19 Oct A Visit to the SO and the AUGNC Conference

Hello! Lan here! With the professional development fund from RAP, I was able to visit the Supervisors Office (SO) and attend the AUGNC conference in Asheville, North Carolina. I am located at the Croatan Ranger District, which is a six-hour drive away. Honestly, I had never driven that far on my own before, so I prepared for the drive with an iced pumpkin cream chai latte and a long audiobook! Thankfully the drive was peaceful aside from the usual traffic through the cities.

The first two days of the week, I was able to come into the office, meet everyone, and work as usual. The rest of the week we attended the AUGNC Fall 2023 Conference. It was a great conference that focused solely on GIS whether they were project updates, presentations, or application introductions/ tutorials.

I was so happy to finally meet everyone here since one of my mentors was located at the SO. It was also great to meet up with Caroline Becker again, after being introduced to each other at orientation in Colorado. I highly recommend visiting other offices within your area to get to know everyone and learn what their forest projects are.