Growing up in Minnesota, Dan Musel was a kid who loved sports and being outdoors. But he hadn’t really thought about a career in environmental management.
Instead, he played football at North Dakota State University – a perennial national power – and earned a degree in industrial engineering and planned to start his career in that.
“I ended up getting a job out of college with the Air Force, an internship program. But they actually did away with the industrial engineering positions,” he said. “Although I had no clue about environmental management, I ended up moving across the street into that program. It’s been great. I’ve learned from scratch through on-the-job training. People in environmental management are passionate about what they do.”
After Musel’s internship program, he ended up in Virginia doing environmental cleanup work at Langley Air Force Base (now Joint Base Langley-Eustis). After a couple of years, he moved to an Army position at Fort Eustis and continued working on critical cleanup priorities in the Chesapeake Bay area, a national environmental treasure.
The Chesapeake Bay is one of the most productive estuaries in the world, with more than 3,500 species of animals and plants. The total shoreline, including tributaries, is more than 11,000 miles and the drainage basin for Chesapeake Bay extends into six states.
Working in this environment helped propel Musel into environmental leadership positions, first in environmental compliance and then as an environmental chief at the installation level. He continued his career with a move to the regional headquarters and helped produce assessments of environmental programs, outcomes and plans across multiple installations in several states.
“We did a lot of travelling, inspecting programs and sharing best practices, providing direction and support and doing all we could to preserve the mission while protecting the environment,” he said, adding that over his years in environmental roles, he’s seen a positive evolution in support among Army leadership for effective environmental stewardship.
“I think the commanders and Army senior leadership really understand the importance of doing things right,” he said. “It has been instilled in them throughout their careers, and they understand that effective environmental stewardship is a part of what they are responsible for – it’s a big part of what we do. They really take it seriously.”
Musel said that while he’s learned a great deal from all his various positions, he finds the work at the installation level the most rewarding. Musel made a move back to running the environmental program at the installation level, becoming environmental chief at Fort Knox in 2013.
“Coming here was the highlight of my career,” he said. “I’m planning to retire at the end of this year, after 34 and a half years, and I am very happy to have come to this position, to do this work, and possibly finish my career right here in the Southeast.”
He brings experiences in a variety of settings to what he sees as a clear role: “I’m here to protect the environment but also to ensure that the military can conduct their training and meet all the federal and state requirements. I’m not the EPA, but I try to identify notices of violations before they come to inspect us, while ensuring missions can continue now and into the future.”
Musel points to several areas of success of this team at Fort Knox and credits these professionals with exemplary performance in multiple areas protecting the environment.
“We have a great staff working on natural resources. We have one of the largest hunting programs in the Army, with more than 67,000 acres available for hunting on an installation of 109,000 acres,” he said.
“We also have one of the largest known Indiana Bat colonies, an endangered species. We are working closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help study and monitor the bats. It’s been up and down due to the white nose syndrome (a disease impacting bats), but we work hard to do our best to give them the habitat they need to thrive.”
Musel said in addition, the team has built improved relationships with the state historic preservation office, increased outreach and communications with federally recognized Native American tribes, improved recycling and built extensive digital communications channels for sharing the latest information both on the installation and with the community.
“I really enjoy coming to work and enjoy the people who are so dedicated to their work. I am glad I came here and love being at the installation where things happen instead of just seeing paper coming across your desk,” he said. “The commanders have been very supportive of the environmental team and work, and that has led to success. I give all the credit to my staff. I do my best to allow them to keep calm, not get too excited, and carry on with their work and they produce great outcomes for the Army.”
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