BIO
Frank Beum is the regional forester for the Rocky Mountain Region, where he leads more than 2,000 permanent and seasonal employees and shares stewardship of 22 million acres of national forests and grasslands with partners and forty-eight affiliated tribes in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Previously, Beum served four years as the Southern Region’s Deputy Regional Forester for Natural Resources in Atlanta, Georgia. He was responsible for developing and delivering natural resource policy for national forests in 13 southern states and Puerto Rico. During this time, he also served in several acting leadership assignments, including a recently completed tour as Acting Regional Forester in the Intermountain Region.
He has worked on seven national forests and five ranger districts in the Rocky Mountain and Southern Regions, as well as in the Southern Regional Office and the Washington Office. He previously served as Acting Associate Deputy Chief of the National Forest System, Director of Forest Management for the Southern Region, and acting national Director of Forest Management. Beum also served as legislative specialist in the Washington Office, Forest Supervisor on the Daniel Boone National Forest, and District Ranger on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.
Beum began his Forest Service career in 1981 as a seasonal forestry technician in the Rocky Mountain Region, spending six summers on the Rio Grande, San Juan, and Shoshone National Forests thinning lodgepole pine, conducting forest inventory, and serving as a wilderness ranger. He landed his first permanent Forest Service job on the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests, serving for eight years in both Colorado and Wyoming. While completing a master’s degree in recreation resource management from Colorado State University, he served a fellowship with the Wilderness Society. After completing a bachelor’s degree in forestry at Ohio State University, he worked for three years as a Service Forester for the Ohio Division of Forestry.
Beum and his wife, Jan, have two grown sons (who were born in Wyoming), a daughter-in-law, and one grandson.