USDA Not Changing Forest Service’s Shield Logo

A plan to drop a recognizable logo in this part of the country — the Forest Service’s iconic shield — generated so much outrage among the agency’s retirees that the idea has been dropped, reports the Yakima Herald-Republic.

In early January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly introduced a policy to phase out all of its sub-agencies’ logos, including the Forest Service’s, and replace them with the USDA symbol.

But that policy was kept so under wraps that not even Pacific Northwest forest supervisors were told. Some of them only heard about it in retrospect late last week — after the USDA had decided, in light of the virulent opposition from the Forest Service’s “Old Smokies” retiree group, to keep the service’s shield logo intact.

“We were all getting ready for a good fight,” said Jim Golden of Sonora (CA) chairman of the retiree group.

“Of course the alarm went off with our group. The strength of an organization like ours is we can say things in a different way — we can say things the Forest Service (current employees) can’t because of politics.

“We went into it with the attitude that it would be no holds barred.”

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