Coconino National Forest welcomes the arrival of Lesley Yen, who will be serving as the acting forest supervisor for the next four months.
Yen previously served as the Coconino National Forest deputy forest supervisor from January 2019 to October 2020.
Yen departed the Coconino National Forest in 2020 to become the forest supervisor for the Inyo National Forest, headquartered in Bishop, Calif. Originally from Massachusetts, she started her forest service career on the Inyo in 2010.
Since then, she has served as district ranger on the Shasta Lake Ranger District and National Recreation Area on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and has also worked on the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit and the Klamath National Forest.
Before coming to work for the Forest Service, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Commonwealth of Dominica, a tiny island of 72,000 in the Windward Chain of the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and dual master’s degrees from Yale University in environmental management and international relations.