I am a retired vegetation ecologist. I worked for 25 years with the US Forest Service, primarily in the Intermountain West of the United States. My first 8 years were focused on developing the first riparian community type classifications for Nevada, Utah, eastern Idaho, and western Wyoming. After that, I spent 15 years as the ecologist with the Wasatch-Cache (now Uinta-Wasatch-Cache) National Forest in northern Utah. My position was focused on everything related to plants - from rare species to landscape ecosystems. My last two years with the US Forest Service were as ecologist in the national Washington, DC Office. Here, I worked with ecologists throughout the agency - from Alaska to Florida, and from Arizona and New Mexico to New Hampshire. The last five years of my career were spent as the Program Lead for Colorado Plateau Native Plant Program with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) stationed in the Utah State Office. Our team included botanists and ecologists from federal and state agencies, universities, and native plant growers throughout the Colorado Plateau. Our primary goal was to develop locally adapted, genetically appropriate native plant materials for revegetation and restoration of disturbed lands of the Colorado Plateau.

In addition to my work, primarily in western United States, I have traveled around the world photographing living organisms of all sorts in Europe, Ecuador, Tanzania, and Australia. My current focus in on improving my photographic skills, not only of living organisms, but also of the world in which we live. I am currently creating my own photography web page and some of my many images can be seen at https://wpadgettphotography.myportfolio.com/.

So much still to do and to see!

Wayne P