KNF Supervisor Bradford's last day on job is Monday

Editor’s note: Kootenai National Forest Supervisor Paul Bradford, 58, will end his career with the U.S. Forest Service on Monday. Bradford fielded questions as he looks toward retirement and the last time he goes into work on Monday. This is the first half of that interview.

Tell us about your start in the U.S. Forest Service?

I grew up in Southern Ohio and had the opportunity to attend Ohio State University, and I was in the process of finishing up my undergraduate degree in forest-resource management. It was one summer that I was made aware of the opportunity to work for the Forest Service. Basically, I applied in the winter and then got an offer to come to the Kootenai National Forest in June 1976. I was working up in Eureka, and we were doing stand exams up in the country close to Ziegler Mountain. So, we were actually driving down from Eureka. The dam was just being completed at that time so we were driving across the Koocanusa Bridge. It was a brand-new bridge and everything was really fresh and new with the Koocanusa Reservoir. The reservoir had not even filled up. I doubt it was even half-full. So, every day we were driving down to Bristow Creek and hiking back in for several hours each day to do stand exams. We spent a lot of time hiking, and because there weren’t many roads in that area, we were having to hike long distances just to get to where we were doing stand exams. We were working in lodge-pole pines, mostly. Some of that lodge-pole pine had substantial bug activity. One of the primary concerns at that point in time was to try and get better data on these stands that were in difficultly because of the bug epidemic at that time. So, I worked a summer and went back to Ohio State and finished up my senior year and graduated in 1977.

How does a young man from Ohio get interested in forestry?

I come from farming stock in southern Ohio. Southern Ohio is hilly, glaciated country, where the glaciers ran out. It is heavily treed and forested. We lived on acreage and had a chunk of ground that I spent most of my time knocking around. The neighbors across the road had a big farm, and I was over there all of the time. My idea was that I wanted to do something where I was working outside. I always enjoyed being outside.

So, the early job in the KNF was enough to make you want to come back?

I was fortunate enough to be brought back to the Kootenai again, and this time I worked at the Murphy Lake Ranger station in the Fortine Ranger District. Worked in watershed rehabilitation and was up in the Ten Lakes area most of that summer. Saw all the effects of spruce spud worms in the ’50s. A lot of that country, if you haven’t been up in the Ten Lakes area you should. It is a great piece of country. At that point in time, the timber cuts were fairly recent so you could look out over most of the valleys where most of the spruce spud worm epidemics had occurred. The trees had been harvested in the ’50s and ’60s and now when you go up in that country the trees are 40 to 50 years old and very dense and provides great lynx habitat. It is very thick and difficult to see out of. You used to be able to see across broad valleys before. Worked until December that year and was laid off. Came back in ’78 and was starting to work for the Kootenai again in a seasonal and temporary capacity. Ultimately, I picked up on permanent forester appointment in Lassen Forest in Susanville, Calif., in northeastern California, it is great country. Worked there for close to eight years. Met my wife in the process at a training session.

What is your wife’s name and do you plan on retiring here?

Sherry Turner. She kept her last name. Rather than confuse the IRS, she just kept her maiden name. She retired this past May. Yes. We are both here. She has been busily remodeling the house for the last four months.

Tell us more about your family. Both of your sons are out of the house?

They are both back in the Virginia area. One works in computers and the other works for FedEx. (They are) Jeremy and Todd. Todd has married a woman from Mexico, Claudia. So, we have a daughter-in-law, too.

Is Sherry in the Forest Service as well?

She had a full career close to 40 years in the Forest Service. We met at a training session that was a week long on supervision, and I like to make a joke that it’s the only thing I got out of the course. We spent all of our years together working for the Forest Service. Raising the kids. Went a lot of different places but our time together started at Susanville, Calif., where she was working for the BLM. She was working for the Forest Service when I met her, but she came to Susanville to work for the BLM unit there. We spent some time in Corvallis, Ore., where I was able to get a masters degree in forest-resource management. The things that I did were typical ranger district-related things like vegetation-management projects, recreation management projects. Had a great time working at the ranger district level. When I went to school it was a forest-planning type masters program at Oregon State. And, when I came out in the ’80s I started getting involved in forest-planning efforts.

So, when did you get to Washington, D.C.?

In 1991, we went to Washington, D.C., and that is were my story takes an unexpected twist, because I didn’t see ever going to Washington, D.C., when I started out on the Kootenai in 1976. I was more than happy to go to the woods every day. Used to see every day as a day of recreation in the woods and fortunate enough to get paid to work (there). What I found is that the further up that you progress in terms of career grades, the further you get from the actual field activities for what I wanted to do when I started with the Forest Service. So, I worked 15 years in the Washington office. I was fortunate enough to be offered the Kootenai job in 2006, and I have been happy. It was a neat thing to be able to come back here.

Working in D.C., what was it like,  and did you envision it as an opportunity establish and form USFS policy?

When we went to Washington, D.C., our original plan was to work there for a about three to four years and get back to the field units somehow. Sherry and I have dual careers and moved throughout. And that has always been one of the considerations. If a location was going to work for one person then it was going to have to work for the second. It was a partnership thing we have done throughout. So, it was easy to move to Alaska because, frankly, Alaska is a very difficult recruiting location for the Forest Service. You typically don’t have a lot of folks who are applying for Alaska positions, comparatively speaking to the lower 48 positions. When we looked at going to Washington,   D.C., it is kind of the same environment where it is high-cost place to live and the pressure to live in the city is not something you typically see in Forest Service folks. When we went to D.C., we were thinking it would be for a period of time when the kids were small and then we would get out at a certain point when it was good for the kids at a school standpoint and get back to the woods. The schools in the Fairfax County area of Virginia were very good,  and the career opportunities were very good for Sherry,  and there were career opportunities for me. As the years clicked off we both had work that was very important and meaningful to do. We were highly engaged in. The kids proceeded to get older and pretty soon we were looking at someone in high school. Our older son, and he was able to go to a science and technology high school there and was able to get a secondary education that set him up very well to go to Virginia Tech, which is a great school. We wound up with great things to do at work and it seemed to be working for the kids. The only problem was that I was going to work every day with a suit and tie on as opposed to my boots and going to the woods, but somebody has got to do it. There were a whole spectrum of things that I did while I was in Washington, D.C. I worked on the Forest Service budget, worked with appropriators. I was able to take a detail and work with a congresswoman from Arizona. I was able to work on information systems that the agency was developing for resource data. (It was) just a full spectrum of things to do. I always felt like I was doing meaningful work, where I could make a difference with what I was charged with doing. I think Sherry felt the same way.

During the logging boom days some loggers would have two or three bulldozers, great resources. Now that they are gone. They were some of the first volunteers to help the Forest Service fight a fire. How big of a loss is that?

Our ability to sign up that kind of equipment that is in the private sector typically is with our procurement folks here on site. They would have the relationships to get that equipment quickly, yarded up. It is not that we won’t do it when we have an emergency, it is just that we have to get those folks from Coeur d’Alene or some other place to basically come and support the operations, and we would do that. In my view it would be better if those people were locally based and within the community. Particularly, if we have a large work load to do. So, you talked about things that I saw in D.C. I saw several chiefs come and go with the job of the chief of the Forest Service as it becomes more demanding. Just like many of the jobs in the Forest Service. Within the agency we typically tried to stay focused on what is the right thing for the natural resources that we are charged with managing. I think that is where, when you look across the spectrum of folks at the national leadership level, that is what we have had. Folks very committed to doing the right thing to mange the resources of the national Forest Service.

(The second-half of Paul Bradford’s interview will be in Tuesday’s edition.)