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>>SUE: I was first hired in wildland fire in 1975 by the US Forest Service on the Klamath
National Forest, Happy Camp Ranger District.
I was hired as a brush disposal crewmember: a 20 person crew that did a combination of
basically hazard fuel reduction, thinning, all that sort of stuff. But also was trained
as a 20 person wildland firefighting crew.
Well, first of all my education: I have a degree in Botany. And as part of that I developed
an interest in college in fire ecology and had several classes from people at Humboldt
State University who specialized in that. Doctor Becking, who did quite a bit of writing
on Redwood fire ecology, John Sawyer, who’s also been very interested in it over the years.
So that's one thing, my education. The second thing was that immediately in my career I
was able to transition from hand crew and brush disposal to being on a hotshot crew
in 1976 and 1977 and was one of the first women that did that job. From there I worked
in helitack and on engines. And so I got a very wide range of experience very early.
Also, I had some excellent mentors early in my career who took advantage of the fact that
I had this degree in botany and interest in fire ecology. And so even from the very beginning
in the second and third year I was involved in training and also in writing papers about
fire effects and fire ecology on the forests where I worked.
Listen, ask a lot of questions, take advantage of every opportunity you're given, spend a
lot of time with people in a similar position: asking them questions and listening to their
responses about what factored into their success in those jobs.
Well [laughter], I've received a lot of funny career advice. I think the first career advice
I got was the first year I worked for the Forest Service on the BD crew, I was advised
that I was not suited for government work and I should probably find another type of
job. It was an interesting year and I worked with a lot of people who were really not used
to working with women in the supervisory role. So, actually I had an excellent District Ranger,
*** Henry, who I later worked for when he was Fire Director in the regional office in
the Forest Service. Then Jose Cruz, who you may also recognize as being a leader in fire.
He was the Director of Fire for the Forest Service, Fire and Aviation, a number of years
ago. But both of them actually had a different opinion of my potential and so I stayed. So
that's one thing. Another good example was when I was still a seasonal employee and subject
to furlough employee, I had advice from some of my peers who were in graduate school that
advised me that I should really probably spend less time skiing and traveling in Central
America in the winter and get serious about getting a career. And then I think the best
advice that I got, I really was --well there's been a number of things. My father went with
me when I first went to the Redding Hotshot crew later in my career and said, after the
orientation from the superintendent, said "are you really sure you want to do this Sue?"
And of course he really had always encouraged me, but he saw some possible interesting experiences
for me there and I certainly had them. But I think some of the best advice I got was
from people about moving from the Forest Service to the Park Service. And I got very intensive
training--I enjoyed my work in the Forest Service, I really loved it--but I think I
was well suited to a career that blended resources management and fire management. And so in
the Park Service I really found my niche as far as interest in adaptive management and
also in using science to inform fire management planning and decisions.
Well, first of all I would recommend it because it's very interesting. There's a lot of challenges,
new things are thrown at you all the time. So for someone that likes, likes the sort
of thing where you're never bored, because there's always something new, wildland fire
offers those kinds of challenges. Also, the dynamic nature of fire and its interaction
with resources, as well as the opportunity to get to know people. The people in wildland
fire are really special people. They're interesting, they have a lot of integrity and usually are
very intelligent in a technical and academic way. So, it just makes a great career with
a lot of variety.
I would recommend that they do try to get a college education, get a degree, because
it's fairly important to advancing in management, but try very hard to combine that with a broad
base of technical experience. Different kinds of fire management options and spend quite
a bit of time in the field before moving into more of a central office or supervisory job.
So, the best lessons I ever learned were from watching fire as a member of the various crews
I worked on. You get a lot of opportunities to watch fire burn and learn what it does
in different environments. In particular I think interagency crews where you move around
the country a lot. Such as, it doesn't necessarily have to be a hotshot crew, a wildland fire
crew, they also do a lot of traveling, where you get to see fire in all its variety and
experience that. But, the technical side, getting involved with aviation, also with
engines, so that you have some direct experience with all these things and in different places
and different agencies. I also really strongly recommend moving around between agencies as
much as possible, because that really helps at the later stages in your career when you
have to relate to and work primarily with people from other agencies and bureaus, also
state and local government. Because that really is our job at the mid to upper levels, and
even below that at the park level or the forest level in the agencies.