Sean C. Morgan
Front desk personnel from the U.S. Forest Service and other public agencies and private organizations will learn about Linn County at a two-day conference based in Sweet Home April 14-15.
Over the past five years, the Forest Service has put together an annual training day, The Frontliners Conference, for resource agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the upper Willamette Valley, said Judith McHugh, public affairs officer with the Willamette National Forest. The Forest Service also has partnered with local tourism groups and agencies, including the Sweet Home Chamber of Commerce, the Albany Visitor’s Center and Linn County Parks and Recreation.
The conference is for those who work the front desks and phones, McHugh said. The conference provides natural resource training on the first day. The second day, those attending head into the field.
Each year, the conference focuses on a specific area, McHugh said. This year, the focus is Linn County.
“We take the people around to see the sites they’re talking to visitors about,” McHugh said. This year, field trips will include Quartzville Corridor and the Over the River and Through the Woods Scenic Byway, which begins near Brownsville and runs through Sweet Home into the Sweet Home Ranger District east along Highway 20 to the junction with Highway 126.
The conference serves 70 to 90 people per year, McHugh said.