New BLM field manager on the job
Published 12:00 am Saturday, September 12, 2015
- New BLM field manager on the job
In 2000, Jeff Kitchens spent the summer as a forester in Central Oregon, discovering places he still lists among his favorites.
“I had one of the greatest jobs on Earth,” he said Friday. “I was paid to go out and walk across amazing landscapes.”
Having lived in other corners of the country since then, Kitchens has returned and has a new job — Deschutes resource area field manager for the Bureau of Land Management in Prineville. The BLM title is equivalent to a U.S. Forest Service district ranger. As field manager, Kitchens coordinates public land and natural resource use in the Deschutes Resource Area, which stretches from La Pine to the Columbia River and from the Cascades to Prineville.
Kitchens started July 29 , taking over for Molly Brown, who is now a BLM field manager in Arcata, California, said Lisa Clark, spokeswoman for the agency in Prineville.
The BLM office in Prineville oversees 1.6 million acres spread across 13 counties in the Prineville District, Clark said.
The agency has divided the land it manages into two halves, each having a field manager. Kitchens’ half, the Deschutes Resource Area, includes the Lower Deschutes River, the Cline Buttes Recreation Area and the Millican Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Trail System.
He brings a lot of energy and new ideas to the post, said Carol Benkosky, Prineville district manager for the BLM.
“We are just excited to have him,” she said. “He comes from a good, solid background in both recreation and partnerships.”
Originally from Arlington, Virginia, Kitchens earned bachelor’s degrees in environmental science and psychology from Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and a master’s degree in forestry from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.
His career with federal land-management agencies has taken him from working as a fire ecologist at Everglades National Park in Florida to a forester and resource specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to a burned land rehabilitation program leader for the BLM in Denver. Before moving to Central Oregon this summer, Kitchens spent the past four years as the manager of the BLM’s Pompeys Pillar National Monument near Billings, Montana.
Kitchens said his focus over the past six weeks has been to learn about his new office and the land it covers.
“I try to spend a lot of my time going out into the field and meeting with people in the public,” he said.
When not working, he has also found time to revisit some favorite spots discovered in the Deschutes National Forest a decade and a half ago. Now he brings his boys, ages 6 and 9, with him.
— Reporter: 541-617-7812, ddarling@bendbulletin.com