Retired U.S. Forest Service employee. The first four years of my career were in fire management and the remainder in recreation and lands. The best years of my career were those on my last job, where the recreation was very heavy and the management challenges were very unique. This in a year round destination resort area. This resulted in a year round field season. It was also the best national forest I worked on in my multi state/multi region experience with the agency. The people I worked with and for were outstanding and made a great team.

As the years passed I was able to increase my ICS qualifications and was assigned to some really interesting incidents, not all of them fires. I am an ICS nerd and worked in mostly operations and planning, but with some experience in logistics and the command staff in public information. What made a difference in my incident response career was working with some outstanding FMO’s, who took an interest in allowing me to work toward my potential and interests in emergency management, including two epic ranger district FMO’s and two great forest FMO’s, not to mention some great battalion chiefs, crew bosses, engine captains, some wonderful FPT’s and most of the people in the fire organization.