The local resource community had some unsettling news last week with the announcement that Stan Benes is leaving the Malheur National Forest this spring to take a job in Montana. Benes’ reasons for leaving are personal – he and his wife need to be closer to parents facing health issues – and entirely understandable. Anyone who’s held a spot in the so-called sandwich generation, bracketed by the needs of both kids and aging parents can probably empathize. In such things, the heart must take priority over even the strongest career goals.

Still, the change in Forest leadership comes at a time when this region could use some continuity and stability. We continue to grapple with a stunted economy and a shifting landscape for resource management. That’s not to imply that Benes – who has barely had time to unpack his bags, by Grant County standards – represented the final solution to all of our problems. However, the Forest Service is like all big bureaucracies: slow to change its ways and policies. Benes has set the stage for real change, and it’s unfortunate that he won’t be on hand to see those plans to fruition. He has been a straight-talker within the agency and with the community, and that’s been both helpful and refreshing. Above all, he’s promoted the values of stewardship and collaboration and touted the importance of rural communities.

Those values should be shared by the next Forest supervisor, as we strive to maintain our forest industry. That infrastructure, in turn, will be essential to the work needed to restore our overstocked, fire-prone forests to health.

We urge the administrators in the Forest Service’s regional office to seek out a successor for Benes who also will embrace a similar vision. And we urge them to do so as quickly as possible. A long delay could put ongoing efforts and programs in jeopardy, and erode the trust of the community.