21st Chief of the US Dept. of Agriculture’s Forest Service
Tom Schultz is the 21st Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service. Schultz previously served as vice president of resources and government affairs at Idaho Forest Group, where he led timber procurement operations and managed relationships with government officials at all levels.
Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction
Debbie Critchfield serves as the Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Previously, she served as a seven-year member of the Idaho State Board of Education and was president during her final two years. Debbie was co-chair to Governor Little’s Education Task Force in 2019 and committee chair for Governor Otter’s Higher Education Task Force in 2017. She chaired the Re-Open Idaho Schools Committee in 2020 and was a member of the Governor’s K-12 Council.
Debbie was an elected school board member in Cassia County for ten years, five as board chair, and was on the executive committee of the Idaho School Boards Association. She is a former local library trustee and Oakley Valley Arts Council president.
She worked as the public information officer for Cassia School District for nine years, stepping down before her election as state superintendent.
A fourth-generation Idaho farm family, Debbie and her husband Dave live in Oakley, where they raised their four children. They have three grandsons.
Deputy Chief - Plans
of the Bureau of Fire Management
Idaho Department of Lands
Scott Hayes is the Deputy Chief—Plans, of the Bureau of Fire Management for the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL). Scott has been with IDL since 2008, starting as a Resource Aide and working up through the ranks to Assistant Fire Warden in 2014. He became the Fire Warden on the Mica District in 2016 and moved to the Fire Bureau as Deputy Chief—Plans in 2018. In his current position, Scott oversees wildland fire management for the state of Idaho.
Scott has a Bachelors of Science in Forest Products from the University of Idaho. He has worked in various firefighting roles including: Task Force Leader, Incident Commander, Communications Unit Leader, and Investigator. Scott currently oversees the following programs within IDL: investigations, radio communications, fire detection, training, and prevention.
Tigercat Product Support
Shelton, Washington
Interest and expertise in steep slope logging
Range of experience:
Machine operator
Field manager
Product support
Operator trainer
Director of Software
AeroTract, LLC
"Jack Wolf is Director of Software at AeroTract, where he leads development of AI-powered geospatial tools that help forestry and agriculture teams turn drone data into actionable insights. In 2017 he earned a B.S. in Computer Science from University of Wisconsin–Madison and began doctoral research applying artificial intelligence to natural science problems before moving into industry in 2022. Today, he focuses on building scalable software and machine learning systems that modernize how land and natural resources are measured, analyzed, and managed."