DAILY NEWS STAFF REPORT
December 19, 2006

Summit County, CO Colorado

FRISCO - Colorado State Parks director Lyle Laverty will be the featured presenter at the next Mountain Pine Beetle Task Force Meeting, which will be held at the Best Western Lake Dillon Lodge in Frisco from 7:30-9 a.m. Thursday. 

Laverty will discuss efforts under way with the Society of American Foresters (SAF) and the National Association of State Foresters to frame a national conversation regarding "sustainable forests." He has been sharing with a spectrum of national interests what the pine beetle task force has been doing in Summit and neighboring counties as an example of the importance of this conversation and how our efforts locally have become "center stage." 

Laverty, who is policy chair for the Colorado/Wyoming chapter of the SAF, has served in a number of capacities for the U.S. Forest Service, including associate deputy chief responsible for leadership and implementation of the National Fire Plan. In previous leadership assignments, Laverty was regional forester for the Rocky Mountain Region and the Forest Service's director of recreation, heritage & wilderness resources in Washington, D.C., from 1992 to 1997.

All task force meetings are free and open to the public.