Ken Kittrell—2014 Engineering Technician of the Year
Ken Kittrell is the transportation planner and road manager for the Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests and Crooked River National Grassland in central Oregon. He serves as transportation planner on the Forest Interdisciplinary Team as well as on Ranger District project–level ID teams as the needs of workload balancing demand. Ken supervises a team of six employees – five District transportation planners and the Forest INFRA database manager/coordinator – in managing just under 12,000 miles of National Forest Roads in Central Oregon.
In addition to serving as an Engineering Representative/Contracting Officer’s Representative on the two Forests, he is the Forest Liaison with other federal, state, and local agencies and organizations in matters pertaining to the transportation system and has been the project manager on numerous projects funded through Federal Highway Administration agreements and other instruments. Ken is also a member of the Pacific Northwest/Alaska Regional Construction Engineering Training Cadre and sits as a member of the teaching panel at the annual Regional Timber Sale Construction Contract Administration training.
Ken was born and raised in Grangeville, Idaho, and - beginning in 1974, while attending college at the University of Idaho – worked summers as a survey technician performing preliminary road surveys and construction staking on the Nez Perce National Forest, which was then headquartered in Grangeville. After college graduation with a degree in Fisheries Biology, he began his career as a permanent employee in April of 1979 as a project engineer at what was then Engineering Zone III on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Amboy, Washington, in the southwestern part of the state. It was there that Ken met his future wife, Joan, after the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens led to the relocation of the St. Helens Ranger District staff to the Engineering Zone compound. Ken and Joan, District Biologist at Crescent Ranger District on the Deschutes N.F., have been married 32 years and have two adult children.
In 1987 Ken transferred to the Willamette National Forest in western Oregon, where he continued work as a project engineer (and trained his current Forest Engineer in the fine art of manual road design). Between 1987 and 2000, he worked on the Willamette N.F., the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon, and the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southcentral Oregon, serving variously as a project engineer, transportation planner, and – during a stint of ‘downsizing’ in the mid–1990’s – as a district hydrologist. Ken transferred to Crescent Ranger District, Deschutes N.F., in 2000 to be the District Transportation Planner/Road Manager and became the Forest Transportation Planner in January 2010.
Ken believes strongly in ‘paying it forward’, honoring the legacy of those who took the time to teach him the ropes by taking the time to train and mentor others. Away from work, Ken indulges in his passion for NASCAR and the NFL, and also enjoys camping and fishing.
