General membership meetings normally are held at 6:00 pm (note new starting time) on the first Tuesday of each month from April to October in the conference room at the Sandia Ranger Station in Tijeras. (No meetings are held November through March.) Meetings include brief reports from the FOSM President, Projects Chair, and Treasurer followed by an informative presentation by an invited speaker on a subject pertinent to our mission and of general interest.
Year-round monthly meetings were attempted for several years, but repeated weather cancellations eventually convinced FOSM’s board of directors to restrict meetings to April-October beginning in 2015.
All meetings were canceled in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, and all meetings in 2021 and 2022 were virtual using Zoom. Hybrid (in-person plus Zoom) meetings were attempted in 2023⏤a challenging and perhaps worthy experiment; however, they required a lot of extra work, were fraught with technical problems, and created a distraction for in-person participants⏤all for a small on-line audience. In-person-only meetings resumed in 2024.
The FOSM Vice-President is responsible for arranging speakers for these meetings. We strive for a mix of informative, educational, and entertaining topics each year including talks focused on enhancing our knowledge of like-minded organizations to help accomplish our mission of supporting the Forest Service. The FOSM board of directors compiled a list of such organizations in January 2022, and each member choose four organizations she or he wanted to hear about at future membership meetings. Results from this weighted-choice poll have been used in choosing outside speakers since then.
Summaries of prior meetings are available via the dropdown menu above or by clicking on a link at the bottom of this page. Records of meeting speakers go back to 2003 thanks to annual newsletters. The breadth of topics and quality of speakers over the years are truly impressive. Copies of most presentations are available for meetings since April 2021 (pdf format).
Arrangements are underway for 2025 meetings. Speakers and topics for this year are as follows:
- April 1 – Ken Born, Sandia Ranger District update
- May 6 – Jen Medina-Gray, Canyon Young, and Julie Padilla, Trail construction
- June 3 – Jamey Browning, Trail mapping
- July 1 – Steve Glass, Cuidad Soil and Water Conservation District and Tijeras Creek Watershed Collaborative
- August 5 – Quinn Mendelson, Rocky Mountain Youth Corps
- September 2- TBD
- October 7 – Annual business meeting followed by Stan Davis speaking about “EarthCaches in the Sandias.”
April 1, 2025 Meeting
Date and Time – April 1, 6:00 PM
Location – Sandia Ranger Station conference room
Program abstract – Ken Born is the new district ranger on the Sandia Ranger District. In his first presentation to the Friends of Sandia Mountains, Ken provided his reflections on how partnerships are at the heart of how the Forest Service and Sandia Ranger District accomplishes its mission to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. Ken also shared out district, forest, and national priorities for the year – and how he sees the district and FOSM strengthening its own partnership to achieve those priorities in the months and years to come.
Speaker bio – Ken comes to the Sandia Ranger District from the US Forest Service’s Southwestern Regional Office in Albuquerque where he has worked since 2018, primarily as the region’s Recreation Special Uses Program Manager. In this role, he supported administration of commercial permits which authorize ski areas, resorts, marinas, outfitters and guides, and recreation events on National Forest System lands. He has more than 15 years of federal service and has also served in local government, spending his early career working as land use planner. He began his time with the Forest Service as the Forest Planner for the Tonto National Forest in Phoenix, AZ and has been a District Ranger previously on the Coronado National Forest near Tucson, from 2015-18. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in environmental planning from Northern Arizona University, and a Master of Arts degree in public policy from Stony Brook University.
Links to presentations (PDF files):
May 6, 2025 Meeting
Trails Foreman Jen Medina-Gray and Trails and Wilderness Program Manager Canyon Young educated us about trail construction in the Sandia Ranger District (SRD).
Date and Time – May 6, 6:00 PM
Location – Sandia Ranger Station conference room
Program abstract – Have you ever wondered how trails are designed and built in the Sandia Ranger District? Sandia Ranger District Trails Foreman Jen Medina-Gray did a deep dive into the trail development process. Jen covered topics such as envisioning a new trail design, how the forest service defines different trail systems, how they navigate the environmental review process, and how trails are constructed.
Canyon Young, Trails and Wilderness Program Manager, gave a short overview of SRD trails projects for this season after Jen’s presentation.
Speaker bios – Jen Medina-Gray is the Sandia Ranger District Trails Foreman and has been in this position for a little over a year. Hailing originally from Maryland, Jen has been living in Albuquerque for the past 3 years. Jen earned a BFA in Technical Theatre from Syracuse University and has somehow found a way to utilize their theatre rigging and carpentry training in the world of trails for the past 8 years. Jen got their start in trails by participating in the Utah Conservation Corps in 2017, and the rest is history. They have continued to work in trails with various nonprofits, private contractors, and federal agencies ever since.
Canyon Young started his federal career at the Sandia Ranger District as a seasonal, where he did a season of fire and a few seasons of trails. Leaving for a permanent position in 2020, he did a few years with the NRCS in Santa Fe, followed by a year with the BLM in Albuquerque, both as a Rangeland Management Specialist. Since 2018, Canyon has also owned and operated a small forestry contracting business in the East Mountains, implementing thinning for wildfire risk mitigation, as well as hazardous tree removals. As a lifelong Sandia Park resident, he is very excited to be working on his home USFS district again and hopes to put his extensive local knowledge of the Sandias and Manzanitas to good use for SRD. Outside of work, Canyon is an avid trail runner, skier, hunter, and mountain biker.
Links to presentations (PDF files):