CNR instructor finishing doctorate in leadership and organizational development from EHHS

Growing up, Heather Heward remembers standing by the door while waiting for her dad to come home from month-long firefighting sessions. She not only missed him, but also knew he was bringing her all of the treats he didn’t eat from his field lunches.

While listening to her dad’s stories about his experiences away from home, she saw his passion for the job. She also saw the financial stability that firefighting brought to their family. Factor in on-the-job snacks, and it’s no wonder she became hooked at an early age.

“I saw it as a way to make a good living, but there was also such an adventure about it, which was important to me,” said Heward, senior fire ecology and management instructor at U of I’s College of Natural Resources (CNR). “After I graduated high school, I just took off and started fighting fire. I’m not even sure I thought about it too much. It’s just what I was meant to do.”

In a journey which has seen her transition from firefighter to a fire instruction, Heward is completing her Ph.D. in education with a specialization in leadership and organization development (LOD) through the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences (EHHS) this summer. This degree will help her improve wildland fire communication, training and education for her students, fire professionals and the public.

“She already has such a solid reputation and an incredible knowledge base from her experience in the field and the classroom,” said Leda Kobziar, professor of wildland fire science. “What this degree will help her do is create better and more efficient ways to transfer that knowledge to those who need it.”

Jazzed to attend U of I

Heward grew up in Port Angeles, Washington, and intended to go to college in western Washington until she heard from a college she visited while she was in high school.

“I played — very poorly — at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival during my sophomore year in high school, so I was familiar with the campus,” she said. “Then I got this postcard from U of I that listed all the different majors available in CNR. I wanted a well-rounded education, and they showed me I could study wildlife, fisheries and forestry. I didn’t see those options in western Washington, so I came here.”

After earning her bachelor’s degree in conservation biology in 2006, Heward wanted to obtain a master’s degree but also continue firefighting. She approached her major professor, Penelope Morgan, with an idea about how she could do both.

“My undergraduate research showed there was a disconnect in information between how satellite imagery viewed a fire and what the firefighters were actually seeing on the ground,” Heward said. “I proposed a study where firefighters would collect the information on the ground, and then we could compare that to what we were being shown on satellite imagery. And I got to work for two more full fire seasons!”

Heward received a master’s degree in fire and ecology management through U of I’s online program before taking some time away from firefighting to start her family.

She remained active in CNR, working as a teacher’s assistant and developing online programs. With her fire operations background, she also started supporting student development, which ultimately led to her becoming a faculty member.

“Most students in the fire ecology and management program are interested in operations but at that time, no faculty member had the operations background that I did,” she said. “CNR created a part-time faculty position, and I started teaching.”

Getting educated

Happy as an instructor — and having already completed two degrees — Heward was not in a hurry to explore doctorate programs. But after six years of classroom experience, she began to pursue the idea.

When the time came to decide on a direction, she realized she wanted to look outside of CNR to find the kind of impact she was looking for.

Heward found the LOD program, which aligned more with her ideas about making improvements in fire training and education. The EHHS program is designed for working professionals who want to develop personal leadership principles, such as strategic thinking, development theory and change management.

“Students who enroll in LOD already know the skills within their field, and that was certainly the case with Heather,” said Laura Holyoke, EHHS Leadership and Counseling department chair and the faculty member who nominated Heward for the EHHS Alumni Award for Excellence in 2024, which she won. “Heather is very ambitious about improving learning in her field. LOD has shown her all the different ways she can make those changes.”

For her doctoral project, Heward and a research assistant interviewed 37 landowners in the Sandpoint area last summer per the request from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). DEQ asked CNR for help assessing best practices for private landowners when setting prescribed burns and because Heward is the founder and chair of the Idaho Prescribed Fire Council, the study seemed like a perfect fit for her dissertation.

That exercise also cemented the idea that making changes in how information is shared can make the kind of difference Heward was looking for.

“I have a lot of incentive to know what these best practices are,” said Heward. “My students deserve it and the public deserves it. People turn to U of I to teach them what they need to know and that’s the way it should be.”