Katherine Ergil

Katherine Ergil

Kat Ergil grew up a couple of hours from the Adirondacks—a wilderness mountain range in upstate New York—but she was 18 before she visited them. “I lived near a lake…

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Jillian Greene

Jillian Greene’s grandparents lived next to the Custer-Gallatin National Forest in Montana. “I lived in Kentucky, but would visit them every summer when I was younger,” she says. In 2022,…

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Sage Abate

Sage Abate was fortunate to grow up in Winthrop, Washington, a town in the Methow Valley, which, like many of the communities in western Wyoming, is surrounded by public lands….

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Elly McFarland

From Anacortes, Washington, Elly McFarland first came to trail work in 2020. That summer, following her freshman year of college, she did AmeriCorps. “I’ve been doing trail work every summer…

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Monica Elliott

“The outdoors have given me so much,” says Monica Elliott, the team leader of FBT’s 2025 Forest Corps. “It’s great to be able to give back to it as part…

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Chuck Butterfield

Board member Chuck Butterfield grew up hunting, fishing, and camping on the west side of the Bighorn National Forest, in north central Wyoming. After graduating from the University of Wyoming…

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Julia Blanco & Matt Sweitzer

Meet Matt Sweitzer and Julia Blanco, Jackson District, Shadow Mountain “We were Shadow Mountain Ambassadors in 2023, and then we took a year off to get married, and we’re excited…

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Tom Owens

Meet Tom Owens, Blackrock District, Toppings and Spread Creek Ambassador Since retiring 10 years ago, Tom has done significant amounts of volunteer work on public lands. The day after we…

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Jay Pistono

Jay Pistono worked for the Bridger-Teton National Forest for nearly 20 years as its only paid Teton Pass Ambassador. He’s worked to create a culture of decency among the occasionally…

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Scott Kosiba

“My favorite piece of backpacking equipment that is ‘extra’—not something every backpacker should or would have—is a machete,” Scott says. “I did my doctorate in the Amazon and learned how…

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