Janine Clayton has been named the new supervisor of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. She is expected to start her new job in early December.

Clayton, a 25-year Forest Service veteran, has most recently been working as the assistant director for minerals and geology in the U.S. Forest Service’s Washington, D.C., office.

The announcement was made Friday.

Clayton succeeds Claire Lavendel, who was the supervisor from 1999 to 2008. Lavendel is now director of Recreation, Lands and Minerals in the Forest Service Pacific Northwest regional office in Portland.

“I’m looking forward to being back in the Northwest and to discovering the Gifford Pinchot,” Clayton said in a news release from the agency. “I’m excited about the opportunities to work with communities, agencies and our partners. I’ve heard good things about them and know there is a good foundation on which to build.”

From 1989 to 1997, Clayton worked an area mining geologist based in Corvallis, Ore. She also served as the acting forest supervisor of the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit in 2005 and worked as a reclamation and energy minerals program leader in California for eight years. Clayton served as acting regional assistant director for natural resource management in Vallejo, Calif., in 2001. She holds a master’s degree in geology and a bachelor’s in anthropology and geology.

The Gifford Pinchot National Forest, named after the agency’s first chief, covers 1.37 million acres in southwest Washington, including the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Mount Adams and seven wilderness areas.