“I don’t give up,” says FBT Advisory Board member Tricia O’Connor. “If there is something that is possible and I know it is possible, we’re going to get it done.” With more than 30 years of experience at the Forest Service, including as BTNF Supervisor from 2015–2022, O’Connor has a very good sense of what is possible when it comes to the BTNF.
“Friends of the Bridger-Teton is very necessary and doing such great work and there is so much opportunity to do more,” she says. “There are other partners doing great work on the BTNF, but FBT has filled a unique niche that supports the entire BTNF. I think what I can advise FBT on is how to be strategic to have the most impact on the Forest. The Ambassador Program is a great example. I believe it has had a huge impact on different aspects of the Forest. It is a shining star of what Friends can do. It is not something the Forest Service could do on its own.”
A native of New York with family ties to Alaska, O’Connor started her Forest Service career as a wildlife biologist in western Oregon’s Mt. Hood National Forest. (Her graduate research focused on habitat use by tule elk in an oak woodland forest.) From Mt. Hood, she moved to the Lolo National Forest in Montana, also working as a wildlife biologist. There, she met her husband, Keith, and the two eventually took positions—O’Connor as a district ranger—with the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. For part of their time in Alaska, the couple lived in Yakutat, a coastal community with a population of about 700 humans and “brown bears everywhere,” O’Connor says. As the couple looked to move on from Alaska, O’Connor says, “I was picky. I wasn’t going to go to any national forest, and Keith was pickier.” The two went from Alaska to the Bridger-Teton, where she served as Forest Supervisor for seven years. O’Connor retired in 2022.
“I know people in the Forest Service who have gotten to live in amazing places, but I think I had the best career because of the places that I got to live,” O’Connor says. “The Bridger-Teton is in my heart and I look forward to helping Friends help it. What does the organization want to be and what do we need to do to get there? I think big, but I am also realistic. A friends group for a national forest is a great idea and there is no better place than the Bridger-Teton for it because there is a strong love for public lands here.”
