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A Day In the Life
of A Forester
A Sampling of Real Michigan Foresters and the Wide Diversity
of Career Paths
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My Unit covers about 300,000 acres in the northeastern Lower Peninsula. As a Unit Manager, every day is different. My tasks include supervising field foresters as they prepare timber sales, examine the forest, and write prescriptions. I oversee a fire and recreation staff in three offices; write event permits, road construction permits, and special use permits. I oversee oil and gas well site permitting; evaluating land exchanges; and working with other DNR divisions to make sure that all of that meets forest certification and is soundly sustainable. I graduated from MSU with a Bachelors Degree in Forestry in 1980. I spent the next five years raising children, working seasonally for the US Forest Service in Mio, and contracting to do compartment exam for the USFS. In 1985, I became the first "mom" hired as a forester by the DNR. I started as a forest technician, moved to forester, and then spent eight years as the statewide forest inventory specialist for the DNR. In the fall of 2005 I returned to the field in my present position. |
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This website is maintained
by Bill Cook, Michigan State University Extension
Forester in the Upper Peninsula. Comments, questions,
and suggestions are gratefully accepted.
Last update of this page
was
19 June, 2006