The new national press officer for the U.S. Forest Service navigated his way from the Belmont campus to the nation’s capital. Pueblo native and 1982 County High grad, Daniel Jiron took off his University graduation robe in 1986 and went directly to work as an aide the then State Representative Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Ignacio). After six years in the Washington D.C. and Colorado offices of Senator Campbell, Jiron went to work for the USDA, Forest Service in 1991 as Public Affairs Specialist on the Pike and San Isabel National Forests, and the Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands. In 1995, he was hired as District Ranger for the Salt Lake District of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, where he was also involved with the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. In September 2002, Jiron was hired as Director of Communications for the Intermountain Region USDA, and Forest Service, and was most recently named national press officer for the U.S. Forest Service, which took him back to the nation’s capital in March.
Jiron speaks highly of his education in Pueblo as well as the inspiration and care he received from the faculty, who Jiron says believed in him and taught him that he could do anything.