Katelyn currently works for the US Forest Service in Visitor Information Services for the Colorado White River National Forest Rifle Ranger Station. In this role, she handles permitting, goes on patrols, and helps other departments at the station in their projects. Most of her work is doing outreach with local communities, especially partnering with schools in K-12 environmental education.
What led you to a natural resource education and career?
I spent most of my summers and winters in Rifle, Colorado where my family owns a cabin near Buford, Colorado. We would forage, work with Forest Service to remove timber for forest health and hike to see all that the property had to offer. As time went on, I wanted to learn more about the species that surrounded us and learned to identify different trees, mushrooms, and flowers. We worked more with the Forest Service following the Buford Fire of 2018 that burned most of our property, so we had to remove dangerous timber. I began to understand why this was important for forest health and got to see fire succession firsthand. This helped me decide that I wanted to be near the outdoors in my education. I wanted to learn more about the local environment and how people and the forest can benefit each other.
What are you up to in your job?
Currently, as the winter season starts, we will dedicate time to planning our summer projects for the new year. I plan on doing more outreach with students, so I am working on presentations about the Forest Service for high schools, environmental education for elementary schools, and possibly setting up a Public Lands Corp hiring pathway for local high schools and colleges to work with the Forest Service. During the winter, I am working with specialists to learn more about GIS and how to utilize this for our project proposals.
Can you reflect on your time at CSU?
I believe my final course projects and work outside of the classroom is what really benefited me. The final projects were focused on subjects that I was interested in and could better my knowledge in, and that work has helped me find interesting jobs. CSU was great at allowing students to learn what they wished within the scope of the classes, and I feel like this has helped me grasp concepts that I still use today, in both the knowledge
and skills that are valuable in the workforce. Also, work outside of the classroom such as within laboratory jobs, environmental education, or even during class field trips really helped me. It allowed me to connect with people in class and to learn about myself, my skills, and my weaknesses within the scope of my degree and learn what I wanted to work on to be a desirable job candidate.
What advice do you have for current students or recent grads?
Don’t be afraid to try new things and “fail.” Most of my time with the Forest Service and National Park Service has been just trying out different projects and seeing if it is something I am interested in. Take your twenties or even your thirties to try out different jobs to see what you like. Who you were when you were coming into college is a different person from where you are now. Maybe you have already found what your career will be but maybe some are like me, and you don’t know where you want to go in life. I went from agroforestry, to bats, to vegetation, and now visitor center services. I saw this as a “fail” since most of my jobs weren’t what I studied, but I have learned that I am just finding my place. It is rare to stay in the same career for your life and that has been the best lesson I have learned. Just go out and try what interests you and then if you find what you love to do, work on bettering yourself in that field, but don’t be afraid if you want to change. There is no “failure,” only learning.