Originally, the young Lincoln Bramwell wanted to be a garbage man, what we call a sanitation engineer today.
“They swing on the back of trucks, find cool stuff occasionally. I thought that was the coolest job ever,” he said. Bramwell explained that it changed later once “I had to take the trash out as a kid.”
Bramwell started his Forest Service career as a hotshot crew member fighting fires, but now he works as the sole national historian for the agency. It all started as a summer obsession to spend as much time outdoors as possible.
“It was my big adventure,” Bramwell said. “I couldn’t wait to drop my books and head off for the summer.”
“The interesting part was, I liked studying history, but I loved my summers working for the Forest Service,” he said, “…but I couldn’t figure out how to get the two together.”
Bramwell’s love of history started at a young age; since his mother was a history buff, she recognized and cultivated this passion in him. It wasn’t until graduate school that Bramwell finally found out that he could combine his love for the nation’s natural resources and his interest in history.
“Coming out of a hotshot crew was like a chocolate donut with chocolate frosting for me!”
Bramwell enjoys communicating the insights and significance of Forest Service history to stakeholders, political leaders and the public while improving agency operations and employee morale.
Learn more about Bramwell in his feature on Faces of the Forest, a bi-weekly feature of the Office of Communication to showcase the people, places and professions within the agency.