Episode Details

EP 2-38 KRISTIE THOMPSON

Wendy Corr:

Well, hey there folks. Welcome to The Roundup. We are a Cowboy State Daily podcast, and our focus is on interesting people in the Cowboy State. There are so many interesting people in the Cowboy State, but our guest today is one of the most interesting that I have personally gotten to know over the years, and I'm so thrilled that she's able to join us today.

First, though, before we start into our conversation with Kristie Thompson, I want to talk about the Wyoming Business Alliance "Business From the Basement" podcast, another great podcast focusing on Wyoming, focusing on businesses in Wyoming, and the resources and the people in the networking that can help you build your Wyoming business.

So after you're done here with the Roundup, check out the Wyoming Business Alliance "Business From the Basement" podcast, and see what they can help you with with your business. But do that after this, because this is going to be way too much fun.

I'm so so tickled to be able to have Kristie Thompson on today. And this is a tough podcast guest to get, because Kristie works for the US Forest Service. She's also on incident management teams all over the country for the wildland fires that have been cropping up, it just becomes so much more of an emergency and a hardship situation in the last decade, even, really. And so Kristie has been able to secure all the approvals saying, Yes, I can talk about my job. And I'm so glad we were able to get her here, because Kristie had lived such an interesting life.

Kristie Thompson, welcome to the Roundup.

Kristie Thompson:

Thank you so much, Wendy. It's really great to be here with you, and it's so nice to see you again. It's been a little bit.

Wendy Corr:

Yeah, we go way back, but that's the fun part. We do go way back because, when I met Kristie, you were at the Shoshone National Forest, Public Information Officer, I was at the radio station in Cody, and so you were my go to for all of that information. And I started to realize how really responsive she was.

And for those of you who work in journalism or may have had to try and get public information out of a public information officer, it's not always that easy, but Kristie, you made it easy, and you're so good at your job. Your job has taken you so many amazing places.

I want to start off with another thing we have in common, though, which is that we're both from Wisconsin and from the same kind of side of the state too, so that's really kind of fun. But Kristie, tell us,

let's start back with the basics. You embarked on a life of adventure, and most people in Wisconsin - I love you all - are not super adventurous. They want to, you know, they're like, Yeah, let's, let's stay here, and our family's here, and you know, we're happy here.

But there's those of us who say, hmm, let's go explore. And you did that. Tell us about your decision to to leave the home state, to leave Badger land.

Kristie Thompson:

I think it all really started with my grandfather. He spent about 27 years in the US Navy and retired as a Master Chief. I grew up hearing stories that he had from his travels across the world, and he really instilled in both my sister and I a dedication to the United States, to our people of this country, and to service in general.

And I decided early on, I think it was about in eighth grade, that I wanted to try and go to one of our service academies for the US military. I researched all of them. Was able to attend a few different summer seminars and summer week-long programs at both the Coast Guard Academy and the Air Force Academy, and I went through the entire nomination proce