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2007 Forest Service Engineers of the Year

John Bell and Peter Wagner—2007 Technical Engineers of the Year

John Bell is the program manager for road system operations and maintenance, signing, and traffic safety in the Washington Office.

John's first Forest Service job was with a survey crew at the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, outside Weaverville, CA, in 1965.

In the summer of 1967, John worked as a career-conditional construction inspector on the San Luis Canal (California Aqueduct) for the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation in California. John just wanted a summer job, but he completed his senior year at UCLA in Federal leave without pay status.

John graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1968 and from Stanford University with a master's degree in civil engineering in 1979. He is a registered civil engineer in California. After college, John went to work for the Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture, full time. Here's a summary of his career:

• 1968 to 1972—Civil engineer, Lassen National Forest, CA. John was drafted in 1968 and spent 2 years in the Army as a military policeman.
• 1972 to 1976—Civil engineer, Plumas National Forest, CA
• 1976 to 1978—District engineer, Yolla Bolla Ranger District, Shasta-Trinity National Forest, CA
• 1979—Civil engineer, Truckee Ranger District, Tahoe National Forest, CA
• 1980 to 1986—Assistant forest engineer, Klamath National Forest, CA
• 1986 to 1991—Assistant forest engineer, Rogue River National Forest, OR
• 1991 to 1998—Forest engineer, Kaibab National Forest, AZ
• 1998 to 2008—Program manager for road system operations and maintenance, signing, and traffic safety in the Washington Office

Peter Wagner is the bridge engineer for the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, which stretches 160 miles from the Canadian border south to Mt. Rainier National Park along the western slopes of the Washington Cascades. Since the early 1990s, Peter has been the lead technical engineer for preconstruction and construction engineering for all the road and trail bridges on the north half of the forest. He was the contracting officer's representative for most of the contracts.

In the late 1990s, his work expanded to the entire forest. He also provides interagency assistance to the North Cascades National Park, which is collocated in the Sedro Woolley, WA, office. He's worked on more than 65 bridge projects during his career. Since 2002, he has also been the bridge program manager for the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, which has about 200 road bridges and 200 trail bridges.

Peter graduated from the University of Idaho with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1976. He has been a registered professional engineer in Washington since 1986. He began his Forest Service career at the Flathead National Forest in 1977. Peter has worked at the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest since 1983. He specialized in geotechnical engineering during the first half of his career and still has some geotechnical duties along with his bridge duties.

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