Jamie Werner got her start working on public lands as a U.S. Forest Service firefighter when she was 19 years old. She went to Stanford University, where she studied environmental science and then embarked on a career in land management.
Just over a year ago, she took a job with the U.S. Forest Service as a project manager for the newly designated Camp Hale Continental Divide National Monument, which involves many stakeholders.
“Part of my job is making sure that all those entities are talking to each other and moving in the same direction and, if I may, help the project proceed efficiently, which is ironic given the conversations around the efficiency of our government workers,” she told CPR News.
Werner talks about her job in the present tense. But the Sunday of President’s Weekend, her supervisor called her to say she had been fired, one of several thousand probationary officers let go as part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to shrink the size of government. All federal workers go through a probationary period when they begin work in a new position.
“I find myself often still, when I have these conversations, referring to my colleagues in our work, in the we and ours,” she said. “‘We do this. It's our land to manage.’ And I've been having trouble switching over to saying ‘theirs’ and ‘they.’ I still—in my mind mentally—am part of that team.”
Democrats invited guests to President Donald Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress Tuesday night to put names and faces to the layoffs and cuts from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, headed by businessman Elon Musk.
Werner came as Sen. Michael Bennet’s guest.
“I thought it was important for Jamie to be here, not just to represent the federal employees, the public servants that have been fired indiscriminately for no fault of their own,” Benet told CPR News. “But also to raise the worry and concern and the alarm around what is going to happen to our public lands in Colorado if these public lands agencies—like the Forest Service, like the BLM—are not only able to hire people or keep people, but are actually letting people go in these vital positions.”
Bennet said he knows there is some waste and fraud at all levels of government—and that government could be more efficient. But he said it should be done strategically.
“I'm not against reform, but I am against the wholesale firing of people like Jamie, who are actually doing really important work,” Bennet said. “In her case, making sure that we can stand up one of the most important national monuments in America today, which is Camp Hale.”
Werner said she knows the reality of her job loss will hit her, but she wanted to be in the House Chamber to represent her former colleagues. “It feels good to be able to not only represent my fellow terminated colleagues, but also my colleagues who are still in the office and give them a voice.”
Like Bennet, she worries about how firing all probationary employees will affect the future of the agency.
She said it would be difficult to be in the House chamber, especially as many Republicans continue to support Trump and DOGE’s actions and would likely applaud it during Trump’s speech.
Still, Werner said if she could speak to Trump, she’d point out that these cuts are hitting people across the political spectrum.
And she’d remind Trump that they both took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution and are both public servants.
Or at least she was.
