Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell Addresses NCSAF at July Luncheon

 Date: July 9, 2009
Time: 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM

Location: USDA Cafeteria (back of the room area)
1400 Independence Ave SW (Smithsonian Metro station, see below) Washington, DC

Format: Lunch is available at the cafeteria and a space is reserved for the SAF.

Please welcome Gail back to NCSAF; as current chief of the United States Forest Service, we know she will have a lot to say of interest to members and guests. As an active SAF member, she’s a strong supporter of professional forestry and science-based resource management that meets ecological as well as community needs.

Abigail Kimbell was raised New England, where she spent her formative years hiking, fishing, and camping on the White Mountain National Forest. She received a bachelor's degree in forest management from the University of Vermont in 1974 and later received a master's degree in forest engineering from Oregon State University.

Gail worked as a seasonal employee before beginning her federal forestry career in 1974 with the Bureau of Land Management in Medford, Oregon. She then joined the Forest Service as a pre-sale forester in Kodiak, Alaska in 1977. She next worked in Oregon as a logging engineer and then a district planner. She served as district ranger in Kettle Falls, Washington on the Colville National Forest from 1985-88, and on the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest in La Grande, Oregon, from 1988-91, and as forest supervisor of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, 1992-97, and the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming from 1997-99.

From 1999-2002, Gail was forest supervisor for the Pike and San Isabel National Forests and the Comanche National Grassland, all in Colorado, as well as the Cimarron National Grassland in Kansas. In May of 2002, Ms. Kimbell began work as the associate deputy chief for the National Forest System lands in the Forest Service's Washington, D.C. Headquarters. During her tenure as associate deputy chief, Gail's leadership was instrumental in helping to carry out the Healthy Forests Initiative where she provided support in the development of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.

In December 2003, Kimbell was named as the regional forester for the Northern Region located in Missoula, Montana. She assumed her current position as chief of the United States Forest Service on February 5, 2007.

Hints on how to enter the USDA Cafeteria: The general public entrance to the South Agriculture Building is on C Street, SW, Wing 2, one block south of the Smithsonian Metro Station Independence Avenue exit on 12 th St SW and then about 30 yards to the west. A picture ID and security check, magnetometer and X-ray bag check, is required. Federal employees with a government ID badge can enter at the Independence Avenue door adjacent Independence Ave Metro exit; at top of escalator, walk toward Capitol and up the steps to the entrance at the corner of building.