Rise to the Future Awarded to Six Rivers Employee

  • Julie Ranieri, Public Affairs Officer, Six Rivers National Forest
Photograph of Jerry Boberg in front of a shelf with books.

Jerry Boberg, Six Rivers National Forest Resource Conservation Group Leader, is the recipient of the Professional Excellence in Fish Management for the National Rise to the Future Award. Jerry exemplifies the characteristics of this award:

Professional Excellence – Fish Management: Recognition for sustained high performance fostering well-balanced, technically sound aquatic resource management or innovative approaches in any aspect of aquatic resource management, monitoring, or mentoring.

Jerry's involvement at the Forest and Regional level of aquatic resource management over the past 22 years have left an indelible mark on the professional development of countless biologists and hydrologists in Region 5. He was a core contributor to the development and standardization of aquatic monitoring protocols in the Region.

In 1987, Jerry began his Forest Service career as a fisheries biologist on the Orleans Ranger District, Six Rivers National Forest. Prior to that, he worked as a seasonal for the California Department of Fish and Game doing first-time surveys of many northcoast streams.

During his years as a District fisheries biologist, Jerry planned and implemented many projects involving fish habitat restoration, stream course protection and inventory and monitoring. He also assisted with Regional programs by working on the development of the Region 5 Fish Habitat Inventory Handbook, including the creation of the associated database (beginning with dBase I) and automated reports for data analysis.

Another dimension of Jerry's exemplary contribution to program development is his high-quality illustrations of the 24 different habitat types for regional habitat typing field cards. Jerry was instrumental in development of these illustrations by working first with hand drawn detailed drawings, then progressing to computer generated depictions of pool, riffle and run habitats.

In 1990, Jerry moved to the Six Rivers National Forest Supervisor's Office to become the Fisheries Program Manager and Regional Anadromous Fish Habitat Relationships Coordinator, where he has remained ever since. From that point until today, Jerry has excelled at juggling budgets, personnel, forest fires, BAER, ESA listings of anadromous fish and the increasing demands of multiple, complex programs to manage and supervise.

Jerry always manages to be well-informed and effective in his professional relationships. Somehow he manages to perform these demanding tasks with continual alacrity. Jerry has been recognized as one of three regional fisheries biologists with special Regional responsibilities, based on their outstanding expertise. In this capacity, he has provided support to a series of regional fish program managers on all facets of anadromous fish issues.

His ability to connect with children and adults on what fly to use fishing, what bug is under the magnifying glass, or why clean water matters demonstrates his love and commitment to all things aquatic.

Jerry is currently the program manager and supervisor of the fisheries, watershed, wildlife, botany, range, ecology, soils, and geology programs. In spite of the increasing diversity of programs to oversee, Jerry has continued to serve Regional fisheries interests.