“The way this process unraveled was not based on merit or achievement,” said Stephanie Flinders, 37, of Mountain View.  Flinders, who spent 21 months with the U.S. Forest Service as a wilderness and trails forestry tech, was one of thousands of federal employees nationwide who were unexpectedly fired from their jobs by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Feb. 14.   

“I just feel humbled, and at the mercy of God,” she said. “I’m super grateful for the experiences I had and the people I got to know, but I guess the other emotion is intense fear. There’s still a lot of shock and feeling like I’m knocked back to square one.”

Flinders, a central Utah native, told the Herald that she was practically born with her hiking boots on.

“I grew up in the mountains,” she said. “My grandpa was a wildlife professor at BYU (Brigham Young University), and my dad was a wildlife biologist. I got married with my boots on,” she said, joking that she “even gave birth with my boots on!”

Before graduating from BYU with a bachelor’s degree in English and editing with a minor in wildlife studies, Flinders worked five summers with the forest service.

“It was the first job I got right after high school, working on a range crew then eventually a fire crew,” she explained of her history with the agency. “I got my ‘red card’ and helped fight a bunch of fires.”

Flinders, now a single mother of two, has called the Bridger Valley home for the past decade and a half. She had taken several years out of the workforce to raise a family, but a divorce and an amicable custody arrangement a couple of years ago led her to look for employment. She was delighted and relieved to hire on with the forest service in May 2023 doing work she excelled at and was passionate about.

“As a wilderness trail forestry tech, I educated the public on safety, led groups and was responsible for protecting and preserving the wilderness and habitat,” she said.  “I was maintaining ATV (all-terrain vehicle) and cross-country ski trails, mitigating hazards, constructing boardwalks and bridges.”

“I was given more and more leadership because of the quality of my work and feedback from coworkers,” Flinders continued. “It’s a lot of work backpacking for eight days; the work is very arduous and so is keeping morale high. I was personally recognized by a deputy ranger because of how I made the Forest Service look, and I was strengthening relationships between us and our partners. I was the public interface, and I really enjoyed it.”

Flinders reached crew lead status, in charge of maintaining 700 miles of trails and habitat throughout the Uinta Mountains.

“If ever there was a job catered to me, this was it,” she said.

When the termination letter was sent via email in mid-February, like many others citing that the firing was “based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest,” Flinders was blindsided.

“I did not see it coming,” she said. “It was a huge slap in the face. We were told to expect to have to accomplish our tasks with less [resources], but none of us thought this is what it meant. None of my superiors knew, either.”

“I had a two-year probation. I was three months short of that finishing,” she said. “Out of this district, we lost at least eight (employees). My district ranger has petitioned the termination — they did not approve, and they want me to know they’re fighting for me.”

Flinders remains composed and surprisingly gracious and honored to have had the opportunity to have served in such a capacity in the first place. Without a hint of resentment, at times she seems less concerned with her personal situation than she is with the future of the forest lands she and the public love and enjoy. 

“The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache [National Forest] is the second largest forest in the nation,” Flinders explained. “Each year we receive 9.4 million visitors. These people pay recreation passes, ride ATVs, hunt, fish, camp and boost the local economies by purchasing gear and their weight in insect repellent.”

“With no trail crews, there are going to be more hazards and, as hazards propagate, these trails are going to become inaccessible and inevitably shutdown,” she said. “We have King’s Peak, Red Castle, Christmas Meadows, Ruth Lake — absolutely they will be directly impacted, they’re hard to keep up with in general. Going over the data I collected from last summer, we had over 1,600 visitors to King’s Peak in one month. That’s a new record high.”

She said the mass firings will have real consequences.

“A lot of these lakes are over-camped and there are sewage problems — but all these people have been terminated. Most people overseeing field positions have been terminated. There aren’t field people anymore — they’re terminated. We lost 50% of rec staff, lost crews from timber and there’s no one in campgrounds or bathrooms. There’s no trail work anymore. Our forests don’t deserve this, either.”

Flinders said she’s fearful there won’t be enough help come fire season.

“Dispersed rec is gone. All these people had ‘red cards’, they were fire certified and were 25% of the reserve firefighting base. And we’ve had an especially dry winter...” she said.

As for Flinders, who’s currently subsisting on savings and odd jobs while awaiting unemployment benefits to begin, she said “I do feel like it’s made me grow closer to my community. I’m just looking for any of the good that I can because I have to build a foundation.”

"I'll do what I have to do to find work, I'm not looking for charity. I'm looking for any kind of grunt work at all. Friends and community members have been helping and keeping tabs on odd jobs for me, and I've been looking for other ways to serve," she said.  "I'm keeping myself as busy as possible to not let my mind and spirits fall."

“I don’t ever give up,” she said.  “I’m savvy, I’m strong and I’m a hard worker. I have to have hope and faith that things will work out, but it’s going to take me a little while to figure this one out.”