Era Reporter

The new district ranger for the Bradford District of the
Allegheny National Forest is looking forward to working with
employees, local organizations and the community to establish
positive relationships.

Anthony V. Scardina is originally from Scottdale, a town south
of Pittsburgh, and he sees working on the ANF as a special
opportunity for him.

“To come back to this area and become a ranger is a special
thing for me. I spent a lot of time in this area – in the northern
parts of Pennsylvania,” said Scardina. “It has a lot of meaning to
me; the resources here are very important to me.”

Scardina has been with the forest service for four years,
starting out in Washington, D.C., in a Presidential Management
Fellows Program where his first position was in program and budget
analysis.

He then went to St. Paul, Minn., and worked in the North Central
Research Station or two months to conduct a study on restructuring
and retooling the station’s business operations functions.

After that, Scardina traveled to California to the Eldorado
National Forest where he worked as a team leader for a project on
managing off-highway vehicles.

Out of the two-year fellows program, he became a deputy district
ranger while still on the Eldorado forest and for the past five
months prior to arriving in Pennsylvania, he worked as the acting
district ranger in the Eldorado National Forest.

Scardina said he has both internal and external goals that
involve providing good leadership for employees in the district and
good communication with outside community groups.

“I want to help the ranger district employees effectively manage
what is going on in the forest with oil and gas, recreation,
wilderness and so many other things,” said Scardina.

As far as the external works of his position, Scardina said he
wants to build and keep a good relationship with the community.

“I understand the importance of the history here and the timber
program, recreation, and oil and gas,” he added. “It is important
for me to connect with that and work on those issues (of public
concern.) I know that people disagree and I want to work face to
face and have discussions and work through some of the
challenges.”

Scardina said he has been getting to know the employees of the
district and has been spending a lot of time learning and traveling
around the forest to understand the current issues and workings
already in place.

He said he feels that is the most important step he can take at
this time – to show the employees of the district that he
understands what they have been doing, learning their needs and is
there to provide good leadership for them.

Scardina adds that as far as meeting the public, he has been to
an Allegheny National Forest Vacation Bureau meeting, plans to
attend a Warren County commissioners’ meeting, has met with Kirk
Johnson of the Friends of Allegheny Wilderness and is ready to set
up a meeting with members of the Allegheny Defense Project, among
others.

He said he is working on getting to know other groups in the
area, including oil and gas contractors, but has been working hard
to get to know the employees of the district in his three weeks
here.

Scardina also mentioned the project of the expansion of the
Willow Creek ATV trail and said they are working to get it moving
forward. He said they still have to go through all of the comments
submitted on it and come up with a decision. He said that may be
announced in September.

Scardina brings to the Bradford Ranger District bachelor’s
degrees in forest management, wildlife sciences, and fishery
sciences from West Virginia University. He also has master’s
degrees in forest policy and public administration from Virginia
Tech University.