Making the Umpqua a Career: Peggy Roberts Recognized for Work in U.S. Forest

In 1979, there were very few women working at the United States Forest Service in the Umpqua Valley. Most of the women who did work there were often working in the office and were married to a man working in the field. But Peggy (Keesee) Roberts wore pink hard hat in the field and enjoyed her work. She enjoyed her work so much and did such a good job that before she retired on the last day of 2021, she was recognized with the National Engineering Technician Award for 2020. Steve Marchi nominated her for the award for the region. She was recognized in Region 6 which includes all the U.S. Forests in Oregon and Washington. That put her in the group with the top engineers from all nine U.S. Forest regions around the country. She was recognized for her outstanding achievement and contributions to the forest service. “It made me feel honored,” Roberts said. “I spent my whole career here. I worked with a lot of super good engineers. I like the Toketee area. I liked my job and the people I worked with. To get this award was satisfactory because I never dreamed I would get to this place. I just enjoyed it. It was impressive to know they thought about me like that. When I look back at it now, I’m glad I did it.” Her supervisor, Luis Palacios, said this award makes a perfect capstone for Roberts’ 42 years in the forest, to be recognized regionally and nationally for her work. “It’s a really big deal,” Palacios said. “She had such a long tenure with the forest, that some people don’t really understand how much of the infrastructure they use that Roberts had a personal hand in developing for public use.” In the nomination form, Roberts was recognized for being a key administrator for projects that improved transportation infrastructure, enhanced watershed health, and provided recreation opportunities for the visiting public. “Peggy’s professional accomplishments as well as loyalty to the organization has earned her the respect of colleagues locally and nationally,” the nomination said. “Her commitment continues to show in her current appointment as the Transportation Design Team Supervisor as she mentors and trains future engineering leaders.” Palacios said the Umpqua Forest is a smaller forest in the 154 national forests and having someone so local like Roberts being recognized means a great deal for her, for the forest, and for the community. “A big thing Peggy Roberts has done is, being on the project engineer side, she’s been the design team lead for quite a while and she’s trained up so many other engineers to get them into that journey level position that have gone out and achieved accolades themselves,” Palacios said. “She got people trained up straight out of school and now they’re leaders in their perspective fields as well.” Roberts grew up in the Toketee area, going to elementary and middle school with 50 kids, walking to school, going home for lunch, and spending every weekend in the woods. “At that time, it was a lot of neighborhood caring,” Peggy said. “Everybody knew everybody.” Roberts started as an engineering aid on the Diamond Lake Ranger District and in her first year she drove all the roads on the district and wrote up reports on the conditions of the road for the summer. When school started up, she left to go back to the Oregon Institute of Technology to finish studying Mechanical engineering, but her heart belonged to the Umpqua and she missed the work in the field. She went to OIT for two years but chose to work in the forest over finishing. She spent her entire 42 years on the Umpqua National Forest, 20 years of that as a seasonal employee while she raised her two children with her husband, Ben. “I got to see how it changed over the years,” Roberts said. She went to Umpqua Community College to study drafting and survey during the off season from work. She really enjoyed drawing (drafting) the plans for the roads plans, quarry developments and made herself an expert in drafting. “I proved that the forest needed it,” Roberts said. “They needed me and I needed them.” She wore pink and makeup out in the field. Some guys would tease her about it in the beginning, but she gave them a no-nonsense answer about protecting her skin and never heard her team tease her again. “There wasn’t a whole lot of women in engineering, but I didn’t feel like I had to prove myself,” Roberts said. “Not everything a person does requires conflict.” Roberts put in a lot of work on planning where forest roads would be constructed for logging and for improving recreational facilities, she helped ensure that trails and various buildings were accessible for people to enjoy. “Someone put the plans together for a construction contract, to put that stuff together,” Palacios said. “She did a lot of that and a lot of trail maintenance, helping out with trail bridges along the North Umpqua Trail, a lot of the transportation system along the North Umpqua corridor and the South Umpqua corridor. Palacios said Roberts would take surveyors' field notes and take large sheets of mylar and hand draft the picture of the surveyor observed in the field. Drafting was often a one-shot process to get it right and Roberts was good at it, but she made sure she was good at the transition to Computer Aided Drafting too. She spearheaded the transition and now it’s the standard. “Trying to serve the public as a whole is – it takes a very specific person that wants to work for an agency. The Forest Service, they have to be very public service oriented and they do it for the passion of the landscape and for the service of the people,” Palacios said. “It takes a very specific person to really dedicate their lives to that public service.” The Forest Service held a retirement party for Roberts in January and several people said Roberts made the difference in their work in the Umpqua. “I think I got my love of the woods from my dad,” Roberts said. “He loved his job with Pacific Power & Light. I think it's a great thing to end a career with. I have mixed feelings. I feel like I own a piece of the Umpqua National Forest. And I feel like I’m leaving a piece of me behind.”