New forester comes to Sisters as environmental coordinator

Michael Keown is the new person on the management team for the Sisters Ranger District — and he already has a full schedule of projects. Keown is the new district environmental coordinator.

“This job had been vacant for two years with other district people filling in,” Keown said. “Then, the district determined that the workload made filling the position necessary.”

Keown’s duties will be reviewing all district projects to make sure they comply with requirements of the National Environmental Protection Act, the national forest plan, and other legal requirements. Currently, his projects include reviewing plans for the vegetation management work scheduled for the West Trout Unit of the District. That project was put on the shelf after the 2003 B&B Complex Fire changed work priorities.

He just finished reviewing plans for improving the Balancing Rocks special area on the Metolius arm of Lake Billy Chinook. He also advises district personnel as problems arise with their projects. He also is participating in the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) with their plans for a four-lane section of Highway 20 west of Sisters. After a recent public meeting hosted by ODOT, increased public concerns prompted the Forest Service to reopen its review of this plan that uses national forest lands within ODOT’s right-of-way

“This would have been my 30th year with the Forest Service if I had gotten on full-time, but I have only 23 years of full-time employment,” Keown said. “During my time with the Siskiyou National Forest, I took a leave of absence and spent two and a half years as an agri-forester with the Peace Corp in Nepal.”

Keown was raised in Southern California, and attended U.C. Santa Barbara as an anthropology major. During his college days and for a few years afterwards, he worked for the Forest Service as a fire crew member and later in marking timber on the Caribou National Forest in Idaho.

“After working in the sun building fence with the fire crew all the time, I wanted to work in the shade. I bunked with two guys working in timber sale preparation, so I learned that job on weekends and made the move to the shade,” Keown explained.

He next went back to college and earned a forestry degree at the University of Montana. Keown continued working in seasonal and temporary jobs with the Forest Service for 12 seasons. He finally got a full-time forest technician job doing forest inventory work with the Forest Service Intermountain Research Station in Ogden, Utah.

Keown’s next move was to the Siskiyou National Forest in Grants Pass doing inventory work. When timber sales declined, his job was dropped. However, the forest learned that he had a degree in anthropology, so he transferred into a job as the district archeologist. Before he left that forest, he worked in recreation and fire.

After that job was cut, he moved to the Stanislaus National Forest in California as district archeologist. “I spent most of my time there trying to come back to Oregon,” Keown recalled. “When the Sisters job came open, I applied for it and competed with others before being promoted here.”

Keown is single and commutes to his job from Bend.

“This is beautiful country in which to work and the scenery is great.” Keown added.