Bradford to replace Castaneda at KNF

Paul Bradford will be leaving Washington, D.C., for the place where his career got its start when he takes over as Kootenai National Forest supervisor to replace Bob Castaneda, who retires May 26.

Bradford is currently the acting budget director for the national forest system and the assistant director for the national ecosystem management coordination staff. He has worked in the Forest Service national office for the past 15 years but also completed temporary assignment as forest supervisor on the Huron-Manistee National Forest in 1999 and 2000 and an assignment as legislative fellow in the office of U.S. Rep. Karan English of Arizona in 1994.

"After working nationally on the forest plan revision and other analysis processes, I'm anxious to get my boots on the ground and to implement our plans," Bradford said.

He started his career as a forestry technician on the Murphy Lake and Rexford ranger districts of the KNF in the late 1970s. Work in intervening years included increasingly more complex assignments in northern California, eastern Oregon, and Alaska.

He will report for his new assignment on June 25.

"I look forward to returning to the beautiful country in northwestern Montana and to working with the employees, communities and organizations involved in forest management," said Bradford.

Bradford was selected for his new job by Northern Regional Forester Gail Kimbell.

"Paul has an outstanding background in forestry, land management planning and in managing a large organization," Kimbell said. "I'm very pleased to have him join our region and feel his skills are a good match for the large and multifaceted Kootenai forest."

Born and raised in Ohio, Bradford and his wife Sherry, a 30-year Forest Service employee, have two grown sons — Jeremy, a computer programmer in Virginia, and Todd, a freshman at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va.

Bradford is an avid golfer and enjoys hiking, hunting, fishing, youth sports and skiing.

His first trip west of the Mississippi River was for his first Forest Service job, and he remembers "coming into Big Sky country and just how amazing the landscape of the Kootenai forest was to a boy from Ohio."

Bradford was named "Top Scholar" and graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in natural resource management from the Ohio State University. He received a master's degree in forest management from Oregon State University.