NEWS RELEASE
USDA Forest Service
Alaska Region
Ray Massey W 907.586.7876
rmassey@xxxxxxxxx C 907.209.2094
June 14, 2010
Alaska Regional Forester Names Two New Top Staff Members
Juneau, Alaska– Alaska Forest Service Regional Forester Beth Pendleton recently announced selection of new regional directors for the Information Management program and the Wildlife, Fisheries, Ecology, Watershed and Subsistence program. Andrea Gehrke has been named to the Information Management position and Wayne Owen was selected as the WFEWS program director.
Owen comes to Alaska from his current position as the ecosystems planning biologist in the Forest Service’s main office in Washington, D.C. Gehrke arrives after serving as a program specialist on the team that is reorganizing the agency’s seven Chief Information Office branches.
“Her (Gehrke’s) strong people orientation has made her successful in a variety of team settings,” said Pendleton, and, “Wayne (Owen) brings creativity, problem solving skills, and the ability to integrate across disciplines.”
Owen’s first employment with the Forest Service was in 1987 as a research technician with the agency’s Pacific Southwest Research Station in Berkeley, Calif., after graduating from Boise State University with a Bachelor of Science in biology. He gained his Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California at Davis in 1991 and taught biological sciences at Boise State through 1992. Prior to his present assignment, Owen served as a botanist and ecologist at several Forest Service units, including the Boise and Ouachita national forests; the Southern Region staff in Atlanta; and another assignment in the Washington, D.C., office as the National Botany and Rare Plant Program Leader.
Gehrke graduated with a Bachelor of Science in forest resource management from Oregon State University in 1990, but began working for the Forest Service as a wilderness guard on the Wal1owa-Whitman National Forest in Oregon in 1988. She served in several capacities on the recreation staffs of the Lolo National Forest in Montana and the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico before taking on information management duties in the Forest Service’s Eastern, Alaska and Intermountain regions from 1997 through 2008.
Gehrke and Owen will begin their new duties on the Alaska Region Forest Service, Juneau-based, regional staff August 1.
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Wayne Owen:
Andrea Gehrke:
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