Fairfield native is state’s first female forest manager

A Fairfield native has been named the first female forest manager for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Courtney Streithorst, a 2006 Fairfield High School graduate, began working for ODNR in 2010. She manages properties in southeast Ohio, about one half hour from Athens. She works in Zaleski State Forest, Vinton Furnace State Forest and Gifford State Forest, which is Ohio’s smallest forest, she said.

“At Zaleski we have the only state-run sawmill,” said Streithorst, 26. “We fill orders for the internal department or other government agencies. … We have a 23.5-mile backpack trail, and we have backpack camps we maintain along with the horse trails. We also have a shooting range.”

The ODNR also assists fire departments with wildfires, she said.

Streithorst initially majored in business at The Ohio State University, but said those studies never clicked for her

“In my junior year of college I wasn’t happy in the business field,” she said. “So I transferred to the school of natural resources. … I took a step back and looked at things and decided I wanted to pursue something I was interested in. As a kid, my family always went camping, fishing, boating. I was always outside a lot as a kid, so natural resources are closest to my heart.”

Today, Streithorst is happy that her career provides so much variety.

“I’m never doing the same thing,” she said. “There is administrative work to the job, but I enjoy working in the field. We’re working on improving our backpack trails. That’s been a fun project.”

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