Meet Scott Kusumoto – “The Tree Dude”

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Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Scott Kusumoto went on a skiing trip to Mammoth in 1980 and never left. For 35 years, he worked on the Inyo National Forest — first as a fire prevention technician (1987-1988) and later as a student trainee while attending Humboldt State University for a master’s degree in forestry. Upon graduation in 1992, Scott became a forester on the Inyo, a role he held until his retirement in 2022, while wearing a few other hats. 

In December 2022, Scott spoke with us about his life and career. His reflections shared below have been edited for length and clarity.  

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I grew up in the city of Los Angeles. 1956, born at Queen of Angels hospital. I was the first of four kids. All my grandparents were from Japan. In fact, my dad’s mom was going to visit in Japan, and he was born on the boat. If you’ve heard the term “fresh off the boat,” he was fresh off the boat going the other way. [laughs] He was technically born in Japan, but both my parents were nisei, second generation.  

And both my folks were in [a Japanese internment] camp during World War II for a couple of years. My dad's family was assembled at Santa Anita. And his claim to fame was being in Seabiscuit’s horse stall at the racetrack. My dad would always say they would sneak out of camp to go fishing— the challenge was getting back into the camp. [laughs]  

I went to Cal State Los Angeles, got a degree in sociology and got into skiing in the mid-seventies. When I graduated in 1980, I thought I'd come up to Mammoth for a winter and ski. And I’ve been here ever since. [laughs] I worked on lift crew and supervised lifts. And the snow rangers were coming through the lines in their uniforms. And that was kind of the realization of, “Wow, there's the Forest Service.”  

Being a supervisor of lifts, I was always working at the ski area later in the season. And in 1987, I was up at the personnel office and the guy in charge says, “What are you doing this summer?” And I had no plans. So, I wandered to the welcome center in Mammoth and introduced myself and asked about jobs. The next week I got a call from the Law Enforcement Officer on the district, and he says, “I have this job that entails a little bit of the law enforcement, a little bit of fire.” And I said, “Well, now that sounds interesting.” 

As a fire prevention tech, I basically patrolled part of the district. I had lived in Mammoth for seven years at that point [1987], but just driving around the forest, I got to places that I had never explored. My wife was in fire for the Forest Service and that's how I met her. She worked on the engine, and when we were doing PTs, the physical training stuff, we'd be out running and I'd be looking at her calves. I tried to keep up. Just to keep pace I'd look at her calves. [laughs] 

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I did that [fire prevention] for a couple of seasons and then I got into the master's program at Humboldt [State University] and got a masters in Natural Resources Forestry. After that, I started doing work in timber. That's when we were still selling saw logs, and we would do saw log sales over snow during the winter. We'd ride snowmobiles out in the sale areas and walk around with snowshoes. And then we had commercial fuelwood sales during the summer. 

What we’re doing these days is more forest health and fuels reduction. We thin out the smaller trees hoping to leave the bigger trees to grow. So I have pretty much done that my whole career — I call myself “The Tree Dude.” 

I've always said we have an office with a view, being out in the forest. You can come back and see the work that you've done on the ground. You can see the contract that you'd administered and these trees continuing to grow. 

My proudest accomplishment on the forest was doing a salvage sale after this huge wind event in November of 2011. The folks at the Devils Post Pile National Monument called it the “Devil's Wind Storm.” There is an anemometer at the top of Mammoth Mountain. I think it broke at 180 miles an hour or something. But in the backcountry and within Reds Meadow, some trees snapped off, but a lot of trees just were uprooted.  

And before a year had passed, we had done the environmental review required by NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act], planned the sale, and the last log truck left the valley within a year of that event happening. And I always kind of complain because we were a nominee for a Forest Supervisor Award that year and we didn’t win! [laughs]

Work is a big part of your life. I think breaking away from that routine… we'll see. Although, with all these new people coming in, I already said I would play guidance counselor to new employees, so hopefully I can help set them on the right path.