NEW SHARON – If you’re a small woodland owner in Franklin or Somerset counties, there’s a good chance you worked with Bob Leso during his 36-year tenure with the Maine Forest Service. Leso, the district forester, will retire at the end of June.
Originally from Casco, Leso graduated from the University of Maine in 1964 with a degree in forestry. But it wasn’t until he had spent three years, 1964-67, with the Peace Corps in Peru, working in the jungle with the Peruvian Forest Service, that he was drawn to his current line of work.
“It made me feel like I wanted to work with people,” he said. “This seemed like a natural job for me.”
After serving in the Army from 1967 to 1969 and a tour in Vietnam, Leso went to work for the Maine Forest Service in 1970. Since then, he has become known as someone who will “work tirelessly for the benefit of small land owners,” said Dick Morse, the Southern Field Team Leader for the Forest Service.
“Bob has been a very dedicated employee for his entire career with the Forest Service,” Morse said. “During that time, he has worked with small land owners and loggers in the district and is held in very high regard by them.”
Leso has the same appreciation for those with whom he works.
“My favorite part of the job has always been walking over a woodlot with the landowner and talking about the management,” he said.
Leso said he has had less one-on-one contact with the woodland owners in recent years and must deal with more regulations than he did in the past, but the landowners themselves haven’t changed much.
“I’ve gone through various types of landowners over the years, but the type of person who wants to find out about their woodlot and take care of it is pretty much the same. That part hasn’t changed a lot.”
Leso lives in Chesterville and works out of the Forest Service office in Norridgewock. He is one of 10 district foresters in Maine, and in a state with more than 17.7 million acres of woodland, he has a large area to cover. But Leso has always been willing to give of himself, even on nights and weekends, Morse said.
Leso hosted a long-running series of workshops for landowners every winter. He would meet with them once a week in Farmington or Skowhegan to discuss small-lot management or other issues that were important to the owners, Morse said. Leso also made frequent appearances on the radio program “The Grapevine” on WKTJ with Rick Barr for more than 30 years.
In his retirement, Leso will take the time to work on his 100-acre tree farm in New Sharon and will do some private forest management consulting on his own. He is a member of the Society of American Foresters, the Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine and the Maine Tree Farm Program, and is the Franklin County chairman of the Maine Tree Farm Committee. He is also a member of the Chesterville Planning Board and will use any spare time in his retirement to do work around his farmhouse in Chesterville.
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