The Shawnee National Forest welcomes their new administrator, Brendan Cain; who started last week and is stationed at the Headquarters Office in Harrisburg, Illinois. Mr. Cain joins the Shawnee National Forest as the new Forest Supervisor, after long-time Forest Supervisor, Allen Nicholas left earlier this year. Coming to the Forest Service from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Burns, Oregon Cain has a vast array of knowledge and experience in rangelands management, recreation, wilderness 
and hydrology. Before working for the BLM at the management level he worked as a hydrologist with the BLM and National Park Service. Prior to his career in natural resources, Cain was a high school math teacher in Minnesota and Wisconsin for five years. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from the University of Northern Iowa and a Master of Science in Forest Hydrology from the University of Minnesota. Mr. Cain is looking forward to working on the Shawnee National Forest and exploring the natural wonders of southern Illinois.
Administered by the USDA Forest Service, the Shawnee National Forest is one of 155 national forests nationwide. As the only national forest in Illinois, the Shawnee offers numerous avenues for connecting with the natural world through its 280,000 acres of varied landscape. Whether your interests lie more in outdoor recreational activities, such as hiking or camping, or include learning about the unique natural and cultural heritage of southern Illinois, the fields, forests and streams of the Shawnee welcome you. To discover more about the Shawnee National Forest, visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/shawnee. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/shawneenf and Facebook via https://www.facebook.com/shawneenatlforest.
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The U.S. Forest Service is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a mission of sustaining the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The Forest Service’s Eastern Region includes twenty states in the Midwest and East, stretching from Maine, to Maryland, to Missouri, to Minnesota. There are 17 national forests and one national tallgrass prairie in the Eastern Region. For more information, visit https://www.fs.usda.gov/R9.
The U.S. Forest Service manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation’s clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live. For more information, visit https://www.fs.usda.gov.
