Ranger wraps up 40-year-long career

After 10 years working on the Flathead National Forest as part of a 40-year Forest Service career, Swan Lake District Ranger Steve Brady has retired.

And his replacement has been selected — Richard Kehr Jr., currently a staff officer on the Fremont-Winema National Forests in Oregon.

At 59, Brady said the time was right for retirement, which took effect Jan. 1.

“I’m still relatively healthy and I wanted to get some physical stuff in while my body can still handle it,” said Brady, an avid skier, hiker and angler. “If I wanted to be a ski bum, I better get that in.”

Brady came to the Flathead Forest in 2000 to work on the resource staff in the supervisor’s office. But the Swan Lake district ranger position opened up six years ago, and Brady couldn’t resist.

“I just love the districts,” he said. “That’s where my whole career has been. That is such a beautiful district that I couldn’t pass up that temptation.”

Brady has worked as a district ranger on the Idaho Panhandle, Gallatin and Tongass national forests during a career that started with seasonal forestry and firefighting work in 1970.

Brady graduated with forest resource management and physics degrees from the University of Idaho in 1973 and got his first position with the Forest Service as a timber technician on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Through most of his career, Brady’s specialty was in forestry and timber management, along with having a regular hand in firefighting. He said he particularly enjoyed being a small sales forester with an innovative program geared toward  selectively plucking large western red cedars from the Olympic National Forest.

 But the most challenging part of his career came with district ranger positions.

“Trying to achieve balance can be the most difficult” pursuit in an agency with a multiple use land management mission that includes recreation, resource use and conservation. “Occasionally, when you thought you did it, it can be very satisfying.”

The National Park Service, by contrast, has a far clearer conservation mandate with no room for resource extraction.

“I think ours is a cooler mission — trying to live on this planet in a sustainable way,” Brady said.

The most frustrating part of his career was seeing the environmental review process evolve into a time-consuming and expensive pursuit for most significant forest management projects. Lengthy environmental impact statements became a necessity, he said, to justify the projects and protect them from legal challenges.

“I think the intent is good, but it just came to be frustrating,” he said.

Brady closed out his career with a series of fuel reduction projects on the Swan Lake District that proceeded without appeals or litigation. The only appeal filed during his six years came recently, challenging a timber management project aimed at curbing pine beetle infestations in the Swan Valley.

Brady said he expects to be only semi-retired, if opportunities arise in the firefighting arena. As an experienced division supervisor, he said he easily could be lured into helping out if needed.

With one son in college and another soon to follow, Brady said he and his wife, Trish, expect to mostly be occupied with outdoors recreation.

Kehr will join the Swan Lake Ranger District with 32 years of experience with the Forest Service that has included positions on national forests in Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com