I grew up in Southwestern Michigan on a 60+ acre farm that had a small commercial asparagus operation and for a few years a 60 head pig business; typically 2-3 Holstein steers were raised annually for meat.  I earned spending money working for neighboring farms baling hay and picking grapes/raspberries.  In 1977 I graduated from Michigan Technological University with a Bachelor of Science degree in forestry.  In 2011 I retired from the U.S. Forest Service after working over 30 years as a small sales/salvage sales forester, a presale forester/logging systems specialist as well as various positions within the Fire and Aviation Management division ending my career doing resource protection work.  When working on the Fremont National Forest I gained experience with large scale beef cattle operations.  In October 2015 I joined the Pend Oreille Conservation District’s Board of Supervisors, and in June of 2019 joined the Washington Association of Conservation Districts as an Area Director; currently I serve as the Association’s President and sit on the board of the Washington State Conservation Commission.  My interests are small farm operations (including farmer’s markets), small woodlot management, wildfire prevention/protection especially in the wildland urban interface and wildfire smoke intrusion into populated areas.