Alaska lost about a third of its U.S. Forest Service employees in the past year due to federal staffing cuts led by the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Before that, the agency had around 700 Alaska-based staff. This month, the agency told KTOO that 467 remain.
Leading this workforce in flux is Jerry Ingersoll, the U.S. Forest Service’s acting regional forester for Alaska, covering both the Chugach and the Tongass National Forests. Ingersoll has worked for the Forest Service for 40 years and took on the role in November 2025.
In this interview with KTOO’s Alix Soliman, Ingersoll talks about changes he’s leading Alaska Forest Service staff through, including the impending consolidation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Tongass National Forest plan revision.
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Alix Soliman: What is your vision for this role?
Jerry Ingersoll: This is a period of change, and it is my job, I think, to keep the boat upright and the passengers in. There’s changes in national policy associated with changes in political leadership, and it’s my job as a professional civil servant, not only to implement those changes, but also to take care of the people in the communities involved.
Alix Soliman: Over the summer, USDA Secretary Rollins announced the consolidation and restructuring of the USDA, and the USDA made statements to the press that several Alaska forest offices will close. What is the timeline for that reorganization? Do you know what’s going to happen?
Jerry Ingersoll: I don’t, and that’s probably the largest piece of that answer is that I don’t know. The announcement of the Secretary’s decision and of moving forward with the reorganization has not yet come and I’ll hear about it when the rest of you do. And I’m in an Acting Regional Forester position because that’s part of this interim organization. I’m filling in until this larger reorganization takes place. Many employees left the agency over the last year, more in Alaska, even as a percentage of our organization, than in some other parts of the country. And so we’ve got people stepping up, covering for their departed colleagues.
Alix Soliman: Let’s talk about the Tongass Forest plan revision, which has been underway for a while now. Can you just go ahead and share where we are at now with the revision and what the next steps are?
Jerry Ingersoll: We expect within the next few months, maybe less than that, to publish a notice of intent to begin revision of the Tongass land management plan. As you say, that’s been anticipated for a while. So I would anticipate, after the notice of intent gets published, that we will host public meetings and engagement sessions around the Tongass — around Southeast Alaska — this spring. I’d expect that we will engage federally recognized tribal governments in government-to-government consultation. We’ve already begun that process, but we’ll do so even more as we officially launch the revision, and then we are hoping to complete the process and revise the forest plan over the next couple of years.
Alix Soliman: Some federal comment periods have been expedited. Do you expect a shorter public comment period than has happened in the past for this revision?
Jerry Ingersoll: You know, I think it’s too early to know for sure. We want to — we want to fully engage people in the development of their plan for their forest, and we don’t want to spend all of our lives on planning and not on doing.
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