Breadcrumb
Meet our Alumni
Forestry & Wildland Resources degrees have given alumni opportunities to work in their field around the world.
Some Forestry & Wildland Resources alumni have gone on to graduate schools. Others are making a difference as a forester in Oregon, a CalFire captain in California, and a Rangeland Management Specialist in Nevada.
Forestry
Range & Soils
Alumni Updates
Michael M O'Boyle
Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1971
Michael O'Boyle, Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1971, spent 16 years with the USDA Soil Conservation Service, and ended up as a district conservationist. He then served in New Mexico and California. Afterward, O'Boyle completed 20 years with the Madera County Animal Control Department in California, retiring in 2010.
John R. Hawkins
Forestry & Wildland ResourcesAA Fire Science, Butte Community College, 1969
John Hawkins, Upland, 1969, retired from CAL FIRE in December 2018 after serving 55 fire seasons and finishing his career for the last 12 years as the CAL FIRE Riverside Unit/Riverside County Fire Department Fire Chief. Hawkins commanded many of California's major fires over his career, served as a Type 1 Incident Commander on 3 teams and an Operations Section Chief on a federal Type 1 team. Hawkins was recognized as a Certified Fire Chief and graduated from the National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program. He is living in SoCal and working part-time as a Wildland Fire Consultant for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Michael T. Rains
Forestry & Wildland ResourcesWatershed Management, 1968
Michael T. Rains, 1968 Forestry, recently retired from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service after 48 years of public service. Rains began his career as a wildland firefighter and rose through the ranks to become deputy chief for the agency. His last assignment with the Forest Service was director of the Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory. Rains is known for his authorship role in the National Fire Plan for the Department of Agriculture and advancing biomass uses—cellulose nanomaterials, green building construction, advanced wood for energy —as a way to help America's forests become more resilient to disturbances. Along the way, Rains earned a master’s degree in Secondary Education and now enjoys substitute teaching math and science at the middle school level in Pennsylvania.
Rick Hoffmann
Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1968
After two careers - Entomology Research (UC Berkeley) and Science teacher, I have retired from full time employment. I now work as a Science Education consultant, substitute teach, and tutor students in science.
William Chilson
Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1967
For the past 10 years, William Chilson, Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1967 has been working in the renewable energy industry with a focus on development of utility scale power plants. His current position is Director of Siting and Real Estate with Candela Renewables. Candela Renewables develops solar power plants throughout the United States.
Robert A Nisbet
Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1965
Bob Nisbet built on the strong foundation provided in his Forest Management training at HSU to complete an MS in Ecology from San Diego State University in 1969 in Chaparral Ecology and a PhD in Physiological Desert Plant Ecology at Arizona State University in 1972. After many years of research in modeling forest growth under simulated global warming conditions at UC-Santa Barbara (UCSB), he entered the new developing field of Data Mining at AT&T in 1994, focusing on the use of machine learning algorithms to predict customer behavior actions in Telecommunications companies. He retired from Santa Barbara Bank & Trust in 2009 as an Assistant VP of Technical Services, and promptly became bored. He spent the next 10 years teaching Data Science subjects remotely to international students in the UC-Irvine Data Science Certificate Program (a professional certificate comparable to about a half of an MS program). He is retired (finally) in Goleta, CA, near UCSB. He is the coauthor of 3 books in Data Science for Academic Press.
Carlton Yee
Forestry & Wildland Resources, 1964
After 13 years in Central Oregon, Judi and I recently moved to the Boise, ID area. We love it here with a bigger city and a State more politically attuned to our views. We summer here and winter in the Las Vegas area. I have been retired for 11 years now and am hoping to live long enough to be a problem for CALPERS.