The Guild welcomes Jeremy Marshall to Southwest Staff
Written by Jeremy Marshall
Although having grown up in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, I was fortunate to have spent considerable time as a child in the Sierra Nevada mountains where I grandfather had property on the Kern River. When it came to choosing a college, I knew I wanted to study forestry, so I chose Humboldt State University up in the redwoods. At the time the backdrop to my studies was the Northwest timber wars in the early 1990s and the subsequent Northwest Forest Plan and the inherent conflicts. I soon found out that forestry did not entirely deal with trees but mostly people and the values of society.
After graduating college, I got a dream job as a field Ecologist for the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station doing Forest Inventory and Analysis vegetation plots for 15 years. I was fortunate to work in wilderness areas such as the Frank Church River of No Return and the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, backpacking and measuring trees across the Rockies from Montana to Arizona. I got paid “in sunsets” as they say and had amazing adventures across the Rockies. Although it was a wonderful job, it didn’t give you much opportunity to effect change on a specific ecological or social landscape.
After I left the Research Station, I worked on the Willamette National Forest in Western Oregon as a Natural Resource Staff Officer where I had the fortunate timing to dip my toe into collaboration. This area was ground central of the timber wars in the 1990s, and the former timber mill town of Sweet Home was trying to redefine itself in the post timber economy, and this was a first of its kind collaboration on Willamette NF at the time. I was part of the Sweet Home All Lands Collaborative with a diverse group of stakeholders doing All Lands restoration work. I used this experience gained to become the SW Jemez Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) Implementation coordinator for the Santa Fe NF where I started working closely with the Forest Stewards Guild as a collaborative partner working on Northern New Mexico restoration work in late 2012.
After 30 years holding various roles in the US Forest Service such as District Ranger, Natural Resource Staff Officer, a couple of Deputy Forest Supervisor details, and finally the Rio Chama CFLRP Team Leader I retired early in 2025 to focus on my family. In my new role as the Guild’s Southwest Senior Forester, I am working in the same 2-3-2 collaborative landscape and get to engage with the same partners doing amazing restoration work!