JFSP Governing Board Members
Joint Fire Science Program Governing Board at a funding decision meeting in Austin, Texas, March 2008.
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Nate Benson has worked for the National Park Service for more than fifteen years in a variety of positions. He started his NPS fire career as a fire effects monitor at Glacier National Park, and then moved to Yellowstone and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks as a Fire Use Module Leader. More recently he was the Prescribed Fire Specialist at Everglades National Park. He is currently at the NPS Fire Management Program Center as the National Fire Ecology Program Lead. Nate has a Master of Science - Land Resources degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Environmental Studies. |
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John joined the Forest Service in 2001 after 25 years as a research scientist with Boyce Thompson Institute and a member of the graduate faculty of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. During his tenure at Boyce Thompson, John studied the effects of biotic and abiotic stress on plant growth and development, ecophysiology of forest trees, and the response of forests to air pollution and climate change at stand, landscape, and regional scales. Over the years, he taught a number of graduate seminars, freshman composition in Cornell's John S. Knight Writing Program, and wilderness canoeing for Outward Bound. John also spent 3 years on an assignment with the EPA's Western Ecology Division of the National Health and Environmental Research Laboratory where he led a program to simulate the effects of air pollution on forests. John earned a B. S. in Forest Science at the Pennsylvania State University and an M. S. and Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of Minnesota. His personal interests include travel, gardening, and photographing movie marquees with his wife, Nancy Flynn. |
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Bud received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Forestry from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, with a range management option from Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. He started his career for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as a Range and Forestry Technician at the Arizona Strip District and then went on to be a Range Conservationist for the Malta District and the Lewistown District in Montana. From there he moved to Escalante, Utah and worked for the Cedar City District. Bud became a Supervisory Range Conservationist for the Montrose District in Gunnison Colorado and then became an Area Manager and then an Assistant District Manager for the Winnemucca District in Winnemucca Nevada. He then moved onto the BLM Headquarters Office in Washington DC to become the Senior Wild Horse and Burro Specialist After that he was temporarily the Acting Group Manager there for the Wild Horse and Burro Program. Bud then worked in the Washington DC office of United States Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho as a BLM Legislative Fellow. After that he became a Natural Resource Advisor in the BLM Headquarters Office and then Division Chief, Rangeland Resources in the office of the Assistant Director for Renewal Resources and Planning. Bud is currently the Acting State Director for the BLM Idaho State Office in beautiful Boise, Idaho. |
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Mark began his career in fire as an Arizona hotshot crewmember for the USFS in 1982, his first summer out of high school. Over the next 13 years he worked on other hotshot crews, engine and helitack crews for the USFS, NPS, and the BLM. Mark was a hotshot superintendent and also worked in Alaska with Native American Crews for the Alaska Fire Service. As a seasonal firefighter Mark either went to college or traveled in the winter months. Mark traveled extensively throughout Latin America, Southeast Asia, and to 24 countries in Africa between 1985 and 2000. Mark attended graduate school at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring research. In northern Mexico and the Southwest United States, Mark conducted research on past land-uses, fire history, and human fire influences in mixed-conifer, pine-oak forest, and semi-desert grassland ecosystems. Mark is currently the Deputy Regional Fire Management Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Region in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he consults the Refuge in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. Mark has been involved with International fire management training and planning in Central America and Mexico, through the Interior Technical Assistance Program and The Nature Conservancy. Marks personal interests include hiking, biking, fishing, international travel and outdoor activities with his wife Kelli, and their 7 year old son Nate. Education |
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Mike began his career on the Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon with seasonal positions from 1973 through 1980 including four seasons with the Zig Zag Hotshots. In 1984, he began a three year stint with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in Southern Colorado and New Mexico serving as Forester and Fire Management Officer. Returning to the Mt. Hood, in 1987, his activities focused on fuels planning, mechanical fuels treatment and prescribed fire application as well as development of the User's Guide to Fuel Appraisal for the Pacific Northwest Region. Mike joined the Bureau of Land Management in 1992 providing leadership in the areas of fire preparedness, suppression, planning and equipment in the states of Oregon and Washington. Returning to the Forest Service in 1994, as Regional Fuels Specialist in the Pacific Northwest Region, he was active in fuel planning and operations, wildland fire use implementation, and provided liaison with research. He moved to Washington as Applied Fire Ecologist at the Forest Service, Washington Office from 1998 to 2003 guiding the national fuels program though a period of significant growth and elevated public interest. He served as a Governing Board Member for the Joint Fire Science Program from 1998 through 2003 and rejoined the Board in Fall 2006. Mike moved to his current position in Spring 2003 where he provides national leadership for Forest Service fire research programs carried out across the country. He is a member of the NWCG parent group and represents US fire research on the North American Forest Commission, Fire Management Working Group. Mike earned a B.S. in Forest Management in 1981 and M.S. in Fire Science in 1988 both from Colorado State University. |
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As Branch Chief for Fuels and Fire Ecology, Paul has program leadership responsibility for fuels management and fire use programs on National Forests and Grasslands lands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. Paul is a 1977 graduate of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, where he received a B. S. in Resources Management. His Forest Service career began in 1977 as a seasonal employee with the White River National Forest in Colorado. Since then, he has served as a resource technician on the Helena National Forest, in Montana, District Silviculturist and Timber Staff on the Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, Forest Silviculturist on the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico and Zone Timber and Fire Management Staff on the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado. Paul is a certified silviculturist and a graduate of Technical Fire Management. Paul is actively involved with integrating fire management issues into the land management planning process, and in the development of processes and procedures for the analysis of the effects of fuels treatments. |
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Jeanne Higgins is currently serving as the Forest Supervisor on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Northern Wisconsin. She came into this assignment in April 2007 from the Deputy Forest Supervisor position where she had been since February 2005. Prior to 2005 she served as the District Ranger on the Stevensville Ranger District of the Bitterroot National Forest in western Montana. Jeanne completed a BS degree in Forest Resource Management at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho in 1988. After graduation Jeanne worked in numerous district staff positions on the Kootenai and Malhuer National Forests including small sales forester: GIS coordinator; NEPA coordinator; Fish, Wildlife, Botany and Planning Staff Officer; District Environmental Coordinator; and Operations Forester before transferring to the Fishlake National Forest in 1999 where she served as the District Ranger and Planning Staff Officer on the Richfield Ranger District. Jeanne has been active in fire suppression since 1980 where she started as a “militia” fire fighter. She has served on Incident Management Teams since 1995, most recently as a Resource Unit Leader on Wally Bennett’s Northern Rockies Type I IMT since 2002. Jeanne has also served as an Agency Administrator Representative on numerous Type 1, 2, and 3 incidents since becoming a line officer in 1999. |
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(biography not yet available) |
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Tim worked seasonally as a survey aid, fire and fuels crew member, and crewboss on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Northern California from 1970 through 1974. He accepted a Regional Reinforcement Crew Boss position at Wind River Ranger District, on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in 1975. From 1976 to 1978 he served as a Fire Operations Technician with the BLM at the Boise Interagency Fire Center. In 1978 Tim moved to the Umpqua National Forest in southwest Oregon serving as Assistant Fire Management Officer and later as District Fuels Specialist on the Glide Ranger District. In 1981, Tim was selected as the Superintendent of the Redmond Hotshot Crew. He led the transformation of this crew into an experienced-based training program for developing fire managers of the future. In 1986 he accepted the District Fire Management Officer position at Chiloquin Ranger District on the Winema National Forest in south central Oregon. During this time Tim served on Incident Management Teams as Logistics Chief, Fire Behavior Analyst and Operations Section Chief. In 1998, Tim transferred to the National Park Service as Wildland Fire Specialist for the NPS Intermountain Region in Denver, Colorado. While in Colorado, Tim served as Type II Incident Commander for one of the Rocky Mountain Region Incident Management Teams. In 1999, Tim moved to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho accepting a position with NPS as the National Fire Ecologist. In 2003, Tim accepted his current assignment as Fire Use Program Manager for the US Forest Service at NIFC. During these last six years at NIFC, Tim served as Deputy Incident Commander and then Incident Commander of a Great Basin Type I Incident Management Team. Tim earned a B.A. in History from Boise State University and an M.S. in Fire Ecology from Oregon State University. His personal interests include photography, skiing, reading, hunting, fishing and woodworking. |
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Although a native of California, Dr. van Wagtendonk grew up in Indiana, where he began his study of forestry at Purdue University. Summer seasonal work as a smoke jumper for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management convinced him to finish his undergraduate work at Oregon State University, where he received his B. S. in Forest Management in 1963. After serving four and a half years as an officer in the U.S. Army with the 101st Airborne Division and as an advisor to the Vietnamese army, he entered graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. There Dr. van Wagtendonk obtained his M. S. in Range Management in 1968 and his Ph.D. in Wildland Resource Science with a specialty in fire ecology in 1972. From 1972 through 1993 he was employed as a research scientist with the National Park Service at Yosemite National Park. Since 1994, Dr. van Wagtendonk has been employed as a research scientist with the U. S. Geological Survey at Yosemite. His areas of research have included prescriptions for burning in wildland ecosystems, recreational impacts in wilderness, and the application of geographic information systems to resources management. His work currently focuses on the role of fire in Sierra Nevada ecosystems. |
