Gifford Pinchot
In 1896, Grover Cleveland appointed Pinchot to the National Forest Commission and charged him with developing a plan for managing the nationÕs Western
forest reserves. In 1898, he became head of the Division of Forestry, later renamed the United States Forest Service.With fellow Yale alumnus Henry S. Graves, Pinchot founded the Yale University School of Forestry (now the School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies) in 1900 and was a
professor there from 1903 until 1936.Pinchot
sought to turn public land policy from one that dispersed resources to private
holdings to one that maintained federal
ownership and management of public land. He was a progressive who strongly believed in the
efficiency movement. The most economically efficient use of
natural resources was his goal; waste was
his great enemy. His successes, in part, were grounded in the personal networks that he started
developing as a student at Yale and
continued developing throughout his career. His personal involvement in the recruitment process
led to high esprit de corps in the
Forest Service and allowed him to avoid partisan political patronage. Pinchot capitalized on his
professional expertise to gain adherents
in an age when professionalism and science were greatly valued. He made it a high priority to
professionalize the Forest Service;
to that end he helped found the Yale School of Forestry as a source of highly trained men.