Ever wonder who gets to be one of the people pictured having fun handling saws in the weekly project leader reports? You can buy or rent a chainsaw and remove a tree from your backyard without so much as a minute of training. (Some of us luckily have survived doing so.) 

Contrarily, gaining Forest Service authorization to fell, buck, and limb trees is a very rigorous and demanding process, which FOSM members Michael Arndt, Byron Gardner, Mike Madden, Steve Roholt, Scott Dietrich, Dave Gabel, Sim Cook, and Eric Russell successfully completed a couple of weeks ago. 

Details about the certification process can be found at https://friendsofthesandias.org/.

Please join me in congratulating these as well as our 14 other certified sawyers. 

Thanks,

Cliff Giles
FOSM VP