Eastern Region

Points of Pride

AMERICA'S OUTDOORS

America's Outdoors (AO) is an interagency visitor information center located on the ground floor of the Reuss Federal Plaza in downtown Milwaukee; it was established in March 1995 under an Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service, and added the USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as partners in March 2001. AO offers customers a "one-stop convenience shop" about recreation opportunities on federal lands, and programs and resources on conservation assistance and environmental education, such as the Urban Tree House Program and National Public Land Day events. The center is also an Eastern National Forests Interpretive Association outlet that sells nature books and Smokey Bear items.

AO also administers the Conservation Education Intern Program, a joint effort of National Forest Systems, FS, and state and private foresters in the Eastern and Southern Regions. -America's Outdoors hosts a team of four interns who work in the Milwaukee area for the summer teaching diverse audiences of urban children about the natural world and their role in it. Last summer the interns reached over 1,000 underserved and minority children and met their educational needs with hands-on activities and repeated visits.

In 1996, AO received Vice President Al Gore's 1996 Hammer Award for cost effectiveness and public service.

EASTERN REGION HONOR AWARDS

For the past seventeen years, the Eastern Region's annual Honor Awards ceremony has showcased the outstanding accomplishments of the Eastern Region's dedicated employees, retirees, and private citizens. The ceremony is held in late November or early December to coincide with a Regional Leadership Team meeting. Awards are presented by the Regional Foresters in ten categories identified by the Chief's and Secretary of Agriculture's Office and the Eastern Region, including: Maintaining Natural Resources; Discrimination-Free Organization; Public Service; Outstanding Customer Service; and Rural Residents and Community.

2001 was a record year for Honor Awards: 88 employees and private citizens were nominated for individual awards, and 65 groups representing 629 employees received nominations as well. Nominations are solicited from all regional employees and the Regional Leadership Team. A selection committee reviews the nominations and makes recommendations to the Regional Foresters for approval.

In addition, the Eastern Region leads the way in nominations for the prestigious Chief's and Secretary of Agriculture's Honor Awards; each year, more than 50% of the nominees for the Region's Honor Awards are forwarded to the Chief's Office for consideration.

EASTERN AND SOUTHERN REGION'S UNIVERSITY

For over a decade, the Eastern and Southern Regions University (ESRU) has committed itself to the professional, technical, and personal development of regional employees. Originated in 1992 by the Eastern Region, and joined in 1997 by the Southern Region, the university revolutionized employee training by providing an integrated approach to curriculum development and delivery, and managing it with an Incident Command Team structure. As a result, ESRU has been able to provide more creative opportunities to share knowledge, improve the overall process of personal development, and provide a more effective and efficient delivery of training.

The university offers courses related to the Forest Service mission and goals, core competencies, and identified training needs under the umbrella of five "colleges" representing "timeless" management goals: Capital Resources, Human Resources, Information Resources, Natural Resources, and Public and Cooperative Relations. Training is centralized Region-wide at a cost-effective location. Students select courses from a menu of concurrent offerings. Instructors are recognized experts in their fields, including in-house specialists, external consultants, and academics. Students are primarily from the Eastern and Southern Regions, although about 10% come from other FS regions, S&PF, FS Research, the Chief's Office, and cooperating agencies or organizations.

Today, the ESRU continues to provide a quality learning experience for each student. The university has hosted the last four Forest Service Chiefs, and received a U.S. Department of Agriculture Honor Award for Customer Service in June 2000. Nearly 1,000 students attended the 2001 session in Cincinnati, Ohio, and even more are expected to attend the 2002 session.

URBAN CONNECTIONS

In late 2000, the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, and Forest Service Research in the East committed to jointly reach out to urban audiences. The result is a unique and newly formed "urban arm" of the Eastern Region, the Urban Connections program, which addresses the information needs and values of urban citizens. UC aims to increase the involvement of underrepresented urban groups in Forest Service activities, and through partnerships with national forests, other federal agencies, and state and local organizations, bridge gaps between rural communities and city dwellers.

Examples of on-going or planned UC activities include:

• Minnesota partners are discussing tests of new approaches to land management in a demonstration forest area.
• Michigan's Huron-Manistee NF has conducted Kirtland's warbler education with urban science teachers to help them understand the unique habitat requirements of this endangered songbird along with its recovery success story. Forest staff are also enthused about revitalization of Idlewild, Michigan, a summer vacation spot for Detroit residents and the home of African American jazz-right inside the forest boundaries.
• Heritage comes alive in the Shawnee NF through interactive projects designed to teach more about the Underground Railroad-archaeological excavations in Miller Grove, an ante-bellum African American community, help rural and urban residents reconstruct this significant time in our history.
• Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is Chicago's "backyard," and Midewin staff are working to bring inner city youth to the prairie to participate in restoration efforts.

URBAN TREE HOUSE

The Urban Tree House Program is a Forest Service sponsored national program designed to help urban youth learn more about the value of natural resources and their federal lands connecting with local green spaces in their own communities. The program involves more than 15 Milwaukee-area partners, including Midtown Neighborhood Association; Farm-City Link; Urban Open Space Foundation; Milwaukee High School of the Arts; Neighborhood House; Public Allies; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; and America's Outdoors.

On National Public Lands Day in September 1999, Milwaukee's Lynden Hill location was dedicated, becoming fifth national urban tree house site. Programming at the site began in the summer of 2000. Grants and partnership funds have paid for a summer coordinator who works with a group of Forest Service conservation education interns to bring conservation education programs to the youth of Lynden Hill. In FY 2002, the Lynden Hill Partnership secured the services of a landscape architect who, along with neighborhood participation, is nearing completion on construction drawings of the actual tree house, archway, and series of trails.