Please join us for the next connections coffee chat! We will have Austin Dane, Minnesota DNR Training and Recruitment Coordinator and Shawna Carr, DNR Forestry Specialist to talk about how to work for the DNR.
Register here: https://umn.zoom.us/meeting/register/RVk0d6qpQX6HG1pVfncP6A#/registration
Bios:
Shawna Carr (She/They) I am a forester just beginning my career. Despite growing up in central North Carolina, I went to Michigan Tech for my post-secondary education. While there, I became a research technician for a pair of graduate students and their professor. This work included tree mapping old growth hemlock stands and collecting baseline data to test silvicultural treatments' effects on the adaptive capacity of a hardwood forest in the face of climate change. My last summer in college, I interned at the MN DNR out of Little Falls. The summer of 2024, I graduated and came right back! I've now been here for just over a year, continuing to learn the ropes in the Onamia office and the Rum River State Forest.
Austin Dane (He/Him) I began working in the forest industry in 2012 as a logging equipment operator in a small conventional logging company. In that same year, I also began working as a smokechaser (wildland firefighter) for the MN DNR, Forestry Division. For the next several years, I would work winters in the woods operating equipment and any snow-free months were spent fighting wildfire across the state and country. In 2016 I joined MN DNR Forestry full time as a Fire Response Lead in Northeast MN, where I began working in fire aviation and training. During those years I had the opportunity to work in every facet of our state's wildland firefighting operations, and assist in training state, federal, and international partners. After 10 years fighting fire, I accepted a position in 2022 with the Minnesota North College, Vermilion Campus as a Library and Learning Mangement Systems Specialist. In 2023 I returned to MN DNR as the Division of Forestry's Recruitment and Training Coordinator. In this role, I serve the Division through strategic recruitment and development of our workforce. The best part about my job is sharing in the excitement of our new foresters as they begin their career!