Following in their Footsteps: Landscape Architecture Legacy Spans Generations

A lot can change in 30 years.

And a lot can stay the same.

That’s what Callie Davis learned as she retraced her parents’ footsteps through the Dixie National Forest last summer.

Callie, a sophomore in Utah State University’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, was tracking changes in the forest based on pictures taken nearly three decades ago — pictures taken by her mother and father.

By retracing her parents’ footsteps and continuing the project they began as USU students, Callie saw firsthand the vital role of managing natural landscapes and preserving unique environments. Her work extended their legacy and gave her a deeper appreciation for the lasting impacts of environmental stewardship.

A Scenic Vision Takes Shape

The project began long before Callie was born. In 1997, Nancy Brunswick was tasked with overseeing a forest inventory project. Brunswick, a USU LAEP graduate, was a landscape architect for the Dixie National Forest at the time.

Part of the project involved documenting scenic resources using a process called the Scenery Management System. The SMS begins with identifying the places that most people go to view scenery within the national forest, including roads, trails, overlooks, and developed recreation sites. These are the places where the U.S. Forest Service is most concerned about maintaining scenic quality.

Brunswick decided to take the project one step further with a photo survey — a unique approach to visually documenting these scenic resources.

“Here in Utah, we really value the scenic quality of our landscapes,” Brunswick said. “That’s a big part of why people come to visit and why people decide to move and live here. Understanding what makes these places beautiful and unique is crucial for forest planning and management.”

Committed to supporting USU’s LAEP program, Brunswick decided to recruit an intern from her alma mater. Many students applied, but two stood out as exceptionally qualified.

Unbeknownst to Brunswick, the two candidates not only knew each other, they were engaged to be married.

Jackie Maldeney was a junior in the program when Jeff Davis arrived to begin an LAEP master’s degree in 1996, fresh from earning a bachelor’s degree at BYU. The LAEP Department was (and still is) a small, tightly knit team of faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the program, so it didn’t take long for the two of them to meet, become friends and eventually fall in love.

They had not planned to work together they had just inadvertently applied for the same summer internship. And Brunswick, not knowing they were engaged, hired them both.

What followed was a summer filled with adventure and hard work. Their job was to inventory the scenic quality and resources on the Dixie National Forest. Together, they developed surveys to evaluate the area’s scenic integrity. Every piece of data had to be handwritten, and photos had to be developed in town frequently to check for clarity. If an image was blurry or out of focus, they had no choice but to return to the site and take another. All the photo points were identified via GPS so they could be located later.

“We drove on all the roads with high scenic concern and visited every major trail, trailhead, campground and overlook to do a visual assessment using the Scenery Management System,” Jeff said. “Nobody had ever done that before. It was cutting-edge at the time.”

What Jeff and Jackie couldn’t have imagined then was how, nearly three decades later, their work would come full circle in an unexpected way.

A Legacy, Revisited

With two parents who are deeply passionate about the environment, it’s no surprise that Callie Davis followed in their footsteps and joined the USU LAEP program.

“My parents have always taught me a responsibility for stewardship over the earth,” Callie said. “They really emphasized the importance of taking care of the resources that we have and preserving them for ourselves and for future generations.”

Brunswick, now a landscape architect with the National Forest Service, has kept in touch with the Davises over the years. When she learned their daughter was in USU’s LAEP program, she knew Callie was the perfect candidate for a special project. Brunswick wanted to revisit the Dixie National Forest study to track the landscape’s changes over time.

“Monitoring change can help us plan for future forest management,” Brunswick said. “Especially in cases where there have been fires, floods or bark beetle infestations, understanding how the landscape recovers helps us plan for the future.”

Jeff and Jackie visited Callie at the start of her internship, offering insights from their own experience three decades earlier. But Callie had access to technology that far surpassed what her parents had used. Instead of handwritten notes and film cameras, she used an iPad to capture and input data instantly. Her GPS device was more portable and precise, and she leveraged NASA’s GLOBE Observer program, a citizen science photography application, to contribute to global environmental data collection.

“The technology has evolved tremendously,” Jeff said.

Using GPS, Callie pinpointed the exact locations where her parents had originally taken their photos, capturing new images to document the landscape’s transformation.

“One of the most striking aspects of this project was seeing firsthand how much the landscape has changed in some areas and remained almost untouched in others,” Callie said.

She found mountainsides left bare by recent fires, patches of deadwood left behind after bark beetle infestations and evidence of logging operations and infrastructure development. But she also saw resilience — forests regenerating, new growth emerging and trees that have withstood the tests of time.

“It was incredible to continue this legacy, to see the work my parents did, and to build upon it in my own way,” Callie said. “It allowed me to tell a different kind of story.”

The internship gave Callie valuable hands-on experience in landscape analysis, strengthening her passion for conservation and design.

“Callie is so skilled,” Jeff said. “She’s light-years ahead of where we were at her age, and it's been fun to watch her learn and grow. This work is innate to her in some ways, and I can’t wait to see where it takes her.”

Career Paths to Anywhere

Like her parents before her, Callie has many career options to choose from, thanks to the versatility of a degree in landscape architecture. USU’s program teaches both creative and technical skills, preparing graduates to design and protect the landscapes that define communities.

After graduation, Jeff became an environmental consultant managing large-scale infrastructure projects, while Jackie works on traditional landscape architecture.

“Our education allows us to think with creativity and innovation,” Jeff said. “In landscape architecture, you have a problem and you've got to try to solve it with design. It teaches you to analyze and approach things in a different way. It makes landscape architects really valuable in many different industries.”

The foundational skills Jackie and Jeff learned, both in their coursework and during their internship, have served them well throughout their careers.

“With a landscape architecture degree, you can fit into so many different roles,” Jackie said. “There were times in school where we wondered, ‘When am I ever going to use this?’ But we’ve had to use everything we learned during our time at USU at different points in our careers.”

Callie, while still early in her educational journey, wants to work in conservation design, perhaps within the government like her mentor Brunswick before her.

“I love the idea of restoration and preserving the environment,” she said. “That’s something I find really fascinating, being able to use it and still preserve it, and making it beautiful in its own way.”

The strong alumni network within the USU LAEP department plays a crucial role in shaping the careers of its graduates. Jeff, Jackie and Callie all benefited from Brunswick’s mentorship, and she got her career start from fellow USU LAEP graduates Clark Ostergaard and Kent Traveler.

Having hired many professionals in the field, Jeff said that seeing the USU LAEP program on a resume is a strong indicator of quality and expertise.

“When you say you come from the landscape architecture program at Utah State, you know it means something,” he said. “It’s not a guess as to whether you’re good or not. People know you’ve been trained, and you have a strong skillset.”

Preserving the Past, Shaping the Future

During that long summer of 1997 spent on the Dixie National Forest, Jeff and Jackie admit they weren’t sure if their data collection was doing any good. Was this work important? Would anyone use it in the future?

They never imagined the impact their work would have.

“What has made this whole experience remarkable is that the data that we collected ended up being really valuable, and Callie was able to enhance the validity by collecting the same data and showing the change in the landscape over time,” Jeff said. “That was really gratifying. Callie was part of that process, making our work important and adding value to it.”

The work done by the Davis family, Brunswick, and countless National Forest workers is more important than ever. Their efforts span generations, shaping how forests are managed and preserved for the future.

“This experience has deepened my appreciation for the importance of long-term landscape management,” Callie said. “The landscapes we enjoy today are the result of careful planning, and it’s up to us to ensure they remain healthy and vibrant for future generations.”

Callie’s experience demonstrates how today’s landscape architecture students use modern tools to continue the work of conservation and design. Her story is a reminder that landscapes evolve, but the need for thoughtful stewardship remains constant.

“I just hope people still recognize the value of what we bring,” Brunswick said. “Having good-quality, functional design is important. Maintaining scenic quality is vital to tourism and the well-being of communities near national forests. Landscape architects continue to play a big part in that.”

For Callie, this project was more than an internship — it was a chance to walk the same paths her parents once did, to see the world through their eyes, and to add her own chapter to their shared legacy. By building on their work, Callie documented the changes in the landscape and deepened her own connection to the land and the profession.

Her experience is a reminder that preserving natural spaces is a responsibility passed from one generation to the next, ensuring that the beauty and history of these places endure for decades to come.