Leslie Weldon

Leslie Weldon is an experienced leader in natural resource conservation and organizational development. Over the past 41 years, Leslie served in a diversity of senior executive and field-based positions within the USDA Forest Service in including Deputy Chief for Work and Environment and performance, national Forest System, Regional Forester, and External Affairs Officer. She has led US Forest Service conservation work in Washington State, Oregon, Montana, and Washington, DC. She has shaped conservation policy, guided aquatic and forest restoration programs in a diversity of ecosystems and communities, and led employee performance and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs for the Forest Service and USDA. She chose her vocation while a teenager and after participation in the Youth Conservation Corps in the late-70’s. She is dedicated to exploration and creating possibilities, and to connecting people to nature and to themselves. Leslie is wife to Michael, mother to Joseph and his wife, Karina, Kevin and his wife, Lillie and a new grandmother to their child, Lucian Aiden. She serves on the boards of Trout Unlimited, Arbor Day Foundation, Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative, The Corps Network, and the University of Washington Center for Environmental Forensic Science.