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Promotion of effective science exchange between government scientists and managers requires thoughtful arrangement and operation of research and management functions. The U.S. Forest Service was established at the peak of the Progressive Era, when science exchange was designed to occur between researchers and resource managers who worked in distinct arms of the agency, but shared similar goals of effective forest management. In this article, the authors explore the implications of diminished agency capacity for science exchange interactions between researchers and managers in recreation management. Managers and researchers identified their current interactions, their perceptions of ideal interactions, and barriers to achieving those ideals. Reductions in agency capacity for recreation management have resulted in the erosion of interactions between managers and researchers. However, effective science exchange does occur, but requires innovative and adaptive approaches.

Mentoring is important to career development and employee morale of public sector employees, but little is known about how employee mentoring needs change over the course of one's career or at different job classification levels. An online survey about the mentoring needs of 251 aquatic professionals in the USDA Forest Service was conducted in 2019. Quantitative data were analyzed across three federal employee grade levels and four career stages. This study found that grade levels influenced the type of skills employees seek to develop and the attributes associated with successful mentoring. Employees in lower grade positions believed that mentoring would help them to achieve a faster promotion or prepare them for a new position, but they also had less access to mentors and received the least encouragement from their supervisors to seek mentoring. Employees at all career stages believed that mentoring was valuable to their professional growth, while middle- and late-career employees received less encouragement from their supervisor to seek a mentor. Differences in mentorship needs, access, importance, and structures across career stages and grade levels suggest potential areas of future development or intervention to expand the benefits of mentoring to all employees.