Currently in a low paying field, what can I pivot to in order to make 85K to 90k in 10 to 15 years?
Hey guys, I am currently a forester in a mid cost of living area. I'm 28 and have pretty much maxed out my career making 70k. I don't really have any promotion opportunities for another 10 to 15 years which will only net me another 1 dollar an hour raise. While I love what I do, and the benefits are amazing, I am unable to live the life that I want. I will never be able to afford a house or provide a family. (Plus since I live in a small town, I have no dating prospects).
Pretty much, I need a change. I would like to live in an outdoorsy city like Denver, Seattle or salt lake city, but I don't know what jobs are in cities. And those are just ideas. I enjoy my smaller town as well as I have all my hobbies here like skiing, hunting and camping.
I cant afford to go back to college and besides, I failed out of computer science and engineering when I was in college.
What jobs or career path could I pivot into over the next year or so that could allow me to make 85k in 10 to 15 years and allow me to afford and live a modest middle class life?
Some things I like and dislike about my job.
Things I love
-I love being in charge of 120k acres of forest. I plan and solve our management problems. Balancing the need for producing timber with needs of the environment, playing to all the regulation that we have. Its all a big puzzle with many solutions each with their own benefits and drawbacks.
-I love being able to take a lunch break on a rocky outcropping overlooking IMO one of the best views that you can find.
-I get to ride snowmobiles in the winter. Enough said lol.
-I like solving smaller problems like how are we going to get the timber out of a specific area, how do we designs the roads to allow for that.
-Road design. All of it, from paper planning to calculating cut and fill ratios. All for a 80 year old guy in a bulldozer to do it his way anyways.
-Working with contractors. Sure its tough a lot of the time, but I get along with most of them and I like seeing my plans unfold on the landscape.
Things I don't like-
- Writing contracts and environmental impact statements.
-Repetitive field work (there's a lot of it), like I can handle a week or two, but after a month of doing the same thing every day, I get sick of it.
-Unpredictable summers with wildfire firefighting that makes summer trips hard to plan.
Posted Aug 29, 2026, 1:25 PM UTC