Meg Mitchell, the new Willamette National Forest supervisor, was in junior high school when she realized her career goal was to work for the U.S. Forest Service.

Mitchell is completing her first week as the head of the diverse 1.7-million-acre forest, which stretches for more than 100 miles along the western slope of the Cascade Range. She leads a staff of 300, including those at the Sweet Home Ranger District.

"This is my dream job," Mitchell said in an interview from forest headquarters in Springfield. "You know how you make a list sometimes ... well, this is on my dream job list."

Mitchell was born in New York and lived in several states during her youth - her father worked for Union Carbide Corporation - and also resided in Europe. She spent her junior high and high school years in Connecticut, and it was there during a classroom project to explore careers that she became involved with Forest Service projects. In the summertime, she worked with The Nature Conservancy.

"My father was born on a farm in West Virginia and loved being outdoors and bird watching," Mitchell said. "My love of the outdoors came from him. I also enjoy bird watching."

Mitchell enrolled at Colorado State University to become a wildlife biologist but realized the field was glutted and switched her major to landscape architecture, graduating in 1981. She then completed a master's degree in forestry at the University of Idaho.

"I just kept working my way west," Mitchell said. "I love the West. It's big, bold and beautiful."

She spent nine years on the 17 million acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska, where she was a ranger on the Yakutat Ranger District. The community has about 800 residents and half of the area's residents are Tlingit Native Americans.

"I did a lot of collaboration work with the tribes there," Mitchell said. "There are very strong tribes working with the Forest Service on management of resources."

She also was a ranger on the 2.2-million-acre Wallowa Whitman National Forest in northeastern Oregon - home to the vast Eagle Cap Wilderness Area - and most recently was supervisor of the 400,000-acre Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests in Vermont, primarily hardwoods.

She also spent three years working in Washington, D.C.

Mitchell said her management style focuses on working together and maintaining a sense of humor.

"I believe in a program that's collaborative and fun," Mitchell said. "We spend a lot of time at work and it's important that we treat each other well. When I think of the Willamette National Forest, I think of a big water producer, and water ties everything together. People want to play in it, be around it and drink it."

The Willamette National Forest will receive more than $9.3 million in federal stimulus funding, which Mitchell sees as a huge opportunity.

"We are creating jobs to get the economy on board," Mitchell said. "We are going to get a lot of young people involved in the forest and that's definitely good."

Mitchell said she made the trip to Oregon from Vermont with her two dogs - a Lab mix and a Great Pyrenees mix - and stopped at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Colorado.

"Without Teddy, we wouldn't be here," she said with a laugh.

Mitchell said she enjoys reading - especially history books - cooking, and outdoor activities including snowshoeing, and water sports such as canoeing and kayaking. She also "likes to dabble in art."