**Advancing the Natural Resource Agenda**

**(U. S. Forest Service Broadcast)**

**A Telecast Originating from**

**the BLM National Training Center**

**October 29, 1998**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Announcer: the USDA Forest Service Presents Live from Phoenix, Arizona,
\"Advancing the Natural Resource Agenda.\" A Roundtable Discussion with
Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck. Featuring Highlights of the National
Leadership Conference. And Now, the Host of Your Program, George Lennon.

Lennon: Good Afternoon and Thanks for Joining Us. During the past
Two‑and‑a‑half Days Leaders of the Forest Service Have Been Involved in
Some Frank and Open Discussions About How We Can Advance the Natural
Resource Agenda. In this Program, We Will Explore The Challenges,
Opportunities And Successes as We Implement The Natural Resource Agenda.
With Me for this Afternoon\'s Discussion, a Familiar Face to Most of You
by Now, Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck.

Dombeck: Glad to Be Here, George.

Lennon: Also with Us Is a Janice McDougle. Janice Is Associate Deputy
Chief For State and Private Forestry.

McDougle: it Is My Pleasure To Serve in this Servicewide Video
Conference.

Lennon: from New Mexico, Is Cibola National Supervisor, Liz Agpaoa.

Agpaoa: Thanks for Inviting Me to this.

Lennon: Rounding out Our Panel, Denny Bschor, Presently Forest
Supervisor Every the Mount Baker‑snoqualmie National Forest and Soon to
Be Director Of Recreation. Thanks for Joining Us.

Bschor: It\'s a Pleasure to Be Here and a Great Opportunity to Be
Introduced to the Rest of the Employees in the Forest Service In My New
Position.

Lennon: this Week the Leadership of the Forest Service Has Been Meeting
in Mesa, Arizona, Just Outside of Phoenix, for the Fall Leadership
Conference, And, of Course, the Primary Topic Before the Conference Has
Been the Forest Service Natural Resource Agenda That Chief Dombeck First
Talked To Us about Last March. People from Throughout the Forest Service
Have Offered Their Views and Their Vision for How We Lead the Agency
into the 21st Century. It\'s Clear to Me That There\'s Been a Lot of
Energy and Enthusiasm Here at the Conference. We Saw Some Very Candid
and Constructive Dialogue Taking Place about this Agency and its Future.
With That, Lets Begin with Some Opening Comments from Chief Dombeck.
Mike?

Dombeck: Thanks, George and Thank You, Liz, Deny Ee and Janice for
Joining Me Here Today To Talk to All of Our Employees About the
Successes We Had this Week. This Conference Was Different From Previous
National Leadership Conferences. I Invited a Cross Section of Employees
from the Organization From Regional for Stirs to Hydrologic Technicians
to Project Leaders and I Wanted Them to Be with Us Here to Share Our
Views, the Views with the Entire Leadership of the Forest Service, as
How We Move Forward With the Natural Resources Agenda. I Challenged the
Group to Step Out of Their Comfort Zones, Abandon Their Assumptions and
Redefine Our Methods in Communicating and Serving Our Constituents. And
in Return, These Employees From Around the Country Provide The
Leadership with Direct, Frank Dialogue on Issues Surrounding the Natural
Resources Agenda and Achieving Sound Business Practices. I Have to Tell
You, the Exchanges Were Exciting, Dynamic And Insightful and Our
Discussion Today, We Hope to Capture for You the Spirit and Some of the
Ideas of the past Two‑and‑a‑half Days Here in Arizona. But First, Let Me
Briefly Frame For You Where this Agency Is as It Prepares to Meet the
Challenges of the next Century. When I Began this Job, Many of You Told
Me That We Need to Do Regain Our Status as Conservation Leaders. And We
Are Succeeding in That Challenge. Our Conservation Leadership over The
past Year Is Obvious. Earlier this Year, We Laid out An Aggressive
Natural Resources Agenda That Focuses on the Services, on the Values
That American People Need and Support. We Laid out Aggressive Solutions
To Long‑standing Problems Such As Civil Rights, Financial Management and
Financial Accountability. By Taking Controversial Issues Such as Forest
Roads Head On, We Helped Begin a Long Overdue Lie Long about the Future
of the Transportation System. We Eliminated Purchase Road Credits, Which
Will Lessen the Internal Incentive to Build New Roads in Order to
Maintenance of The Existing Roads System. Our Roadless Area Proposal
Will Mean Fewer Resources Wasted on Appeals and Litigation, and it Will
Give Our Field Managers a Breather, a Breather While We Develop
Scientific and Analytical Tools to Make Better Informed Decisions about
Road Management on All Our National Forests. I\'m Pleased with the
Progress, But We must Accelerate the Pace. We Were Able to Get this Far
Because We Haven\'t Shied Away From Taking on Tough Issues, and What
Remains for Us Is to Articulate Both Internally and Externally How Our
Policies and Practices Are Changing the Agency\'s Emphasis from Tracking
Inputs and Tracking the Outputs That We Produce. Our Agency Priorities,
Budget Procedures, Accountability Measures Are Opaque and Confusing. We
must Make Them Transparent And Crystal Clear for Everyone To See and
Judge. We must Change. Consistent with Principles of Ecosystem
Management, Collaborative Stewardship. We must Transform Our View of
Forests, Forests as a Warehouse Of Outputs. We\'ve Got to Assign the
Greatest Values to the Positive Outcomes Of Watershed Management, and
Let Me Repeat the Word Outcome Based Management. As Members of this
Organization, Our Job, Your Job and My Job, Is To Ensure That Our
Incentives That Drive All Levels and All Aspects of Our Programs Are
Based on Ecological Sustainability and I\'m Asking For Your Commitment.
I\'m Asking for Yo Creativity in Helping Us to Develop the Policies.
Hire the Talented People. Implement the Management Practices That
Support Our Words With Actions and Results on the Ground.

Lennon: Thanks, Mike. I Know That One Objective You Had with this
Broadcast Was to Deliver the Conference to the Field, in a Sense. To
Help Do That We Selected a Few Excerpts from the Presentation That Were
Made. Over the Last Couple Days, We Have Heard a Number of Success
Stories, but One Stood out in Particular.

and by Now You Have Heard That the Ford Foundation Recognized Us as
Well. They Announced That Carson National Forest Initiative Is One of
Ten Winners in the Innovations in American Government Awards. That Means
\$100,000 Comes to That Unit, and We Are Very Proud Of That. \[ Applause
\] That Effort Is the Northern New Mexico Collaborative Stewardship
Program and it Was Implemented On the Camino Real Ranger District, and
That\'s a Ranger District That Is a Land Grant Community. What We Did
Was Start from the Perspective of Forest Health and Trying to Recognize
the Rural Economic Needs of the Community For Fuel Wood, Firewood, Wood
For Fences and What Not. So We\'ve Been Able to Make a Match There in
Terms of Folks Watching ‑‑ Taking Care of a Certain Portion of the Land
and Meeting Our Forest Health Expectations.

Lennon: Mike, What a Great Way to Start off the Conference. I Mean, Such
a National Award And Presentation. But I\'m Sure There Are Other
Successes out There.

Dombeck: Yes, George, There Are Lots of Successes. But First I Want to
Congratulate Crockett and the Staff on the District That Made Us So
Proud As an Organization, Because What This Exemplifies Is What We Can
Do as an Organization, and the Can‑do Spirit of the Forest Service. And
I\'ve Got to Say, Liz, You\'re From Right Here from Region 3. To See
Your Colleagues Achieve Such a Prestigious Award. 1500 Applicants and
We\'re One of The Ten Winners. It Brings to the Region, to the District,
\$100,000. Way to Go!

Agpaoa: It\'s Wonderful. I Think One of the Successes of ‑‑ or a Success
of Doing That And an Outcome That We Will See Is That it Not Only Is
Somebody In the Benefit That Comes to the District, but That the
Community Relationships Are Continually Strengthened. I Have Got to
Commend Crockett And the Folks like Max Cordova For Stepping out from
Their Boxes and Coming Together and Trying Something Wonderful for The
Land and the Community.

Mcdougle: and I Would like to Say That Given the Prominence of The Range
Wars of the West and Southwest of the Recent Years, And the
Polarization, to Have Such a Model Come out of this Region of the
Country Is More Meaningful. I Would Also like to Thank Steve Marshall
Because He Saw This, He Recognize It, He Encouraged the Unit to Really
Go for It, and They Were Successful. So Thanks, Steve.

Dombeck: I\'m Really Excited, Janice, about the Fact That What This
District Has Done Is Demonstrated How We Can Pull People Together in
Intense Controversy That We Have and I Know Denny with You and a Forest
Supervisor on Mount Baker‑snoqualmie, You Deal with Those Kind of
Controversies. I Know Liz Does. And I like the Transferability. The
Thing That I Asked the Team To Do, Is We\'ve Got to Take the Lessons
Learned Here, We Have to Take These Techniques That Were Developed Right
Here in the Forest Service and Apply Them All Around the Country. Liz I
Agree. As I Recently Have Come into the Regent, There Is Another Example
That Is Outstanding. There Was a Situation Back in 1995 Where There Were
Fliers Posted All over the East Mountains Outside of Albuquerque, Fliers
That Said \"Stop the Forest Service from Burning,\" and We Had Some
Individuals in the Fire Organization Come Together and Said, \"Well,
Should We Go? I Mean, Should We Be There? They\'re Obviously Going to Be
Very Angry.\" Those Folks Stepped out in 1995 And Said, We Are Going to
Go Tonight. It Was Very Contentious, until They Stepped Forward During
the Meeting and Started Talking About What They Were Really Trying to
Achieve and I\'ve Got To Say That Last Month and We\'re At the Open
Window of Our Burning Season, Those Same Folks And the Homeowners
Associations Who Were about to Just Do Us in Several Years Ago Call and
Say, We\'re Ready to Burn. Are You There with Us, You Know, Come to Our
Area of the Forest And We\'ll Help You. So it Really Has Changed Around,
And it Really Took the Courage And Initiative of Folks from the
Homeowners Associations and from The Districts. We Need to Be There.
This Is Who We Are.

Bschor: I Was Struck by the Fact There Are So Many Examples How the
National Resource Agenda Is Being Moved Forward and Especially at the
Campfire Event Last Night with the Awards of The Various Grants to Help
Stimulate and Encourage That Kind of Activity and I Believe, If the
Number Was Right, There Were Something like 900 Applications for That ‑‑
for Those Grants and I Think That Was Just Outstanding. I Think ‑‑ I\'m
Sure That\'s the Tip of the Iceberg.

Dombeck: You Know, What That Tells Me Is of the Creativity, Opportunity
That\'s out There and Our Challenge in the Organization Is to Get More
Resources to the Field, Right Down to the Interface with the Land, Writ
Happens. It\'s That Old Saying of the Only Progress That Really Counts
Is That on the Landscape of the Back 40.

Bschor: We Certainly Heard That Throughout the Conference.

Lennon: I Think One of the Key Points That Liz Has Brought Up Is a Sense
of Courage. I Think in the Attendees to the Conference Demonstrated Some
True Courage in Some of the Dialogue That We Saw, and I\'d Like to ‑‑
Several Speakers Talked about Changes the Forest Service Needed to Make
to Successfully Implement the Natural Resource Agenda. Here\'s a Clip of
Debbie Austin, Supervisor of the Beaver Head Deer Lodge of the National
Forest.

Austin: Instead of Being the Bureaucracy That Lays down Edicts with
Strict Standards, We\'ve Moved from a Standard‑driven Approach to
Management to a Goal‑driven Approach to Management. I Think That\'s
Really Important. What I Mean by That Is, Say, for Example in Range
Management, the Goal Shouldn\'t Be Did the Cows Eat 2% More Grass than
They Should Have Eaten and Lets Get Them If They Did, but the Goal
Should Be, What\'s Important, What Do We Want the Land to Look Like, the
Riparian Systems Look Like, Can We Explain to Somebody What a
Functioning System Looks Like and Have Them Help Us Figure out How to
Get There.

Lennon: I Have Two Forest Supervisors Here. There\'s a Challenge out
There All the Time. I Think That Debbie Has Really Thrown Something out
to All of Us to Look At. Denny?

Bschor: I\'m Right with Her. This Outcome‑based Land Management, I
Think, Has Been Talked about for Some Time among The Forest Supervisors
Group, I Think Even Clear Back to the Late \'80s, and Maybe Even Earlier
than That. It\'s So Much Easier to Talk About Common Ground and Where
We\'re Together with People Who May Not ‑‑ Who May Initially Be Opposed
to What We Want to Do. If We\'re Talking on That Outcome Based Level.
It\'s a Chance to Really Set the Goals and Objectives for the Piece of
Land Before You Get to A Polarized Point. I Think It\'s Absolutely
Essential. I Really Applaud What She\'s Said And What She Has Done.

Mcdougle: I Think What\'s Significant about That, Too, Is That She
Talked about the Power Of Information and How Once People Understood
What That Goal Was and Understood How to Get There and Understand the
Value Of Getting There, They Were with You. And It\'s, as We Learned
More, And We Learn Better How to Communicate to People Who Don\'t
Understand What We\'ve Learned, There\'s a Win‑win Opportunity, And
That\'s the Kind of Stuff We Are Seeing All over the Place.

Agpaoa: I Think What Janice Is Talking About, What Debbie Is Talking
About, Too, Is That Shared Learning, and I Recall That Debbie Also
Talked about Letting People Put Their Fingerprints on Building
Decisions. I Think What Can Really Work Wonderfully Is That Because of
Maybe How We\'ve Handled Things In the past and Been Very Focused on How
the Regulations Specifically ‑‑ to the Letter Sometimes, and We Forgot
Sometimes That We\'re Dealing With Communities, That They Are Going to
Be Pleased Just to Even Be Asked, That That Is Something That If You
Just Include Some of Their Intent and What They\'re Saying, That Will
Move You Both Along in the Process, and I Think It\'s Wonderful.

Dombeck: You Know What Debbie And Other ‑‑ Several Other Employees at
the Meeting Told Us Was Really Reminiscent of the Reinvention Hearings
That the Forest Service Had in the Early \'90s, That the American Public
Expects Us to Be the Educators, The Facilitators, the Catalysts For
Bringing People Together in Local Communities and Actually Letting Them
Be a Part of the Process.

Mcdougle: I Was Surprised, Having Been Part of the Reinvention Efforts,
as Was Liz, To Hear Convening and Facilitating as Much this Week As I
Did and in So Many Contexts. I Was Pleased That People Were Comfortable
in That Role, a Lot More Comfortable in That Role Than They Used to Be.

Dombeck: and this Was One of The Keys to the Success of the Camino Real
District in the Recognition and the Award That They Got from the Ford
Foundation. That\'s That Connection with People on the Land.

Agpaoa: and Those People Have Been, in That Case, Been on the Land for
Close to 400 Years, and So We\'ve Got to Include Them and Learn from
Them and Just Make Our Decisions That Much More Successful and Richer.

Dombeck: We Often Talk about Ecosystems and Communities from The
Scientific Standpoint. The Fact Is, from the Sociological Standpoint,
the Communities Are So Important to Our Success and Our Achieving Our
Stewardship Goals.

Agpaoa: We\'re Understanding That.

Bschor: and We Also Heard Don\'t Get Ahead of the Communities in
Applications of These New Programs or Initiatives, That We Need to Bring
the Communities along Early On. I Think That Was a Key Point Also.

Lennon: I Think One Thing That I Heard, Doug, Loud and Clear, Was the
Driving Need to Sort out Communication Tools, For Not Just Internal but
External, and Then Integrate Those Tools, and Coming off of The Forest.
Any Suggestions?

Bschor: Just the Fact That You Can\'t Just Use One Tool. You\'ve Got to
Use Many Tools. And this Conference Is One That ‑‑ That I Think Is ‑‑
I\'m Going To Be Real Fascinated to See How Well it Works. Because It\'s
Another Way of Getting the Word out. In the past All We Did Was Maybe
Put the Notes on a Bulletin Board, in the Ibm or Something, And You
Don\'t Know Who Will Access it or Who Isn\'t. Well, That\'s Another
Tool. If We Don\'t Just Depend on One Or Two Tools. We All Have a
Responsibility From this Conference to Go Back And Explain What We\'ve
Experienced and What We Saw and What We Heard. So It\'s a Combination of
All of These Is My Advice.

Agpaoa: My Thought, Too, Is We\'ve Learned That There Is Not Just One
Prescription for an Ecosystem, That We Have Hundreds Of Different
Ecosystems and We Need to Learn a Little Bit about Them Before We Decide
What Is Needed and at the Time That It\'s Needed and I Think That
That\'s The Same Way That We Should Look At Relationships with
Communities. There Are So Many ‑‑ Every Community Is Unique and What May
Work for the Ranchers down in One Part of the Country May Be Different
with How We Deal with Pueblos and Tribes or Generational Ranchers in
Another Part of the Country. So We Need to ‑‑ We Know How to Do That. We
Do That with the Land. We Need to Leverage That and Understand with That
Our Communities, Too and I Think We Can.

Bschor: and What it All Has In Common Is Relationship Building at That
Level. At All Levels, Actually.

Mcdougle: I Heard this Week a Lot That Collaboration Is Expensive, That
Collaboration Is Slow, and I Thought Those Were Interesting Comments
Because, in My Mind, the Alternative Is Even More Expensive and Is Even
Slower. So It\'s Really Worth That Up‑front Investment, Even Though
It\'s Just a Very Different Way Of Operating with the Communities, to
Really Come Together to Get Whatever There Is and Then to Try to Impose
a Decision and Never Get There. But, Yes, it Does Take Time. And More
Importantly, it Takes Different Skills, and Some of Those, We\'re Just
Going to Have To Get Better At. But It\'s the Alternative to Not Doing
Sit Far Worse, in My Opinion.

Dombeck: Two Interesting Things Come out of this. Number One Is, as We
Talked to People That Are Interested in Coming to Work for the Forest
Service, as We Reach out to Young People, People That Are, You Know ‑‑
Even Earlier than College, to Stress Those Communication Skills. Any
Time Anyone Asks Me What Courses Should I Take? It\'s Communications,
Connecting With People Is So Important. And There\'s a Frustration That
Comes with That. In Fact, That Came out Loud and Clear at the Meeting,
and That Is That It\'s Sort of ‑‑ It\'s Messier, But, You Know, That\'s
What Democracy Is All about. It\'s Involving People. You Know, We Are
Civil Servants. We Work for the Taxpayers. They Are the Owners All the
Taxpayers, Are the Owners of the National Forests We Manage and Also the
Owners of the Private Lands, the Wood Lots, the Industrial Forests That
Are State and Private and the State Foresters and We Have to Be Able To
Connect with All of Them to Be Successful.

Agpaoa: I Think That\'s Another Tool. I Think We\'re Finding We Have The
Heart to Do it and What We Need to Keep Gaining Are Those Skills. As We
Step into Every Situation, We Experience it and We Just Need to Keep
Open to That.

Lennon: Chief, I\'m Glad to Here That You Are a Champion of
Communication. How about Business Practices of The Forest Service?
Wouldn\'t You Say We must Be Able To Apply Good Business Practices To
Our Work, Especially in the Area of Financial Accountability? And with
That I Would like to Roll a Tape of Vincette Goerl, Our New Chief
Financial Officer Who Had Some Insightful Points For Us.

Goerl: It\'s a Little Bit About Where Are We Today. We\'re Facing Many
Challenges, And When I Look at Groups of Constituencies or Areas of
Concern out There, the First One Comes from Congress, and Their
Criticisms of Our Fiscal Accountability. It Is Very Extensive, and it
Gets Extremely Heated in the Last Couple of Months. It Is Not Going to
Clean up in The next Year. It Will Take a Dedicated Resource‑intensive
Approach for A Couple of Years, as Long as ‑‑ As Many as Three to Four.
And Then We\'ll Have to Keep it Up. The One Thing I Want to Leave You
With, It\'s Doable. This Is Being Done Across Government, Has Been Done,
Is in Progress. We Know What We Need to Do. And I Will Need All of Your
Attention and Support to Do It.

Lennon: Mike, Vincette Is Your Newest Member on the Executive Team, and
She Also Is Bringing on a New Idea, but an Important Idea of Fiscal
Management Accountability. Your Opinions on That?

Dombeck: You Know, George, as I Know I\'m in this Job about 21 Months,
the Biggest Challenge That the Forest Service Faces Today Is this Whole
Area of Accountability, of Fiscal Integrity and Business Management.
Because the American Public Expects Us to Be Able to Balance Our
Checkbook. The American Public Expects Us To Be Able to Get a Clean
Financial Audit, to Be Responsive to the 1991 Chief Financial Officer
Act, and to Apply the Same Business Management Practices to the United
States Government as Are Applied to the Private Sector, And Our
Decentralized Nature as An Organization Is Appropriate For a Natural
Resource Management, Because, Things Are Different Here in Region 3.
Things Are Different on the Mount Baker‑snoqualmie. Things Are Different
on the Various Wood Lots and the Southwest and Other Places. The Fact
Is, a Credit and a Debit the ‑‑ Is the Same Everyplace We Go. It\'s Our
Decentralized Nature That Is Causing this Problem and What We Have to Do
Is Put Systems in Place So We Can Provide Accurate Data, Balance Sheets
and So That Managers, Forest Supervisors ‑‑ I Have Yet To Have a Forest
Supervisor Tell Me That They Use National Finance Center Monthly Balance
Sheets to Keep Track of Your Budgets. So We\'re Essentially Running Dual
Systems, Which Is Expensive. So We Have to Get Beyond this. And the
Point I Want to Make Beyond Here and the One I Will Make to Everyone
There Is the Fact That Business Management Is Important. And Weaver\'
Got to Have an Equal Respect for Business Management As We Do for
Natural Resource Management. And I Know the Forest Supervisors, All the
Unit Managers Struggle with this Issue, and We\'ve Got to Get on Top of
It.

Bschor: I Was Very Impressed With Vincette and Her Strength And Her
Obvious Passion That ‑‑ To Really Get on Top of this Issue. I Think I
Can Speak from the Forest Supervisor\'s per Tiff. It\'s Been Years I
Have Been Want To Go Get a Simpler System. We Chase a Lot of Pennies
with Dollars, and the Sooner the Better, as Far as I\'m Concerned, We
Get on Top of That. She Said it Was a 25‑year‑old System That Just
Isn\'t Working Today and I Would Agree with That. I Think It\'s Time to
Change It. We Are in a Pilot Project Basically in Region 6 on Ffis, And
That Is ‑‑ That\'s Been ‑‑ I Understand Is Going to Be a Solution. Going
Through and it Trying to Develop and Working with It, Those ‑‑ It\'s
Been Frustrating. I Think You Need to Hear That. But I\'m Confident That
with Vincette\'s Leadership That She Is Going to Get Us to Get on Top Of
this.

Dombeck: Vincette Comes to Us, by the Way, You Know, from The Customs
Service Where She Managed a \$22 Billion Program And Got a Clean
Financial Audit. So We Are Just Delighted to Have Someone of Her Skill
and Tale Tonight Work with Us. We\'re Lucky to Have Her.

Agpaoa: I Wanted to Follow on What You Said, Denny, Is That We Do Really
Need a More Contemporary System, and One of The Reasons That We Do Is
What Was Brought up on the Last Couple of Days, Was the Sense That We
Are Doing a Different Kind of Work. We\'re Starting off on That. And a
Piece of That Is Collaboration. And When You Collaborate, You Don\'t
Necessarily Collaborate by Management Codes. You Know, You Collaborate
for an Outcome. So If We Could Even Get a System That Addresses That, it
Would Be Really Helpful.

Dombeck: I Agree Totally.

Lennon: for the Audience Viewing This, There Has Been Some Discussion
That Vincette And the Program That\'s Been Unfolding out of Washington
to Find Our Fiscal Security Has Been ‑‑ Has Been Costly Because It\'s
Taking Spaces off the Forest. How Would Either One of You Answer That?
And How Do You Feel about That? Is it Worth It? Is There Value Snoop.

Bschor: I Think ‑‑ My Opinion Is If She Can Fix this Problem, There\'s
Value to It. Lets Put the Resources Towards To it Fix It. I Would Think
Once We Fix It, it Would Save Us Money.

Dombeck: I Know There Are Concerns about this Issue and I Think One
Thing a Lot of Employees Don\'t Understand Is When We Downsized in the
Early \'90s, We Lost 1500 Positions in Admin but Didn\'t Change the
Work. It\'s Almost like What Do You Expect? And What We Have to Do Now
Is We\'ve Got to Make Some Short‑term Investments for Probably One, Two,
Three or Four Years and as Vincette Said, We\'re Already on the Road to
Recovery and Weaver\' Got to Take It Serious. We\'ve Got to Be Very
Deliberate. We\'ve Got to Have a Good Plan And Move out.

Bschor: Two Years Ago on the Mount Baker‑snoqualmie, We Went Through a
Work Force Planning Project and We Identified Many Of the Admin
Positions to Be Reduced, and We Started Getting Into Ibm Implementation
and into The Ffis Pilot Work, and We Backed off of That Very Quickly,
And I\'m Glad We Did, Because You Know, When You\'re Going Through A New
System, You Have a Learning Curve Anyway. So There\'s Some of That
Involved. I Think We\'ve Got to Be Sensitive to That and Realize That
There\'s Got to Be an Investment There and You May Need to Reprioritize
over the Next Few Years to Get it Done.

Mcdougle: I ‑‑ You Know, in Thinking about this Issue, We as An Agency
Are Getting a Better Sense of What Adaptive Resource Management Is, but
Adaptive Business Management Is Something Altogether Different,
Especially When You Have Systems That Are The Age That They Are and with
Technology Changing as Fast as It Is and the Need for Technology to
Change to Keep up With the Needs of Our Business. Somehow, Someway
We\'re Going to Have to Be Adaptive in Those Arenas, Too. And Maybe Look
at New Ways of Acquiring Information, Compiling Information and
Responding to The Needs Department and Others. We Do ‑‑ Keep in Mind, We
Do Have Probably One of the Most Diverse Missions in Any of the Land
Agencies and We Do Manage 191 Million Aers and We Do Have Many, Many
Activities. It Is Going to Be a Considerable Challenge to Do That. But
in Vincette\'s Words and I Trust Her, It\'s Doable. Another Thing I Took
Away from Her Discussion Was this Is Not An Issue That\'s Unique to the
Forest Service in Terms of Being Responsive to All Newt Statutes And All
the Requirements in this Regard in the Financial Arena. Other Agencies
Are Going Through This as Well, and So We\'re Trying to Be Part of Team
USDA And Meet Other Interagency Needs At the Same Time as Well as
Congress. And Speaking of Which, It\'s Very Difficult to Get Important
Accomplishments out There on the Table When All They Want to Talk About
Is Your Performance in This Arena. So the Sooner We Can Reduce the Angst
in Terms of Where We\'re Going There, We Can Broaden Our Communications
on the Things That We Really Want to Share With Them.

Dombeck: the Important Thing To Understand Is That What the Chief
Financial Officer Act of 1991 Basically Told Us Was That They Expect
Government to Use The Same Cpa Certifiable Accounting Standards and
Principles That Any Stockholder Would Require of a Privately Owned
Company. It\'s Fairly Simple and Straightforward. The Thing to Keep in
Mind Is We\'re a Large Organization. 75 Million Transactions a Month.
800 Data Entry Points. We Have to Get on with It.

Lennon: I Think That\'s a Good Segue into What Was a Significant Part of
the ‑‑ of Our Discussion During the Conference, and That Was on the
Recreation Strategy, and There Was a Tremendous Discussion, and By All
Account, it Was Excellent, and Some Good Points Were Made. I Think We
Have a Really Good ‑‑ Several Good Examples of Some of That Discussion.

Mcwilliams: Generally I\'m Very Supportive of What You Have Presented,
but One of the Key Things in this Sustainable Development Context Is the
Principle That Place Matters and We Are Trying Desperately in This
Agency to Link Sustainable Natural Resources and Everything That
Encompasses with Sustainable Communities and Everything That
Encompasses, and I Have to Say My General Impression Is That the
Listening Orientation Is a Bit of a Very Surface Treatment of What it
Means to Really Work with Communities and Understand How Recreation Fits
Within Their Vision of Their Future and What They Want And, Therefore,
Would Be Supportive of What We Want, And So I Think Part of What Still
Needs to Be Worked into This Process Is How Do We Really Get into a
Collaborative Mode With the Communities on this.

Mcdougle: What Ruth Said Was One of the ‑‑ I Think One of the Most
Important Remarks Made, Particularly in Regard to Communities, That
Could Transcend Any Activity That We Have Responsibility for Doing, That
as We Plan and Strategize Direction on Our National Forests, That There
Should Be Considerable Respect Given to The Desires of the Community as
To, One, Whether or Not They Want That Activity to Occur at All And,
Two, That They Help Frame What That Activity Is, Does, Looks like and
Their Role In It. This Is a Significant Paradigm Shift, in My Opinion,
of How We Go about Engaging Local People In Forest Service Decision
Making, and It\'s Something That Even Though We Have Made Considerable
Progress In, That We Keep in Front of Ourselves And We Keep in Front of
Our People. It\'s Another One of Those Things That, If You Don\'t, You
Know, What Are You Doing to the Progress of That Action? And in Terms of
Communities\'s Stability, Sustainable Communities, Those Kinds of
Things, Economic Assistance, and How You Can Do Activities and
Communities and Make it Lasting, Those Kinds of Things Are Increasingly
Important and an Increasing Number of Communities, and the to the Extent
That We Can Apply These Considerations in Everything We Do Involving
Communities. I Think it Strengthens the Outcome for the Agency as Well
As the People We Serve.

Agpaoa: What Janet Was Describing When Ruth Got up and Talked about That
Point, Recreation Is One of the Important Points of the Agenda And What
Was Really Impressive To Me and Maybe the Strength of The Conference,
Was That Even Though Everyone Knew this Is Where We Want to Go, We All
Felt That, Well, I Think Most of the Speakers, There Was this Common
Thread That Before We Set out There, We Have a Learning Point Here That
We Learned with a Lot Of Other Areas in Grazing and Timber. We Need to
Have Our Communities That Are Affected by These Actions along with Us,
and I Was Really Impressed That Five Years Ago I Don\'t Know If That
Would Have Happened. And for One, People Spoke up and Said Their Piece.
And the Other Part, the Piece Was about Communities. I Thought That Was
Wonderful.

Dombeck: There Was an Important Linkage Here and I Was Impressed with
Robert Schulman\'s Presentation on Marketing, and To Most of Us,
Marketing Is Advertising, but the Fact Is the Most Important of
Marketing Is Understanding What People\'s Needs Are, Understanding What
The Need Is and Then Filling That Need, and That\'s Listening And
Listening to the Communities.

Bschor: and Another Important Part of That Marketing Is the Goods and
Services Side as Far As What Kinds of Goods and Services Do We Provide,
What Niche Do We Have in That Market, And How That Fits with Matching Up
with the People\'s Needs and Desires, Too and I Think Schulman Is Moving
in That Direction.

Dombeck: I Was Impressed with Skip Could Goland\'s Point. Skip, I Think,
Said it Best in That, What Our ‑‑ Our Market Niche Is That We Provide
Natural Settings, Open Space, Large Unfragmented Landscapes and I Think
That in a Sense Says it All. Private Sector Doesn\'t Have That.

Lennon: That\'s a Good Transition for Another Segment. We Have an
Interesting Comment From Janette Kaiser.

Kaiser: I Think That We Have To Be Real Careful. I Think There Is a
Fundamental Dialogue That Has to Take Place Here Because We\'re Kind of
Moving along with the Old Trappings of Very Functional Approach to
Things. I Think If We as an Agency Buy Into the Resource Agenda, Then
It\'s Not Recreation\'s Role to Feed Us Recreation, but Recreation
Becomes Everyone\'s Role. So State and Private and Wildlife and Forest
and Health And Everyone, Including Research, Needs to Be a Part of
Building What Recreation Is to Us, and I Think That\'s What You\'re
Hearing Here, Is People Feel like They\'re Being Talked To a Little Bit
and It\'s Not a Criticism. Because I Think There Is a Lot Of Wonderful
Work. But I Think That Dialogue Could Help Us Move Forward Together
Instead of Separate.

Lennon: Great Observation by Janette.

Bschor: What Janette Was Referring to Was Responses to The Recreation
Strategy That Was Presented and It\'s in Draft Form, by the Way, and I
Think That There Was a Lot in There That I Hope People Will Take and It
Read and it Still Give Us Some Feedback. It Was a Perfect Opportunity to
Have the Whole National Leadership Team plus the Diagonal Section of the
Forest Service There to Give Us Input And Dialogue and it Was Fan it Is
a Particular. What Was Really Neat Was to See The Passion Again and the
Real Interest and Everyone Just Fighting for the Microphone to Give
Their Input. I Think It\'s Going to Be a Real Good Starting Point or
Jumping Off Point Now to Move the Recreation Strategy Forward. The Other
Thing I Want to Say Is That Integration, the Strategy Itself Was Built
with the Intent That it Wouldn\'t Be Functional, That it Is Part of the
Whole Four‑point Agenda. It Crosses Over, and into Roads And to Healthy
Ecosystems and Into Restoration. So That Was the Intent of the Package.
If We\'re Not There Yet, Which I Heard We\'re Close but We Had to Do
Some More. I Was Really Encouraged with That Whole Discussion and Felt
It Was a Great Opportunity.

Dombeck: We Talk about Ecosystems Being Boundaryless And I Think
Janette\'s Point Was The Organization Needs to Be Boundaryless, That We
Are Too Functional and We Have to Blur The Boundaries Between State and
Private, Between Research and Really Work Together.

Bschor: in Fact, to Me, State And Private and Research Both Are Just
Critical to Implementing Any Program, Especially When You Start Talking
Communities and Getting The Right Information out and State and Private
Has So Many Tools That I Think a Lot of Folks in the Field Could Be
Using and May Not Even Know About Them, and I Think We Heard A Lot about
That this Week.

Mcdougle: When Mike Mentioned Earlier That the ‑‑ the Comments That Skip
Cogland Made about the Settings, I Think about Forest Health Conditions
in Terms of Janette\'s Remarks and That, You Know, If We Have One of Our
Most Pristine Areas That\'s Most Popular to the Public or That\'s By a
Very Popular Scenic by Way That\'s Being Ravaged by Some Moth That We
Can\'t Seem to Eradicate, That\'s a Problem. That\'s a Problem Not Only
in Terms of the Health of That Forest, but That\'s a Problem ‑‑ That Has
a Ripple Effect in Terms of the Use of Those Areas, And So, Yes, it Is a
Forest Health Issue in Terms of the Importance of Recreation. Yes, If
Watchable Wildlife Is on The Rise, and this Is Something That We All Can
Contribute to And Enhance and I Think That\'s What She Was Getting At,
the Value That We Could Add. The Grasslands, for Instance, in Terms of
the Increasing Value That That\'s Having for Our Publics on a Recreation
Basis. One of the Things That We Got Into this Week Was the Social
Research Associated with Recreation and the Number of Activities, the
Different Kinds Of Activities That the American Public Is Asking of Us.
Even Identified as What May Be ‑‑ Baby Boomers Want and the Prebaby
Boomers Want and the 20 And under Want and It\'s a Lot of Stuff, and in
Order to Be Responsive to What the Public Demands and Our Niche in It,
and We\'re Going to Have to Take a Look Collectively at All of That To
See How Smart We Need to Be In Providing That Service to Them. But, Yes,
That Was a Real Good Comment Because I Think What She Was Saying Is We
All Can Add Value.

Dombeck: Janette\'s Point About Communities Also Cuts Across a Lot of
Lines. The Private Landowners and Others. If You Look at Sustainable
Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Management, If You Take a Look At
Watersheds, this Just Doesn\'t Apply to Just the National Forest System.
It Applies to All the Forests of The United States.

Lennon: for Many People at The Conference, the Recreation Strategy Needs
to Better Reflect The Human Connection to the Land. This Is Described
Eloquently by Pete Roussopolous of the Southern Station.

Roussopolous: I\'m Not a Recreation Specialist, but I Am An Avid
Recreation Person and I Wanted ‑‑ Actually I Want to Make Two Comments
but I Will Limit Myself to One of Them Right Now. I Applaud the Group\'s
Efforts to Bring a Sound Business Basis to The Recreation Strategy Here.
I Think this Will Go down in History as the Greatest Contribution of
this Point in History with Recreation Management. And I Have Been a
Strong Advocate for a Long Time for This. Linda Donahue Accuses Me of
Using My Left Brain Too Much, And I\'m Going to Have to Confess To Maybe
Some Hypocrisy Right Now Because I Am Going to Let The Right Brain out a
Little Bit. I Am a Little Worried about Maybe Losing Touch with the
Human Dimension of this That Goes Beyond Caring for the Land, And Let Me
Illustrate with That A Recent Experience I Had with My Son in the
Boundary Waters Canoe Area. He\'s 27 Years Old and He Took ‑‑ Invited Me
to Come up to Minnesota Where He Lives Now to Show Me the Land up There.
When I Was a Kid I Grew up in Minnesota, Too, and When I Didn\'t Have a
Hockey Stick in My Hand, it Was a Canoe Paddle. Spent My Summers in the
Boundary Waters Area and Did 10 Years of Research on the Superior, and
He Was Showing Me His Land. When I Told My Dad about That on the Phone
out in California, He Said, Oh, You\'ve Been up in My Country, Huh? Here
Is a Piece of Real Estate, A Forest Service Recreational Site, That Ties
Three Generations in My Family Together, it Brings the Three of Us Very,
Very Close Together. I Expect There Are a Whole Number of Families in
this Room And in the American Population That Have the Same Kind of an
Experience and Tie to the Land. I Expect That There Are a Whole Lot of
Other Human Values That Are Served by the Kinds of Opportunities That
this Organization Can Provide in the Realm of Recreation. And I Hope
That We Won\'t Lose Touch with Those Things. Part of the Purpose, Part
of the Motivation for Our Business Here, Is to Elevate the Human
Condition, and It\'s Not Just a Business Proposition. It\'s Not Just
Filling a Market Niche. There Is a Higher Purpose to Be Served. And I
Hope That We Can Through This Program and Many Others That We Do Improve
Life for Americans and Improve the Human Condition.

Lennon: What Great Setup, as We Start to Wind down from this Conference.
Mike, I Turn Back to You on Thoughts on Pete and What He Laid out for Us
to Think about.

Dombeck: Well, I Always Appreciate Pete, Because He Has A Way of Saying
Things That Really Capture One\'s Attention. It\'s about Values, the
Values, What Do People Value Forests For, Not Only National Forests, But
All Forests, the Water, the Wildness, the Naturalness, the Open Space,
What We Can Do for Future Generations and How That Cuts Across
Generations. Just a Wonderful Statement.

Agpaoa: Pete Said He Apologized for Going to His Right Brain and I Wish
He Would Go to His Right Brain More Often. It must Be When That
Researcher Goes to the Right Brain You Get These Magical Moments. I Love
Him and I Appreciate Him. Boy, How Can You Really Add on That. But I
Just ‑‑ What That Left Me With, That Was One of Those Just Heart‑felt
Portions of the Last Two Days, and Those Are the Kinds of Things That I
Think About Internally for Our Employees on Why They Love the Work They
Do. There Are Some Days, Maybe Ibm Isn\'t Working Right or You Have
Another Appeal or Litigation, And it Just Is a Rotten Day. You Can Still
Go Out, Jump over The Hill and Walk down to a Beautiful Riparian Area or
You Can Do What We Did Last Evening And Be Sitting on a Beautiful Lake
in the Desert with These Desert, You Know, Stars Coming Through. It\'s
Just Gorgeous. And So I Just Really Appreciated His Comments and I\'m
Going to Remember Them for a Long Time.

Bschor: I Would like to Echo That, and He Also Described a Perfect
Outcome‑based Goal Oriented Strategy, Whatever You Want to Call It. If
We Can Keep in That Mind with All Our Programs, Focus on What\'s
Positive, What\'s Go, the Good We\'re Doing Rather than Totally Focusing
on the Rocks And the River, We\'ll Get Through Anything. That\'s a Great
Philosophy and I Applaud Him.

Mcdougle: I ‑‑ Those Comments, Pete Was Absolutely Right, and I Would
Say That Everybody Around this Table Has Done Things, Been Places, Seen
Parts of the Landscape That Were Magical and Downright Spiritual. What
Comes to Mind Immediately Is Floating down the Snake River Through
Hell\'s Canyon a Couple Of Years Ago, Which Was Very, Very Special Thing
to Me. One of the Things That We Did Learn in Terms of Our Social
Research Statistics this Week Was That Only 8% of the U.s. Population
Enjoys What We Have, And When We Talk about Those Values and Being Able
to Affect The Human Condition, Something Is Going to Have to Be Done
Differently and I Don\'t Necessarily Have the Answer to That, but We
Need to Broaden Our Efforts So That We Can Provide Some Experiences to a
Broader Segment of Our Public. Somehow, Someway, More Aggressively
Conduct Outreach to Some of Our Nontraditional Publics.

Lennon: Thank You Janice. Undersecretary Jim Lyons Participated with Us
on the Three Days of the Conference. On the First Day He Posed a
Question That Gets to the Essence of What Our National Resource Agenda
Is about.

Lyons: the Question Is What Do You Want Your Colleagues to Know Five
Years from Now When You Meet at Another National Leadership Conference?
I Honestly Doubt It\'s Going to Be How Many Times You Met Your Targets.
Or How You Spent Your Budget, Your Inputs. That\'s Probably Not What\'s
Going To Matter. More Likely It\'s Going to Be, as Mike and I Have Said
for Many Times, It\'s Going to Be for What You Left Behind, for the
Courageous Decisions That You Made, and for the Conservation Legacy That
You Leave.

Lennon: Before You Go to Closing, Any Other Thoughts or Comments, Before
I Turn Back to Mike?

Agpaoa: Well ‑‑ One Thing I\'m Still Reflecting on Is What Pete Had Said
about Following the Line, and When Mike Opened up The Conference, You
Talked about A Visit to the Did He Shoots National Forest and They Said
We Don\'t Want Our Forests to Look Lie Clear Cuts or Catastrophic
Burnover Areas. They Want Something That Looks Natural. It\'s Very
Complicated. When I Think of What Pete Said, I Think of We Do Know How
to Follow the Line. We Have the Heart and the People And the Skills at a
Level to Do That, and So I Am Really Optimistic That We Can Do That.
I\'m Very Pleased to See the Enthusiasm and the Engagement of The Folks
this Week and for Your Sincerity, Mike, in Laying out That Agenda with
Us. Thank You.

Bschor: We Have a Very Complex Mission to Provide as Far as Goods and
Services and It\'s Not Going to Be Easy. It\'s Not Going to Be Without
Controversy. But I Really Feel That the Four‑point Agenda That We\'re
Following ‑‑ Somebody Made the Point It\'s Not the Chief\'s Four‑point
Agenda, It\'s the Forest\'s Service Four‑point Agenda ‑‑ Will Give Us
the Folk Us to Propel into Us the 21st Century in an Effective and
Positive Way, I Think.

Mcdougle: for Those People Who Say, \"I Don\'t Know How to Go Home and
Implement This,\" I Say That for the Funding Proposals, From the Field
to Implement the Forest Service Agenda, There Are Over 900, and We Were
Only Able To Select 100. I Think That Tells Us That There Are a Heck of
a Lot of People Out There That Know What this Means. And That\'s a
Positive, Positive Message. People Who Are Doing it Already On the
Ground. The Other Thing Is That Michael Rains Made a Comment this
Morning, and He Says, Mike, You\'re Viewed as Chief of the Forest
Service, When in Actuality, Because the Forest Service Is the Preeminent
World‑class Forestry Agency, That You Are the Chief Forester Of the
United States, and I Think That If We Look at What That Means,
Cross‑ownerships in Terms of Forestry in the Future, We Will Look at it
Very Differently, and the One Thing That I Would Hope That as We Move to
Corporately Implement The Forest Service Agenda, the One Thing That
We\'ll Look Back On Is That We Learned That We All Have to Hang Together
to Do It.

Lennon: Mike, Let Me Step in As a Panelist Instead of a Moderator. Do
You See Future Conferences Like This, Expanded Conferences With the
Cross‑cutting of All Agency Employees? Or Do You See Returning to the
Model of the Senior Leadership?

Dombeck: We\'ve Got to Embrace All the Ideas of the Organization. In
Fact, the Very Purpose of This Broadcast Is to ‑‑ I Believe this Is
Probably the First Time Ever That a Cross Section of the Organization
Has Got Together to Talk to All the Employees That Were Able to Get In
Front of Tv Sets and Listen And We\'re Going to Have Videos, And We Need
to Gather All of That and Listen Very Carefully As an Organization.
It\'s like Bob Joslin Said, He Said it Best, We Need to Talk Less and
Listen More.

Lennon: What Great Line. Unfortunately We\'re Almost out Of Time. Some
Final Thoughts, Mike?

Dombeck: on the Eve of the 21st Century, Our Challenge Is To Demonstrate
That Through Our Management Actions, Through Our Research, Conservation
Leadership, and How Society Lives in Productive Harmony with The Land,
with the Resources and Values That Sustain Us, this Is Our Land Ethic.
You Know, the Forest Service Was Where the Land Ethic Started. The
Forests and the Grasslands And the Private Forests and the Urban Forests
Are All Important To the American Public, and the Forests and Grasslands
of the Future That I See Are Models for Ecological Sustainability. We
Have the Best Talent in the World. The Forests of the Future That I See
Contain Healthy Watersheds That Properly Catch, Store and Release Water
over Time. The Forests and Grasslands of The Future That I See Provide
For a Wide Array of Cultural, Educational, Recreational and Economic
Opportunities for the American People. The Forests and Grasslands of The
Future That I See Are an Internationally Known Model for Demonstrating
How Mankind Can Live in Productive Harmony with The Land. Again, the
Land Ethic. And the Forests and Grasslands Of the Future That I See Are
Healthy and Productive, Diverse Ecosystems. And the Forest Service of
the Future Will Be a Place Where Employees of All Races and All
Backgrounds Are Treated with Decency and Respect. And the Forest Service
of the Future Will Be a Place Where We Are an Innovative Organization
Known for Our Research, for Our Creative Thinking and for Our Acceptance
and Leadership of New Ideas. And the Forest Service of the Future That I
See Is an Agency Widely Known and Respected for Its Conservation Agenda.
And the Forest Service of the Future That I See Is an Agency That Has
Earned the Gratitude of Future Generations for Help to Go Reestablish a
Land Ethic, a Land Ethic That Reconnects People with the Land That
Sustains Us All. I Want to Say That a Touching Thing Happened to Me
Yesterday Around the Campfire at Bartlett Lake and I Hope That You All
Felt the Same Way. I Know Many People That Were at The Meeting Did and
That Was the Native American Ceremony That Ended under the Stars of the
Desert on Bartlett Lake, and That\'s That You\'re Managing, I\'m
Managing, We\'re All Managing for Seven Generations. We Need Your Help.
Thank You.

Lennon: Thank You, Mike. Thanks Again to Liz, Janice and Denny for Being
with Us Here in The Studio this Afternoon. On Behalf of All of Us,
Thanks For Watching, and So Long from Phoenix. This Broadcast Has Been a
Production of the BLM National Training Center.