Longtime district ranger will retire

Even if you didn’t see eye-to-eye with Jimmy DeHerrera, he was always willing to listen to concerns about issues on the Flathead National Forest.

On June 1, DeHerrera will retire as the Glacier View/Hungry Horse District Ranger, a post he’s held since July 1998.

DeHerrera, 55, began his 32-year career with the Forest Service at White River National Forest in Colorado after he graduated from Colorado State University. He grew up in Colorado and New Mexico, he says, “with a fishing pole in my hand.”

He later worked in the Lolo National Forest and Seeley Lake as a resource assistant and then became an assistant ranger at Hell’s Canyon National Recreation area in Oregon. From there, he spent three and a half years as the district ranger at Ketchikan-Misty Fjords, in Alaska.

But he wanted to come back to Montana, and the district ranger position at Hungry Horse/Glacier View opened up — a dream job, really.

“This is the best place in the whole world,” DeHerrera said in a recent interview. “In my opinion, there is no better place.”

Even the best places have their trying moments, and there have been plenty of those over the years, including bad wildfire years in 2001 and 2003. There have also been plenty of lawsuits, in many of which the district prevailed. DeHerrera credits district staff and their planning efforts.

One lawsuit in particular challenged the travel plan in the Robert-Wedge canyon Fire area. The Forest Service prevailed in that suit. While some roads will be closed to meet grizzly bear security standards, bridges and culverts will be maintained to allow snowmobile use in the winter-time.

Through his career, the ranger district has also focused on fuels reduction projects where Forest Service lands are in or come close to town.

“For the most part, they were welcomed by the community,” he said.

The projects provided timber and jobs and boosted fire safety in communities. DeHerrera has spent the last 15 years building relationships in the community — something one doesn’t see as often anymore, as many government employees move from place to place during their careers.

“When you get to know people on a personal level, you see eye-to-eye even if you don’t always agree,” he said.

DeHerrera and his staff also oversaw the financing and building of a new ranger station in Hungry Horse. The Forest Service sold surplus lands in town and then used those funds to build a new, modern ranger station, which was completed in November 2008.

DeHerrera is an avid golfer, hiker, skier and fisherman. He plans on exploring his own backyard in his retirement and spending time with his wife, Michaelan, who is a first-grade teacher at Glacier Gateway Elementary School.

The couple will now have summers off together, which will be nice, he said. He hasn’t had a summer off in a long time.

“Whatever I feel like doing, I’m going to do it,” he said with his trademark smile.