Eco-Watch Dialogues
3/22/99

Stories of Forest Service Culture
by Sharon Friedman

   The Forest Service is an organization with a rich cultural heritage. The Forest Service often pretends to be bringing "science" and "rational decision-making" to forestry, but the history of the Agency from the beginning is of colorful controversial characters, of passion for conservation, of intrigue, conflict and the other delightfully human characteristics. Stories and rituals are important to community building. Humor is essential to mental health under difficult conditions. When we are close to getting swept up in the events of the day, humor lets us step back, gives us a sacred space to look at our own foolishness and that of others. A few years ago I saw, in the Washington Post, a book review of a book on Forest Service humor. I have never seen a book on EPA humor, or Taco Bell humor. FS culture is indeed rich.

   Working in, or leading an organization, is likely to be smoother with an understanding of the culture. Of course, there are many different cultures within the Forest Service, which makes the task more difficult- but not impossible.

   I learned about the Forest Service way not from speeches, or manuals, or even my supervisor, but much the same way as tribes have instructed children on what we admire, what we laugh at, what is our way. Many a lunchtime in the field or riding together in green rigs was spent trading stories about fires, or practical jokes, or other stories which often carried cultural messages of one kind or another.

   The purpose of this discussion group is to provide an opportunity for the virtual sharing of stories both of the new and the old Forest Service. Not only the stories, but also the reactions and building of stories, are these aspects of our "old" culture or of "today’s" culture, of Region 6 culture or Region 8 culture, or of research or state and private culture? Are these cultural norms we should continue, get rid of, or somehow change to fit in better with current times and going into the future?

   To get started, I’ll begin with two stories that I heard so long ago I can’t keep track of them. They are about the independence of the Forest Service, both the agency and individual employees.

Story 1. Supposedly said by Earl Butz, former Secretary of Agriculture under Reagan. "There are really four branches of government, Executive, Judicial, Legislative, and the Forest Service."

Story 2. By an apocryphal District Ranger. "Old so and so was the best Supervisor I ever had. I worked there for five years, and I saw him once."

   What stories (as you can see, I am using the term "stories" loosely to include vignettes and expressions) do you have on the topic of independence? Are there stories about independence going too far? Do you have a story that describes the recent feeling that with the changing nature of the FS, interdependence is replacing independence? What do you think is good about the "old ways" that we wouldn’t want to lose?

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Sharon Friedman
Vegetation Management and Protection Research
USDA Forest Service
Tel: +1-202-205-0859, Fax: +1-202-205-2497,
E-mail: sfriedma/wo@fs.fed.us
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