Pend Oreille Conservation District 

Mike grew up in Southwestern Michigan on a sixty plus acre hobby farm (though if pressed, he’ll admit it was more work than hobby).  The farm had a small commercial asparagus operation and for a while his dad ran a sixty head pig business.  There were always two to three Holstein steers hanging around; all of the corn and alfalfa used to feed the steers was grown on the farm.  Besides picking asparagus he earned spending money picking raspberries, grapes and helping bale hay for local dairy farmers.  Mike graduated from Michigan Technological University with a bachelor of science degree in forestry.  He worked for almost thirty years for the U.S. Forest Service as a small sales/salvage sales forester, a presale forester/logging systems specialist as well as in various positions within the Fire and Aviation Management division ending his career doing resource protection work.  When he was stationed on the Paisley Ranger District of the Fremont National Forest he gained experience with large scale beef cattle operations including how to navigate a rig through a 1,000 head of cattle being driven down a state highway!  Because of his forestry knowledge Mike was asked in October 2015 to join the Pend Oreille Conservation District’s Board of Supervisors, and in June of 2019 joined the Washington Association of Conservation Districts as an Area Director; he currently serves as the Association’s vice-president.  Mike’s interests are small farm operations (including farmer’s markets), small woodlot management, wildfire prevention/protection especially in the wildland urban interface and wildfire smoke intrusion into populated areas.