In June of 1990, a year before I came to the Pineridge Ranger District, Kirby Schwink was the District Ranger and Jim Boynton was the Forest Supervisor for the Sierra National Forest. Ninety-five district employees (including the photographer) gathered in a mixed conifer setting somewhere near Shaver Lake for a group photo. At that time, “re-organization,” “outsourcing” and “centralization” were not common Forest Service topics.
Photo of the Pineridge Ranger District 1990, Bill Bell Photographer
For months, the office was a mess of dust, noise, smells, and a muddle of construction crews. To celebrate the end of the Prather office expansion, the High Sierra Ranger District scheduled an all district meeting. The June 2006 the agenda consisted of a short presentation by the Forest Supervisor, awards, an opportunity for departments to introduce themselves to the other departments on the district, a couple of safety presentations, and a group photo.
Since I have a reputation as being a wanna-be photographer, and I couldn’t charge anyone for anything photographic, I was asked to take the district photo. Armed with my brand new Nikon D70s with a Sigma Ex 10-20mmD, 1:4-5.6 DC HSM wide angle lens with a UV protective filter I faced all 110 High Sierra Ranger District employees in attendance that day.
There are some interesting comparisons of the two photos.
There are fire and wilderness temporary employees in both photos.
The Forest Supervisor at the time, made it into both photographs.
In 1990, the district had trees in the photo, in 2006 there is the office in the background.
In 2006 the District Ranger wasn’t at the District meeting.
The biggest difference in in the number of people. The 1990 photo has 95 Forest Service employees and the 2006 photo has 110 employees. Not very different, but in 1990 there was also the Kings River Ranger District (which had more people than the Pineridge R.D.) and they are not in the photo. The 2006 photo includes all of the remaining staff from the old Pineridge and the Kings River districts. The re-organized/combined High Sierra District equals approximately 1/2 of the total of the two districts in 1990. In fifteen years the number of Forest Service staff for the southern half of the Sierra National Forest was cut in one half.
I don’t have a list of names of the people in the 1990 photo. In order to tell the trees from the forest, I held a contest to identify all the people in the photo. At best, I have names for only half of the employees pictured. Half are anonymous. In addition, only 10% of the people in the picture still work for the Forest Service. Fifteen years later and only 10% remain.
So, in fifteen years will you still be working for the Forest Service? Chances are that your answer is ‘no.’
What will the photo look like in the year 2021? I bet you wouldn’t believe it if you saw it today.
8″x10″ Printed images of the above photos are hanging in my hallway gallery in the Sierra N.F. Supervisor’s Office, Clovis, CA. Stop in and see how many people you can recognize.
NOTE
I want to thank Barbara Fleming for helping me organize people for the photo, Bev Walsh for helping me scan the 1990 photo, Debe Arndt, Nancy Woolsey, Roxie Myers and Dave Cooper for helping me attempt to identify the people in the 1990 photo, and my husband Keith for suggesting the catchy title “The Incredible Shrinking Forest Service.”
