After 24 years at the U.S. Forest Service, including nine months working two high-level jobs and trying to maintain morale while top federal administrators encouraged mass resignations, cut funding and pushed back against long-held values, Aspen-Sopris District Ranger Kevin Warner is leaving the White River National Forest.
Warner, who has accepted a position as Pitkin County’s construction and assets director, started working for the White River National Forest in 2001 and spent the last five years as the top land manager for the busy Aspen-Sopris Ranger District. Since December 2024, Warner was also heading up the White River’s engineering department.
Yes, he said, working two full-time jobs was taxing, and it’s true that the federal government pays far less than local governments in the same resort communities. But the real push to leave the agency came from Washington.
“It’s just the absolute disrespect for the employees that make up this hardworking organization, that has come from the people that we work for, the administration at the highest levels,” Warner said. “That’s really, really difficult.”
Warner saw it in the mass firings of probationary employees on Feb. 14, which did not take job performance into account, and in the wording of Trump Administration’s deferred resignation program that encouraged employees to move from “lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”
And he saw it in a steady erosion of the values of inclusion and respect that he and others at the White River National Forest had been working on for decades.
“One of the things that has bothered me the most about the last nine months of working here has been the lack of respect for continuing to serve everyone in our community, no matter their background, no matter their ethnicity, their gender identification, race, sexual orientation, whatever it happens to be,” Warner said.
In September 2024, the White River National Forest won the Forest Service’s Cultural Diversity Award for its work — with partners at Wilderness Workshop, the Aspen Institute and the city of Glenwood Springs — on Latino Conservation Week and efforts to boost Latino participation in outdoor recreation. In 2025, Latino Conservation Week went unrecognized by the White River National Forest.
“I’m really, really proud of the work that we’ve done with our local Latino and Latina community and to see those things and our ability to engage in that same way be restricted, doesn’t align with my personal values and makes it really hard to continue to work in this particular work environment,” Warner said. “I know that because of the rhetoric that’s out there, there are folks in our communities that feel less comfortable going out and using their national forest lands. And it’s just, to me, that doesn’t align with my values. That’s tough.”
Officials with the White River National Forest did not respond to requests for comment prior to the federal government’s partial shutdown on October 1.
Warner is the fifth top-level land manager – called a line officer in Forest Service lingo – to leave the White River National Forest since January. The forest has also lost its long-time supervisor, Scott Fitzwilliams; the deputy forest supervisor, Heather Noel; the district ranger for the Dillon Ranger District, Adam Bianchi; and the deputy district ranger for the Dillon Ranger District, Amanda Wheelock.
“I would feel very comfortable to say the driving factor for all of us is this conflict with values,” Fitzwilliams said, noting that he hired each of those employees. “It leaves a pit in my stomach to know that such experienced, qualified leaders are not working for the benefit of the land and the public.”
Fitzwilliams said the governing philosophy at the White River National Forest for at least a decade focused on relationships.
“It was a philosophy I insisted on, that the relationships we built with the communities, with our partners, with our permittees, is priority one,” Fitzwilliams said. “It’s about transparency, it’s about commitment, it’s about following through as best we can.”
Those relationships, Warner said, have been deeply impacted by staffing shortages and an ensuing lack of community engagement.
“People work for the Forest Service to provide either resource protection or recreational opportunities or both,” Warner said. “And when you have 35 percent less staff for this entire summer, it’s really, really hard to look at that and to think about the loss of service that we’re able to provide.”
As of this week, nearly 45 percent of employees who were working at the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District in January have left, Warner said. There are now 15 employees; in January, there were 27.
The public might feel this absence in tangible ways; there are no visitor centers open in the Roaring Fork Valley. There were only two wilderness rangers this summer in the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District, which has five wilderness areas. In 2024, there were six.
That means backpackers and hikers are not seeing the friendly face of a knowledgeable worker who can help with any variety of needs. They also aren’t being educated on wilderness ethics or how to recreate responsibility.
“The public is losing out,” Warner said.
Warner, Fitzwilliams and Bianchi all stressed that the employees who remain working at the White River National Forest are hardworking, committed and capable.
“These people are amazing,” Warner said. “It is especially sad for me to leave the people. I really do feel the Forest Service is one of the hardest working groups of dedicated public servants that I could imagine.”
Nonetheless, Warner said the partnerships between the federal and local land managers and governments are feeling the stress of low staffing and budget levels from the Forest Service.
He pointed to several recent large-scale collaborative efforts – a management plan for the Maroon Bells Scenic Area that involved seven organizations, and the Roaring Fork Valley Wildfire Collaborative, which brings together 24 different agencies to work on wildfire resilience – as successes; but similar efforts could not be undertaken at today’s staffing levels.
“I worry about our ability to continue to engage with those partners in a meaningful way that allows us to still meet the needs of the community,” Warner said. “Starting something new in a similar vein, you know, it is literally impossible. You can’t have enough time in the day for a ranger or someone to invest in those types of things to get something new started.”
The Dillon Ranger District, too, will need to continue to rely deeply on partnerships with local organizations and governments, said Biachi, who left the Forest Service at the end of July and is now the general superintendent of the Forest Preserves of Cook County, which manages locally held public land around the Chicago area.
“The communities continue to deeply care about public lands and understand its value and they’ll continue to raise their voice and share their concern with management and tell the Forest Service where the priorities should be,” Bianchi said.
Impacts on the forest
While the staff attrition at the White River National Forest — and across the Forest Service as a whole — is widespread, several areas, including engineering and field-going staff, have been particularly hard-hit.
The White River’s engineering department, with Warner at its helm, was down to three people. There is one person remaining in engineering to oversee more than 2,000 miles of roads with at least 50 bridges. Two people are on the facilities side of the engineering department, working to keep more than 200,000 square feet operating.
The Aspen-Sopris Ranger District is likewise busy, with five downhill ski areas, five wilderness areas and hundreds of miles of trails.
“Most of the people who are no longer with the agency that worked on this unit, were the people who were out there; their job was literally in the field most of the time,” Warner said. “When I think about that, it saddens me a lot to think about the impacts to the resource in the long term.”
Without field-going staff, it’s difficult to collect data to understand the condition of the landscape, and it’s also difficult to continue and monitor restoration work that has been underway.
Officials at the White River National Forest worked for decades to collect data and conduct outreach that led to a management plan to limit overnight use in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. The Conundrum Creek Valley was the first to see a permitting system for camping, meant to reduce damage to the ecosystem that was occurring with widespread camping near a natural hot springs in the summer months.
Warner said that he and his colleagues were able to see real progress in the restoration of that high-alpine ecosystem.
“It’s coming back,” he said of the natural landscape. “When we put people out there and actually have them doing true restoration and rehabilitation work, you can see those biophysical impacts changing much more quickly. But if you don’t have people to go out there, it’s gonna take a lot longer.”
Similarly, without enforcement of the rules around where to camp, how to dispose of waste and other outdoor ethics, the forest runs the risk of backtracking. So far, Warner said, he has seen increased compliance with camping reservations and other forest rules over the years as the public gains familiarity with expectations. But now, he can’t tell if that is still the case.
“It would be almost impossible for us to have the same amount of data to be able to confirm one way or the other for sure that we’re seeing that trend continue or not,” Warner said.
With fewer people working out in the forest, those who remain are working tirelessly, Warner said, and he has advocated for replacing those positions lost when field-going employees left.
“The forest itself is, in the short term, pretty resilient,” Warner said. “Where we will see this is in the long term.”
Amid the push to downsize the federal government and the Forest Service, Warner said it became clear that “there was no systemic, actual plan.”
The White River National Forest does, in fact, have a guiding forest plan, meant to set goals for management direction in areas including recreation, conservation and timber extraction. But without appropriate staffing levels, that isn’t what has been driving projects.
Without staffing across a wide range of departments – wildlife, anthropology, engineering and more – the forest ends up completing more projects that are brought by outside entities.
“Most of the projects we’re doing are proponent-based projects right now,” from ski areas, utility companies or counties, Warner said. These are not projects based on things like the forest plan or watershed health that originate with the federal land managers themselves.
“Long-term it is, it’s a little bit of a tail-wagging-the-dog scenario,” Bianchi said. The work tends to not be based on holistic needs for the forest, “it becomes driven by location of where there’s a partner or where there are funds.”
Next steps for Warner and the forest
For now, the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District’s deputy district ranger, Jennifer Schuller, will be acting as district ranger.
But even as the agency is not conducting any outside hiring when vacancies arise, it is also not offering opportunities for advancement and promotion beyond an employee’s current pay grade, Fitzwilliams said. This means that as Schuller fills in as the district ranger, she won’t see a pay increase reflect her increased responsibilities.
“If she does that job, she’ll do it and not get paid what they should be paying her,” Fitzwilliams said. “It’s part of that overall demoralization of the work force.”
It’s unlikely that the agency will find a replacement for Schuller’s position while she fills in at the district ranger spot, Warner said.
But Schuller, Warner and others in the Roaring Fork Valley are working on ideas to increase engagement with the public and protect public lands.
“Jennifer is currently working to try to come up with a solution that might put volunteers in our visitor information offices,” Warner said, noting that it requires detailed coordination to put together such volunteer efforts, including training, scheduling and continuing education.
The Public Lands and Water Forum, which first assembled in May in response to budget and staffing cuts at the Forest Service, continues to meet twice a month, according to Shelly Braudis, the city of Aspen’s natural resource manager, who previously worked as the mountain sports program manager for the White River National Forest and recreation manager for the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District.
The forum is a coalition of 10 local nonprofits and government agencies in the Roaring Fork Valley that have worked to create a cohesive response to threats to federal public lands. There are several subgroups, including a communications group that has created an extensive public information campaign; Braudis said that group is also working to collect data around the public perception of federal land management.
While Warner will be going to work for Pitkin County, his absence on the forest will be felt by his former partners from the county.
“All the partners, including me, are very concerned about the future of management of the national forest,” said Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails.
Tennenbaum and Warner worked together to implement a parking system and improve management of the North Star Nature Preserve, which involves a complicated web of federal, local and private ownership. Tennenbaum also noted that Warner was instrumental in working across jurisdictions on prescribed fire and wildlife habitat improvement projects.
“He’s been such a great partner for us to manage land beyond boundaries,” Tennenbaum said.
Warner said he’d like to continue to work on supporting the White River National Forest as he transitions to his new role, which will include many of the same skills he fostered as the district ranger, managing staff, projects and assets.
Warner sees a real need for a community group dedicated to supporting the local forest.
“This ranger district really needs a true ‘friends’ group,” Warner said, like those that exist at national parks or on the Dillon Ranger District. While the Roaring Fork Valley is home to many volunteer organizations that partner with the White River National Forest, there is not a dedicated fund-raising source for the local forest.
Warner said he’ll continue to enjoy so much that the White River National Forest has to offer, mountain biking, skiing and going on backpacking and hut trips with his family.
“I’m going to do all those things,” he said, “And I’m going to drink clean water and I’m going to have clean air to breathe.”
This story, and Aspen Journalism’s ongoing coverage of challenges facing local public lands, is supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Aspen Journalism is also supported by a grant from Pitkin County’s Healthy Community Fund.