There’s a new U-S Forest Service Ranger in town. Jason Anderson has started work as the new head of the Petersburg Ranger District. Anderson grew up and went to college in California, where he spent ten years as a river ranger with the US Army Corps of Engineers. He joined the Forest Service about a decade ago and has work with the agency in Wyoming and then Alaska. As District Ranger in Petersburg, he’ll oversee the agency’s work across one-point-seven million acres of the Tongass National Forest. Matt Lichtenstein spoke with Anderson, who most recently served as District Ranger in Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island.

Anderson replaces Chris Savage, who left this fall to take a job with the agency in Washington D.C. The Forest Service is planning an open house for March 8th to update the public on projects throughout the district.