Meet Wisconsin’s first female chief forester
Wisconsin’s new chief state forester doesn’t look like the ax-toting Paul Bunyan lumberjack type.
But Heather Berklund hopes to change that stereotype as the new head of the Department of Natural Resources’ Forestry division, the first woman to lead the division in its 116-year history.
The 43-year-old mother of two also is one of the youngest people to hold the position, which she was appointed to in October.
Making the traditionally white, male-dominated Forestry division more diverse is one of Berklund’s goals.
“It’s getting better, but I think nationally, out of the natural resources profession, forestry is still lagging behind as far as gender diversity, ethnic diversity,” she said. “It’s definitely something that’s on my radar, thinking about diversity long term, how we can recruit for diversity, and how we can better support women and those of diverse backgrounds.”
As of 2018, 86.6% of forestry and conservation workers were male and 69.4% were white, according to Census Bureau data compiled by Data USA.
To recruit a more diverse group of people, Berklund said, the department is working with colleges like the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, UW-Madison and Fox Valley Technical College to show students the range of career possibilities in forestry. They also want to hire more interns and limited-term employees so students can get a taste of different opportunities, she said.
“A lot of times you say ‘forester’ and you immediately go to that person out in the woods wearing a plaid shirt. But there’s so much more that we do with technology and research, urban forestry and heath. There’s such a wide range that people don’t even know about,” Berklund said.
That person out in the woods is, of course, still a big part of forestry. Wisconsin’s forest products industry contributes 63,000 jobs and $24 billion to the state’s economy and is the top employer in seven counties in the state. And 5.2 million acres of public forest land provide plenty of space for Wisconsinites to hunt, fish, hike, camp and more.
But forestry does a lot of work beyond timber sales and hiking trails. The division not only manages 1.5 million acres of DNR land in forests and parks, but also helps manage 1.4 million acres of federal forest land, 2.4 million acres of county forest and 3.4 million acres of private land in the state’s managed forest law program.
The division also works to monitor urban forests, which cover 29% of municipal land in the state; manage fire risk, including sending firefighters to other parts of the country when needed; and reforestation, with the state’s nursery having distributed 1.6 billion seedlings since it began in 1911.
Berklund has dipped her toes in many of those programs since she started working for the department in 2000.
And while she didn’t exactly dream of being a forester as a kid, she knew she didn’t want to be tied to a desk.
“I knew I wanted a job where I could be outside,” said Berklund, who grew up cutting firewood and hunting for berries and morels on her family’s 120 acres in the state’s Driftless area.
She started looking at college programs and realized she could have a job working outside, then found her niche at UW-Stevens Point.
“Forestry kind of intrigued me . ... Trees are kind of the core of a healthy landscape,” she said.
She graduated with a degree in forestry and a minor in soil science and went to work for the DNR.
“I always knew I wanted to work in the public sector,” she said. “How I’m wired and where my passion is is working with people, serving and giving back to the public. I knew within the public sector, oftentimes those jobs are more diverse in what you can do and what career paths you can take.”
Her career path started as a field forester in the Northwoods, working with the division’s private lands and tax lands programs, and dabbling in other areas
including fire suppression, first in Merrill, then Crandon and Mercer.
From there she became a team leader for the Iron-Ashland area, an area leader for the Woodruff region, and finally the deputy division administrator of field operations for the past three years.
Now as the state’s chief forester, in addition to recruiting more diverse staff, Berklund hopes to continue educating the public on the different types of forest properties and their uses in Wisconsin — especially private landowners.
That might mean managing invasive species, which have spread across the state in the last 20 years, according to Berklund; or taking advantage of the managed forest law program, which gives landowners property tax breaks for sustainably managing their forests and opening them up to public use.
Berklund said she knows that program isn’t for everyone, but “ultimately our goal is to have landowners engaged with their land, taking some sort of action to preserve it or maintain its health.”
Field work in the Northwoods
She recalls her time working with private landowners in northern Wisconsin fondly and remembers every landowner she worked with, who all had deep connections to their land and stories to tell, she said.
She also said working in Iron and Ashland counties provided a foundation for the rest of her career, exposing her to the area’s unique climate, terrain and history.
“Every day it was something new, and I always felt like, I’m so blessed to truly be in the heart of what forestry is, working in the field,” she said.
Her time in the field also provided one of her most memorable encounters with wildlife.
While out in Iron County marking a stand for a timber sale, Berklund and a colleague heard yipping and saw two wolves watching them from a distance. Suspecting there might be a den nearby, they left the area to avoid disturbing the animals and alerted DNR wildlife biologists.
Biologists found a den and collared one of the wolves, which they named Heather.
She spends less time running with wolves and more time at a desk these days as the state’s chief forester, but she said she still gets out to meet with staff and partners as much as she can.
And she sees the division’s work with those partners, including the U.S. Forest Service and county forestry departments, as a key piece for addressing the challenges Wisconsin’s forests face in the future, including fragmentation and climate change.
“I really embrace working with people, in all my positions,” she said, “... taking the opportunity to connect with coworkers and other partners statewide to recognize all the uniqueness across the state.”