I'm Gail Strav and you're listening to She Explorers, a podcast for and about

inquisitive women in the outdoors on the road and besides. In this episode we'll

hear from women who currently work or who have worked in the National Park or Forest Service.

When I decided to create this episode, I didn't really have an agenda.

It came out of a place of curiosity.

These are two government agencies

that I don't know a whole lot about,

but I do know that the work they do is important.

I put out a call for women to submit their stories in hopes to put a

face to the women who spend their days in the forest, doing trail maintenance or collecting

seed samples or facing the public as a park ranger.

I learned that there are countless roles

and that there is no one experience to be had.

I also discovered that there are ways these agencies could work to recruit and retain a more diverse workforce.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I want to stress that I'm not a reporter and that the opinions provided by the women featured are all their own.

I didn't hear from anyone with experience in the Bureau of Land Management or Fish and Wildlife.

So this episode is purely devoted to the US Forest Service and the National Park Service.

To kick things off, let's run through some of the distinctions between the two agencies.

I mean, I think people do think that they're all one entity, which they are not,

and understanding that the Department of the Interior runs the Park Service

which has very different goals and visions for the parks than the Department of Agriculture does

...