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AN INTERVIEW WITH GERI VANDERVEER BERGEN by Jacqueline S. Reinier July 5-7, 2000 Nevada City, California This project was supported with funds from the USDA Forest Service Office of Civil Rights, State and Private Forestry, National Forest System, and Office of Communications and produced in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service History Program. Copyright by the Forest History Society, Inc. Durham, North Carolina 2001 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTERVIEW HISTORY . i BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY. ii SESSION I, July 5, 2000 [Tape 1, Side A]. 1 Family background--High school years--Attending Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School--Marriage to Donald F. Eldridge--Move to Seattle-- Bearing and rearing three children--Moving to Reno--Dealing Blackjack at a casino--Importance of earlier trips to the mountains and national parks--Trip across the country to Seattle. [Tape 1, Side B]. 11 Camping in the Pacific Northwest--Taking an ecology course from University of Washington extension--Taking pre-forestry courses at the University of Nevada, Reno--Marriage to Donald C. Larson-- Moving to Berkeley and continuing pre-forestry courses at Oakland City College--Applying to the School of Forestry at the University of California, Berkeley. [Tape 2, Side A]. 22 Attending the UC Berkeley School of Forestry Summer Camp--Enrolling in the School of Forestry in 1960--Working part-time at the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station--Attending graduate school at UC Berkeley--Working for the Institute of Forest Genetics in Placerville. [Tape 2, Side B]. 31 Dissatisfaction with focusing on research--Getting a master’s degree in botany--Moving to Richmond--Membership in the Society of American Foresters--Rethinking career goals--Writing histories of Whitaker's Forest and Blodgett Forest--Offer of position in Women's Activities, Division of Information and Education, USDA Forest Service, Region 5. [Tape 3, Side A]. 41 Volunteer work with conservation-related activities in West Contra Costa County--Working as Public Information Officer in the Regional Office of Region 5. SESSION II, July 6, 2000 [Tape 3, Side B]. 46 More on work as Public Information Officer in the Regional Office of Region 5--Becoming Region 5 environmental coordinator--Sources of career support in the Forest Service. [Tape 4, Side A]. 55 Timing of the women’s movement and environmental movement--Working as regional environmental coordinator--Developing the regional program for environmental analysis--Interest in moving to a line position. [Tape 4, Side B]. 63 Becoming the first female line officer in the Forest Service as deputy forest supervisor on the Tahoe National Forest--Advantage of being a forester-- Overcoming resistance--Learning the job--The Tahoe National Forest. [Tape 5, Side A]. 72 Law enforcement--Fire management--Cultural resources management-- Working out a management style--Continuing activity in the Society of American Foresters--Becoming the first female forest supervisor as forest supervisor on the Tahoe National Forest. [Tape 5, Side B]. 82 Reconsidering and modifying earlier decisions--Working with the staff-- Hiring and promoting women--Problems for women in managing career and family. [Tape 6, Side A]. 89 Working with consent decree in Region 5--Developing and implementing Tahoe Land Management Plan--Managing budget to accomplish new stewardship goals-- Pacific Crest Trail--More on working with consent decree. [Tape 6, Side B]. 98 More on the consent decree--Looking for other positions--Working as the deputy staff director for environmental coordination in the Washington Office--Working on the Spotted Owl team. SESSION III, July 7, 2000 [Tape 7, Side A]. 107 Returning to working on a small staff after being forest supervisor-- Working with Chief Dale Robertson--Applying for another field job-- Shrinking staff in the Washington Office. [Tape 7, Side B]. 114 Women and minorities in the Washington Office--Uniqueness of Region 5-- Continuing activity in the Society of American Foresters--Retirement and return to Nevada City, California--The Nevada County Land Trust-- Experience as a woman forester--Female networking. [Tape 8, Side A]. 123 Advising and supporting women in the Forest Service--Role models-- More on the consent decree--Women and Forest Service culture--Sexual harassment in the Forest Service--Combining a Forest Service career with marriage and family--Triumphs and disappointments. [Tape 8, Side B]. 132 Advice for women in the Forest Service--Advice for men--Name change to Geri Vanderveer Bergen. INTERVIEW HISTORY Geri Vanderveer Bergen was interviewed by Jacqueline S. Reinier at Bergen’s home in Nevada City on July 5, 6, and 7, 2000. Dr. Reinier is a former history professor and director of the Oral History Program at California State University, Sacramento. She and her students have done previous interviewing of Region 5 USDA Forest Service employees in California. She also has taught Oral History Interviewing in the Capital Campus Public History Program at California State University, Sacramento and at Vista College in Berkeley, California. Prior to the interview she was able to conduct research in materials furnished by Linda Lux, Forest Service Historian for Region 5, and in the library of the Pacific Southwest Regional Office of the USDA Forest Service in Vallejo, California. The interview was conducted in Bergen’s living room in Nevada City. Choosing her words carefully, the interviewee described a transitional period during which the Forest Service has undergone a great deal of change. When she was trained as a forester at the University of California, Berkeley, very few women had enrolled in the School of Forestry. As a woman, she was directed toward a career in research, and her first full- time position with the Forest Service was Public Information Officer in the area of Women’s Activities. Yet she shaped her positions as she held them and, drawing on her background in volunteer conservation activity, she was able to become environmental coordinator for Region 5. Eventually she obtained the field work she had always desired and became the first female line officer in the Forest Service, first as deputy forest supervisor and then as forest supervisor of the Tahoe National Forest. An active member of the Society of American Foresters, she has carefully made in her way in a large previously male-dominated federal agency. The interview was transcribed by Carol Niehus in Berkeley, California. Reinier edited the transcript, first checking the verbatim manuscript against the original tape recordings, and then editing it for punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling, and verifying proper names. Insertions by the editor are bracketed. The interviewer also prepared the introductory materials and names list. In December 2000, Bergen was forwarded a copy of the transcript for her approval. She kept the transcript for almost a year, finally returning it in October, 2001. During that time she made the decision to omit in the transcript some of the material on the tapes. Places where these omissions have been made are indicated in brackets. Material added by Bergen also is bracketed. Bergen’s personal papers are still in her possession. The original tape recordings of the interview, the draft transcript annotated by Bergen, and additional copies of the final transcript are located at the Forest History Society, Inc., 701 Vickers Avenue, Durham, North Carolina, 27701. BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY Geraldine Marcia Bergen was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1930, from where her father, Reginald V. Bergen, commuted to Wall Street to work for the J.P. Morgan investment company. Raised in a family with traditional gender roles, she was not expected to attend college. After her graduation with a straight-A record from Nutley Senior High School in New Jersey in 1948, she attended the Katherine Gibbs School in New York City and took a secretarial course. In June, 1949, she married Donald F. Eldridge, and traveled with him to Seattle, Washington, where he took a position with the Boeing Airplane Company. Although she worked as a secretary for a period of time, Geri became a full-time mother with the arrival of her three children, Guy Robert Eldridge born in 1952, Katherine Ann Eldridge, born in 1953, and Marcia Sue Eldridge, born in 1954. After her divorce from Donald Eldridge, she moved with her children to Reno, Nevada in 1957, and supported them for two and a half years by dealing blackjack at a casino. When Geri enrolled in the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1958, she had already decided to pursue a pre-forestry curriculum. As a child, she had delighted in trips to the mountains with her family. On her trip across the country and sojourn in the Pacific Northwest, she had visited National and State Parks, and while in Seattle took an extension ecology class from the University of Washington. Able to concentrate on her studies when her children went to live with their father, she earned an almost straight-A record and focused on her goal of admission to the School of Forestry at the University of California, Berkeley. Geri married Donald C. Larson in 1959 and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she continued her rigorous curriculum at Oakland City College. By the summer of 1960 she was ready to attend the summer camp required by the UC Berkeley School of Forestry. The second woman ever to participate in the summer camp, Geri found herself entering the program with forty young men. Experiencing considerable stress in the new situation, she gradually learned to shed some of the assumptions with which she had been raised and to become “one of the gang.” As only the eighth woman to enroll in the program, Geri achieved a distinguished record at the School of Forestry, earning membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Xi Sigma Pi, the honorary forestry fraternity, as well as honorable mention for the University medal. As an undergraduate and graduate student she received the Whitt Brothers Hardwood Industry Scholarship in 1961, the John H.
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