My name is Brett Boisjolie, I'm a 23 year old guy from Southampton, MA. My last name means "pretty woods" in French, which makes sense because I grew up on a Christmas tree farm and live for the outdoors. Since graduating from Stonehill College near Boston last May, I've been able to do some pretty solid adventuring. I spent last summer trudging through swamps, hiking through thorn bushes and swimming through rivers as a surveyor on a massive field study for The Nature Conservancy's Connecticut River program focusing on the link between altered hydrology and floodplain ecosystems. This past winter I was a member of a fire ecology strike team - a small 3-person nomadic team who traveled throughout Georgia assisting in, planning, and leading prescribed burns in various forest lands. I spent numerous days riding on ATVs with flamethrowers attached, running from raging head fires, taking down burning snags with chainsaws and other such ridiculous "this is my JOB?!" moments. My work has given me an understanding of and passion for imperiled forest types, and this opportunity in Idaho represents the ideal opportunity to learn more about forestry in order to further my life work in the field of environmental conservation.
