Employee Profile
Lynda Boody
Acting Associate State Director
California State Office
She was a forestry student at Humboldt State University, fresh from Lansing, Michigan, where she was raised. And what do you do when you are a forestry student, you try to go to work for the Forest Service, right? Lynda had just been offered a student position by the Forest Service, but as she was crossing campus a piece of paper blew against her leg. She picked it up and read it. It was a flyer on the BLM student co-op program, the predecesor to the student career experience program. She applied and was accepted. The rest, as they say, is history.
Lynda has enjoyed a fantastic career with BLM, working in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado, California and Washington, D.C. Each assignment has been focused on public land management, recreation, fire, land health and working closely with BLM’s other important resource, public land users. She has both specialist and line management experience.
Lynda began her career with the BLM as a wide-eyed 20-something in Alaska as a forestry trainee, shuffling from the Arcata, California campus to Fairbanks. She spent three years learning about the agency and wilds of Alaska before taking a brief assignment with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
After obtaining her forestry degree, Lynda put her education from Humboldt State University to work by taking an assignment as a forester on the west side of Oregon, BLM’s premier forest lands. From Oregon, she went to Burley, Idaho, first as a forester, then as the assistant district manager for support services. She held the same position in Grand Junction, Colorado. While there she obtained a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Colorado. From Colorado, she went back to Oregon as the field office manager in Medford.
Five years ago she moved to the national office in Washington, D.C., where she has served as an analyst for the national budget office and national fuels and fire management policy. She also served as the National Healthy Lands Initiative Coordinator before returning to the fire organization.
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