Paul G. (Paul Goodwin) Redington

Born in Chicago on January 25, 1878, Paul Goodwin Redington studied at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1900, and later earned a forestry degree from Yale in 1904. He entered the U.S. Forest Service as a field assistant and built his career through practical work in western national forests.

By the 1910s and 1920s, Redington had become an important administrator in federal forestry. He served as supervisor of the Sierra National Forest, then as district forester in the Southwest and later in California. In 1926 he was appointed assistant chief of the Forest Service in charge of public relations, showing how comfortable he was both with field work and with explaining conservation to the public.

In 1927 he became chief of the U.S. Biological Survey, extending his influence from forests to wildlife management. He also wrote or co-wrote government publications, including work on predator and rodent control. Redington died on January 12, 1942. Surviving records make clear that he was a significant figure in early American conservation, even if a full personal portrait is not easy to document online.