Gail Kimbell
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Abigail R. Kimbell is a forest administrator in the United States. She currently serves as the 16th Chief and first female Chief of the US Forest Service.
[edit] Biography
Kimbell was raised New England, where she spent her formative years hiking, fishing, and camping on the White Mountain National Forest. She received a bachelor's degree in forest management from the University of Vermont in 1974 and later a master's degree in forest engineering from Oregon State University.
She worked as a seasonal employee before beginning her Federal forestry career in 1974 with the Bureau of Land Management in Medford, Oregon. She then joined the Forest Service as a pre-sale forester in Kodiak, Alaska, in 1977. She next worked in Oregon as a logging engineer and then a district planner. She served as a district ranger in Kettle Falls, Washington on the Colville National Forest from 1985-88, and on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in La Grande, Oregon, from 1988-91, and as forest supervisor of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska (1992-97) and the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming (1997-99).
From 1999-2002, Kimbell was the forest supervisor for the Pike and San Isabel National Forests and the Comanche National Grassland—all in Colorado—as well as the Cimarron National Grassland in Kansas. In May 2002, Kimbell began work as the associate deputy chief for the National Forest System lands in the Forest Service Washington, DC headquarters. During her tenure as associate deputy chief, Gail's leadership was instrumental in helping to carry out the Healthy Forests Initiative and she provided support in the development of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.
In December 2003, Kimbell was named as the Regional Forester for the Northern Region located in Missoula, Montana. She assumed her current position as Chief of the US Forest Service on February 5, 2007.
Kimbell is a member of the Society of American Foresters.
