Forest Supervisor, Tahoe National Forest, U.S. Forest Service
Eli Ilano has served as the Forest Supervisor for the Tahoe National Forest since 2016. In this role, he oversees 871,495 acres of national forestland across six counties in the Sierra, including the Placer Big Trees Grove, the northernmost grove of Giant Sequoia. Among his duties, Eli coordinates with other agencies and private landowners on projects designed to reduce fuels, protect communities from wildfire, and thin forests at risk of infestation by bark beetles.
Eli earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1995 and a Master’s degrees in Environmental Policy and Landscape Architecture and City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001.
He brings years of natural resource and public land management experience to the field. In addition to his time with the US Forest service, he has worked for the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Senate, and for the non-profit sector in communities around the country. Before taking his current position, Eli served as the Deputy Forest Supervisor for both the Tahoe National Forest and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit in South Lake Tahoe.
Areas of Expertise: public land management, natural resource management; forest management; fuels reduction