While growing up in Kingfield, Patty Cormier worked at her family’s business, Deer Farm Camps. She spent a lot of time in the woods, which led to her becoming not only a forester, but a Maine Forestry Museum Hall of Fame member and the head of the Maine Forest Service.
Cormier, 58, graduated from the University of Maine at Orono with a bachelor of science degree in forestry in 1988 and has been a licensed forester ever since.
In 1990 she added firefighter/emergency medical technician to her resume when she moved to Princeton with her husband, John, who was a Maine firefighter and former U.S. Air Force firefighter.
She joined the Maine Forest Service nine years later, but never lost her interest in firefighting. “When I started with Maine Forest Service in 1999, we had to move to Augusta, so I was not an active firefighter again until moving to Farmington in 2007, when I joined Farmington Fire-Rescue for Chief (Terry) Bell,” Cormier said.
The couple still live in Farmington, where John has a winery and home brew supply store. “We have a lot of fun growing our grapes in a hoop house,” she said.
Cormier was named director of the Maine Forest Service in 2019 and last month was inducted into the Maine Forestry Museum Hall of Fame.
How did you decide to become a forester? Growing up in Kingfield, my family ran Deer Farm Camps. The woods were our business in that we had 30 miles of ski touring trails, a ski touring center, and sporting camps. My life was intertwined with Maine’s forest. I had a horse that I would spend hours traveling old logging trails with, I had a thirst for discovery of the forest. For the two summers after high school, I worked in Baxter State Park for the Youth Conservation Corps. This deepened my love for the forest and the special places in Maine. My first year of college was in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, on the medical path at the request of my mother. I soon switched to their forestry curriculum, which was a five-year program with Duke University. I was only one of two forestry students, so decided to make my way back to Maine, to Orono, which had/has a widely respected forestry program. I was again in my element!
Is there a link for you to being in the forest service, the fire service and emergency medical service? Yes, very much so, and the more I worked within the three fields, the more I saw that. It is my hope that in my own little way I can strengthen the commonalities between the three. I think if you were to dive into it, you would see that there are many with the same link. There is a strong link between Maine Forest Service and fire departments as we all strive to protect life and property, and emergency services are intertwined in that relationship. There are so many amazing, selfless and giving people in the three fields; many absolutely unsung heroes.
Patty Cormier of Farmington, is the director of the Maine Forest Service. Submitted Photo
Do you have a special memory about being a forester? One particular time sticks out, as a new district forester for Maine Forestry Service, a big part of the job is walking with landowners to help guide them on their journey of working with their woodlands. I met with nuns at a church in central Maine that owned land along a river and they were engaged with their property with trails and labels of trees and vegetation. To them this walk was a spiritual event. At one point we came across a jack-in-the-pulpit (arisaema triphyllum) that had been stepped on. We had to take a moment of silence and bless the plant. That has always stuck with me as a testament to how sacred our forests are to many, for many different reasons, and that I learned to respect all levels of engagement with the forest resource.
What was it like to fight wildfires in another country or state? Wildland firefighting is not for everyone, but it was/is for me! I hope to get back out if my schedule allows. My only regret is that it was not widely encouraged for women when I was in college as it is now. I would have started at a much younger age. It is hard to explain the satisfaction one gets with the challenge of the logistics, the danger, the fight, the successes of wildland fire. It is a tough gig with long hours, moments of terror, but the overall feeling knowing that you are part of a very large team trying to help people living some of their worst moments can’t be beat. I’ll never forget on my first mobilization to Montana: We were sleeping in tents in the local high school ballfield, and when we returned to camp one night, many of the local residents lined up clapping as we arrived. Wow, that was what it is all about. They had also bought us new socks and other supplies.
Do you consider yourself a trailblazer for others, to accomplish what you have so far in your career? Maybe. I don’t know. I have never thought of it that way. I hope I have. We all do our part, right? Certainly things have opened up for women in firefighting and forestry, so if any moving of the needle was due to my efforts, I would only be honored to think I might have had any part in that.
Were you surprised to become director of the Forest Service? Yes, I was a bit surprised and much honored to being given the opportunity to work with some of the best people in state government at a different level. I am a member of the National Association of State Foresters, and the number of women state foresters continues to grow. This is a good thing. A diversity of ideas and backgrounds improves the overall outcomes.
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