
Many people are retiring within the next four or five years. The Forest Service
needs more scientists.
This gives us an opportunity to have new blood into the organization, new skills that we have not had.
Most of my friends that I talk to that are students want to work for the Forest Service
in the summer for summer jobs because they're such good jobs.
I can't imagine another job
in which I would have the
variety of opportunities and the diversity.
I love working outside.
I love working with people who love working outside.
I see that I make a difference everyday.
This had been the best decision of my life.
When I grow up
I want to work for
the Forest Service.