September 14, 2010

To whom it may concern,

This is a personal note on Eric Neitzel's behalf. For the record, Id like to state who I am and establish my credentials. I am a public affairs specialist for the BLM at the National Interagency Fire Center. I have been a public affairs specialist and PIO for approximately 15 years. Prior to entering public affairs, I was a supervisory forestry technician with the Forest Service. My career in fire management spanned 13 years, during which time I earned many operational fire qualifications, including ICT3 and DIVS. I have known and worked with Eric Neitzel for about seven years. We have been members of the S203 cadre a couple of times at the Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy in Prescott--as recently as 2009. Eric and I have a very good professional relationship. I have tremendous respect and admiration for his opinions and skills in incident information matters, as do many other professionals in the incident information field. Eric has an excellent reputation among NIMO teams, and Type1 and 2 incident management teams. He possesses some critical skills, and he has helped numerous wildland fire incidents get organized and become effective in reaching out to publics through the internet and social media. In fact, Eric is often name requested for assignments at complex incidents due to his expertise in utilizing social media and web applications to communicate with the public and partners in local communities. Eric is a valued member of the national incident information community, and he contributes a great deal of value and skill. I hope he can quickly resume this role. Thank you. Sincerely, /s/ Ken Frederick

Ken Frederick Bureau of Land Management National Interagency Fire Center Boise, Idaho