MICHIGAN – After more than 30 years with the Forest Service, Leslie Auriemmo retired at the end of December. Serving the past seven years on the Huron-Manistee National Forest as forest supervisor, Auriemmo successfully led major partnerships, operational updates and addressed forest and river health issues.

Auriemmo reflected on serving the public and working with multi-disciplined teams: “It has been wonderful to be able to live in Cadillac, engage with our communities and have the opportunity to travel to perform wildfire and operational details on forests across the country. Cadillac has been a very welcoming community to raise our son and we will definitely miss our Forest Service family.”  

Raised in Chicago, the youngest of three siblings, and first to graduate from college in her extended family, Auriemmo started her career as a seasonal timber marker on the Hiawatha National Forest in Her first permanent government job was as an attorney at the USDA Office of General Counsel in Milwaukee representing the Eastern Region of the Forest Service, including the Huron-Manistee National Forests. In applying her tenacity and experience, and at a rapid working pace, she successfully implemented major partnerships, operational updates and addressed significant forest and river health issues.

Her leadership helped institute the Good Neighbor Authority with the state of Michigan. The program is now helping with twenty-five percent of the HMNF timber sales, further increasing restoration of national forest lands.

“Taking on the controversial and ethical issues on our rivers, specifically within nationally-designated Wild and Scenic sections, while heated initially, has led to increased stewardship and stakeholder communication,” said Auriemmo. “Focus on our Wild and Scenic rivers has created a long-term win-win for paddlers, anglers and the ecology of our rivers and watersheds.” A public workgroup of stakeholders is now in place, meeting bi-annually, addressing Leave No Trace outreach and focused on building relationships. The HMNFs has also implemented an annual River Ranger program purposely placing a Forest Service presence on high use areas along the rivers to discuss LNT issues with the public.

Auriemmo believes that the HMNFs should be part of the community and serve the community, building on the core values of the USDA. National Forest Service at the local level. She instituted a performance element for every employee to take part in one community outreach event per year, whether that be helping to do a road cleanup, taking part in building a house for Habitat for Humanity, going into the schools to do presentations on natural resource management, hosting archaeological digs for children, attending job fairs, staffing a booth at a fair or being part of a local 4th of July parade.

Now that she is retired, Auriemmo will be moving to Tennessee to be with family. Her parting words to her employees and people of Northern Michigan asked them to continue the work she championed for so long: “Realize what a true treasure the HMNFs are to you. Take care of and conserve the Forests for yourselves and future generations.”