Looking Back: Career Advice

My first job with the Forest Service was after my freshman year of college in 1974 as a GS3 seasonal “Forestry Aid” on the Ozark St Francis National Forest in Arkansas. It was a rich summer full of diverse culture and opportunity. I enjoyed the bluegrass music, fried pies and gathering sasafrass roots for tea.

Upon arriving on the Buffalo District the clerk asked me “are you sure you want to work with those men? Can you type?" My aim was to be in the woods, and that I did as I spent the summer on the timber stand improvement crew, cruising timber and cleaning campgrounds. By the end of the summer I decided I would pursue wildlife and botany. The district storeroom was loaded with publications, and anxious to launch my career plans I looked for advice. This is what I found:

• Should you Be a Forester? Does this profession have room for women? A few, perhaps in the research laboratories. In the main it is a man’s job. Over the past few years, many girls have enrolled in the University of Washington College of Forestry. Only two ever succeeded in graduating. Neither is still practicing forestry. They did the next best thing. They married foresters. (Fredrick Weyerhauser, New York Life Insurance Company, 1960)

• Women in Forestry Some women have attained a technical background in forestry research, educational or library work. Others interested in conservation and related fields have been trained in fiscal or administrative management work. Thus, should a woman seek a career in forestry, her aims might be best channeled toward specialized research, education or administrative fields rather then the actual technology or applied forestry. (USDA Miscellaneous Publication 244, 1967)

This was so inside-out that I kept the brochures in my desk drawer through out my career as a personal challenge and to remind me how far we have come.