Eleanor S. Towns
ELEANOR S. TOWNS is a master communicator with a reputation for motivating people, managing chaos, mediating conflict, and sustaining high performance during the most challenging of circumstances. As senior manager for the Southwestern Region of the U.S. Forest Service, she managed a budget of over $300 million dollars, a workforce of over 2,000 employees, and a land base of over 22 million acres in five states.
President William J. Clinton granted Towns Meritorious Presidential Rank for managing programs of the United States government. One of her defining moments was the Los Alamos fire, an experience that taught her some of her most provocative leadership lessons.
Ellie has addressed many on natural and human resource issues. Audiences from senior corporate managers to students love her funny, frank, down-to-earth presentations. Leadership and workforce survival tips are punctuated with some humorous and some riveting (but not-so-humorous) stories from her thirty-year career in public service. Audiences include new and mid-career employees; students and graduates; senior and mid-level managers; natural resource managers; leadership interns; corporate and agency leadership teams; and churches.
A native of Rockford, Illinois, a graduate of the Universities of Illinois, New Mexico, and Denver College of Law, she has served on advisory boards to the schools of Natural Resources for the University of Colorado School of Law and the University of Arizona. She is a member of the Colorado Bar, Member - Board of Directors and Chair, Conservation Committee of the National Forest Foundation, Member - National Speakers' Association, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a public service organization.
CHURCHES
Community Missionary Baptist Church
Park Hill United Methodist Church
Pilgrim Baptist Church
Scott United Methodist Church
COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
Florida A&M University
University of Montana
University of New Mexico College of Law, Grants, & Las Cruces
University of Wyoming
Colorado Tuskegee-Hampden Universities Alumni Club
GOVERNMENT
Golconda Civilian Conservation Center
U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories: Los Alamos & Sandia
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
U.S. Department of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Defense
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
U.S. Forest Service
U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Eastern & Western Management Centers
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
American Bar Association, Dispute Resolution Section
Colorado Black Women for Political Action
Colorado Society of Human Resource Managers
Lutheran Services
McClean County Museum of Natural History
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies
PRIVATE SECTOR
Aurora Chamber of Commerce
Booz Allen Hamilton
Raytheon
I am pleased and gratified that my work in the Senate has allowed me to get to know Ellie. We worked together in preserving the Valles Caldera National Preserve and in securing additional funding for hazardous fuels
projects to reduce fire threats to
communities adjacent to national forests.
She also testified before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee several
times and I can honestly say that she
was one of the best witnesses the
Forest Service has ever sent up here.
JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. SENATOR, D-NM
"Ellie Towns is a dynamo. Smart, shrewd,
and engaged, she knows how to grab
an audience's attention, draw it in with
her considerable warmth and affection,
and then challenge it with her insight.
Oh, and she is very, very funny;
you learn great truths from her while
laughing out loud -- I can't imagine
a better combination!"
CHAR MILLER, AGENCY HISTORIAN
TRINITY UNIVERSITY, SAN ANTONIO, TX
"Ellie worked with me during my years as Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. She has superb communication and leadership skills. She understands people, is a persuasive and articulate speaker, and particularly effective
in controversial and intractable situations.
Ellie has great breadth of experience
dealing with and successfully resolving
many vexing issues. Her track record is second to no one else I worked with
during my 25 year career in public service."
PROF. MIKE DOMBECK, FORMER CHIEF U.S. FOREST SERVICE
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
STEVENS POINT, WI
"I have had the unique pleasure of seeing her interact with groups and individuals with widely differing backgrounds and perspectives, and
she was somehow able to communicate in
a way that resonated with them all. She
can entertain, inform, advise, cajole,
admonish and motivate. She is someone
who inspires and whom you feel is
absolutely sincere and honest in what
she expresses. She somehow is able to
establish, in remarkably quick fashion,
credibility with her audience. I have seen
her address a public gathering featuring
a number of distinguished and capable
speakers, and she absolutely stole the
show. I cannot say enough about
her -- she's a gem."
DAVE MIELKE, ATTORNEY
SONOSKY, CHAMBERS, SACHSE, ENDRESON, & MIELKE,
ALBUQUERQUE, NM
Re: Ellie Towns: you saved the best for last...what a gift...one of the most inspiring speeches I've ever heard...powerful, focused, influential, intelligent, and most of all, down to earth. Ellie is the Harry S. Truman of the Forest Service...appreciated her
plain speaking.
2004 EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION
SALT LAKE CITY, UT
THE TOWN CRIER, INC.
9831 XAVIER CT.
WESTMINSTER, CO 80031-2531
(303) 469-5009
mizellyrocks_comcast.net
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