Posted: November 29th, 2005

Tina Terrell must meet assortment of demands
By J. Harry Jones
San Diego Union Tribut Staff Writer

November 25, 2005

Tina Terrell is supervisor of the Cleveland National
Forest. Much of it is in San Diego County.
The Cleveland National Forest, as national forests go,
is about as close as you can get to an urban
wilderness.

Twenty million people plus live within a few hours’
drive.

For Tina Terrell, who grew up near the projects of
urban Philadelphia, it’s a perfect match.

Just over a year ago, Terrell, 41, was appointed
supervisor of the 434,000-acre forest, much of which
lies within San Diego County.

Kids who have never seen snow before go sledding in
her mountains. Campers flock to the various
campgrounds. Hikers dot the trails and sightseers
travel the roads.

“I’m in the business of people management,” Terrell
said recently during a lengthy interview at the
forest’s headquarters in Rancho Bernardo. Her answers
came fast. Those who know her describe her as having
“high energy.”

Graphic: Protected forest
“Tina has a long-standing commitment to working with
urban audiences. She’s a real good fit down there,”
said Matt Mathis, spokesman for all the national
forests in California.

“She’s considered to be a big success. She’s come a
long way in a short time.”

Terrell is charged with protecting the 24 endangered
species of animals and plants in the forest, and
making it safer by reducing fire risks. But she also
has to meet the recreational demands of a diverse
group of users, and appease all its various neighbors
� the Cleveland forest has no less than nine.

On its boundaries are state parks, federal Bureau of
Land Management property, county parks, private
property, numerous Indian reservations, county open
space preserves, Camp Pendleton, and growing
communities such as Alpine and Ramona.

Terrell is in charge of 440 employees — about one
for every 10,000 acres — and these days spends much
of her time in meetings and making speeches.

That’s a long way from her beginnings in the Forest
Service, which started more than 20 years ago when she
was attending Penn State University — a place she
always wanted to go to because of legendary football
coach Joe Paterno. Her mother would sit Terrell and
her two sisters in front of the television every
Saturday to watch the Nittany Lions play.

When she entered college, Terrell had plans to become
a mechanical engineer, but quickly changed majors to
environmental resource management.

Near the end of her first year, a friend got a call
from a Forest Service employee who was looking to
recruit minorities majoring in forestry. But there
weren’t any. So the friend suggested the service might
want to recruit from Terrell’s field.

That resulted in an internship for Terrell, which
involved taking a train and two buses to her first job
at a Forest Service experimental station outside
Philadelphia.

Every summer after that, until her graduation with a
bachelor’s degree in forest science in 1987, she would
spend her days counting trees as part of a national
forest inventory analysis program.

She remembers watching someone cut down a diseased
60-year-old white oak her first summer.

“I thought it was amazing for man to have such power
that it could kill such a huge thing,” Terrell said.
“That’s when I decided I wanted to be a forester.”

Between 1984 and 1989, Terrell counted trees all over
the eastern United States — eight states in all.

“The first thing I realized is that foresters get up
way too early,” she said. “I’m still struggling with
that 20 years later.”

To this day, Terrell remains the only African-American
to graduate with a forestry degree from Penn State,
and she is one of two black female supervising
foresters in the Pacific Southwest Region, which
includes 18 forests, all in California.

In the 1990s, she worked in a laboratory in Sacramento
and then as a minority recruiter for the Forest
Service, based at Tuskegee University in Alabama.

In 1997, she was made a district ranger at Tonto
National Forest in Arizona, a position she held for
three years until becoming a legislative specialist
for the service in Washington, D.C.

She said she spent her time there “educating Congress
about the Forest Service and forest issues.”

Last year, she was made supervisor of the Cleveland
National Forest.

Terrell gives much credit to her mother for her
success. She said her mother instilled in her a work
ethic by example. She was the best salesperson at a
major Philadelphia department store for decades,
Terrell said.

“People would come from all over the country to stand
in her line.”

Recently, a 15-year land management plan for the
Cleveland forest was completed. It stresses the need
for active management for the maintenance of healthy
forests, including the continuation of programs to
remove dead and dying trees that pose a fire threat.

Most of the existing uses in the national forest are
expected to continue under the plan. For example,
existing cabins will continue to be a valid use. There
are few plans for building new roads or recreational
sites.

“Most of the development that might be expected to
occur on the national forest has occurred,” the report
says. “The forest transportation systems have been
built, and much expansion should not occur. The
decision is based on the concept of gradual change
over time, expanding or improving the capacity of
existing facilities before building new ones.”

Terrell is happy to be where she is. The Forest
Service is like a big family, she said, that has
watched over her and helped her along the way.

“I love the United States. I’ve seen things I never
dreamed I would get to see and do things I never
dreamed I would get to do.”