Forest service chief to speak

The chief of the U.S. Forest Service will give a free public talk Tuesday, March 28.

Michael Dombeck will speak on “The Forest Service: The World’s Largest Water Company” beginning at 5 p.m. in 145 Birge Hall.

Dombeck, the agency’s top administrator since 1997, has called watershed restoration and maintenance the “oldest and highest calling of the Forest Service” and deemed it one of the agency’s top priorities.

National forests are the largest single source of fresh water in the United States, according to a new Forest Service report. “In a very real sense,” says Dombeck, “the national forests are the headwaters of the nation.”

A Wisconsin native, Dombeck worked as a fishing guide in central Wisconsin for 11 summers while completing undergraduate and graduate degrees in biological sciences and education at the UW-Stevens Point and the University of Minnesota. He earned his doctorate in fisheries biology from Iowa State University and is noted for research contributions on muskies and lake habitat management.

Dombeck spent 12 years with the Forest Service, primarily in the Midwest and West, before moving to Washington, D.C., in 1987 to manage its National Fisheries Program. He also has served as a legislative fellow in the U.S. Senate and as acting director of the federal Bureau of Land Management from 1994 to 1997.

His lecture is cosponsored by the Institute for Environmental Studies, School of Natural Resources, Department of Forest Ecology and Management, and Department of Wildlife Ecology. For more information, call (608) 263-5599.