Adventures with Leanne Veldhuis, 2020 PMF Alumna of the Year
Leanne flies over the record-breaking Grizzly Creek fire in 2020.
Leanne Veldhuis has excelled as a facilitator among different organizations, agencies, and employees at each stage of her federal career. Knitting together processes and negotiating shared resources can get tense. But Leanne has learned to keep calm and focused on the issue in front of her, allowing her to extinguish conflagrations both figurative and literal. Despite the challenges of her day job, Leanne still made time to invest in the PMF community that gave her extraordinary career in public service its start. She was named 2020 PMF Alumna of the Year at the PMF Honorary Awards in recognition of her tireless investment in her colleagues and protegees.
A job with plenty of nature
After graduating from UC Santa Barbara’s Environmental Science and Management Master’s Degree program, Leanne was drawn to a posting with the US Forest Service’s Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail (PCT) program in California. When she got the call extending the offer, she was given just 24 hours to decide. Leanne tried to give this major decision the reflection and analysis it deserved, but how could she say no? The PCT boasts the most wilderness miles of the 11 National Scenic Trails. It stretches 2,650 miles from the Mexican border up through deserts, mountains, and bear country, all the way to Canada. Working the PCT would be just the right mix of adventure and career growth that Leanne hoped for as she joined in the Presidential Management Fellows 2010 Class.
Out of the office in Vallejo, CA, Leanne worked on the PCT’s Scenery Mitigation Policy, a piece of guidance with wide-reaching implications. Planned wind farms, communication towers, buildings, and other developments are constantly threatening to undercut the PCT’s pristine viewshed (an area that is visible from a certain vantage point). With the policy in place, Leanne and her colleagues could work with developers to, for example, paint buildings in forest shades, design tower morphology to resemble nearby trees, or strike other compromises to preserve the trail’s assets.
Leanne poses with Smokey Bear during a hike on the Pacific Crest Trail.
Leanne had the great luck to work for Beth Boyst, a widely admired Forest Service employee with a knack for developing new employees. Beth impressed upon Leanne the importance of co-management. Just because federal employees are in charge of something, doesn’t mean they are the only ones who care -- the local community cares just as much, if not more, and plays a key role in shaping the direction of public assets like national forests.
Working on the trail also meant liaising with the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA), the major nonprofit partner that helps preserve and promote the PCT. Together with the PCTA, Leanne and her colleagues helped manage land acquisition of parcels near the PCT, protecting and enhancing its appeal. Collaborating with the patchwork of state, local, and national entities related to the trail was a constant reminder to Leanne that federal agencies never accomplish much alone. It takes persistent engagement at every step to manage and maintain nature’s beauty against natural disaster and manmade incursions.
Leanne with thousands of albatross on Midway Atoll Nat’l Wildlife Refuge during her PMF detail.
New adventures
The next few years of Leanne's career were characterized by jumping on new opportunities and adventures, while honing critical facilitation and management skills. During her PMF rotation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Hawaii, Leanne helped define, and deescalate, the sometimes contentious relationship among federal and state entities that co-manage the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Leanne then converted as a PMF to Mt. Hood National Forest Zigzag Ranger District in Oregon, where she managed her first team of professionals. Eventually, some 6 years into her federal career, Leanne came east to DC, where she joined the Forest Service’s National Partnership Office.
After 4 years in her National Partnership Coordinator role, Leanne started applying to District Ranger vacancies, knowing that the role would incorporate many of the things she loves most about working in the Forest Service. In a truly small-world moment, she was selected to the very station, Colorado’s White River National Forest’s Eagle-Holy Cross District, where Beth Boyst had spent so many of her own formative years.
Leanne’s new role at Eagle-Holy Cross, overseeing some 40 employees in the collective management of roughly 700,000 acres of some of the most popular national forest land in the country, was bound to test her. But she couldn’t have anticipated just how unprecedented and immediate the challenges would be. In a year when pandemic lockdowns had people stuck inside and stir crazy, national forests, including the White River, were experiencing record numbers of visitors. To see so many folks enjoying nature’s bounty was thrilling. But when trail traffic is up 60 to 70 percent, sustainability becomes a real concern.
Then, when Leanne had been in the job 4 weeks, the Grizzly Creek Fire roared to life. The conflagration forced several communities to evacuate, shut down Interstate 70 for 2 weeks, threatened the water supply of Glenwood Springs, and turned large swaths of the nationally-recognized scenic Glenwood Canyon into charred hillside. The fire was unprecedented, and Leanne stepped in as a trainee for the “agency administrator” role which helps bring together local first responders, wildland firefighters, state and local agencies, and other authorities to respond to the fire in a coordinated and effective way.
Investing in PMFs
Just before heading out west last summer, Leanne was named as OPM’s PMF Alumna of the Year. She was nominated by her colleagues for the impact of her mentorship on other PMFs’ careers, as well as her unyielding advocacy for the program. They appreciate her advice, willingness to help them problem-solve, and dedication to making sure new PMFs have an unparalleled experience at the Forest Service. As a member of the Forest Service’s PMF Advisory Board since 2016, Leanne has helped the agency hire some 60 PMFs, with more to come.
Leanne’s approach throughout her career, confronting each challenge she encounters as an opportunity to grow and adventure to be seized, as well as her continual reinvestment in the PMF community, serve as great examples for us all as we strive to make the civil service the best it can be.
Leanne approaching the summit of Mt. Hood.