[2] His most important consultations resulted in fire management plans for the Canadian railways and for Mount Tamalpais in California.

[16][17] He then attended Yale University where he studied civil engineering, graduating from the Sheffield Scientific School with a Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.)

[16][11][22] In November 1899, at the suggestion of Brandis, he studied practical forestry in the foothills of the Himalayas in India where most of the forests were under state control.

[4]: 67 After graduating from Yale, Olmsted worked for a year at George P. Bissell & Company, his father's bank in Hartford, Connecticut.

[23] In 1896, Olmsted joined the topographic mapping division of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) at the suggestion of his first cousin, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.[3][16][22][a] He spent eighteen months near Asheville, North Carolina, surveying and building trails and roads, as well as re-surveying the USGS Pisgah Quadrangle map.

[16][22] While there, he met Dr. Carl A. Schenck, forester of the Biltmore Estate, and learned about career opportunities of the new field of forestry.

[4]: 69  Olmsted's assignment was to create a "policy blueprint" that defined the forest reserves and their use, described the role of forestry service officers, and detailed how to address public claims and permits.

[14][28][7][4]: 69  It was not only an instructional book, with goals and regulations for Forest Service employees, but also one of the first administrative manuals for the United States government.

[4]: 69  Olmsted changed the tone of the book, characterizing the Forest Service positively as an agency "willing to consider use under certain conditions".

[4]: 90  This Act required the Forest Service to review all lands to determine if they were better suited for agriculture than forestry, opening those that were for homesteading.

[29] That same year, businessman and congressman William Kent wrote a letter to Pinchot and Olmsted about his efforts to donate 211 acres (85 ha) known as Muir Woods to the United States.

[6] Olmsted visited the site and wrote a letter to the United States Secretary of the Interior requesting that Muir Woods become a national monument under the Antiquities Act.

[6] Olmsted is credited as being vital to its establishment because of his creativity in interpreting United States laws and regulations.

[30] However, in January 1910, President William Howard Taft fired and replaced Pinchot as head of the Forest Service following the Pinchot–Ballinger controversy.

[4]: 97  Olmsted noted, "If one-hundredth of the damage from fire this past summer had occurred in any German state, the whole forest force would have been promptly dismissed.

[4]: 98  Olmsted's meeting covered all of District 5's programs, including fire protection, grazing, reforestation, timber sales, wildlife, and work plans, as well as his belief in a decentralized decision-making process.

[36] Olmsted noted that the universities neglected their historic trees because "a feeling was evident that the elms had always been there and always would be in spite of various setbacks.

"[36] In the fall of 1913, Olmsted moved back to California, working as a consulting forester out of San Francisco from 1913 to 1914 and Sausalito from 1914 to 1915.

[37] Olmsted oversaw this work, reporting that two fire trails that were 1 mile (1.6 km) long and 15 feet (4.6 m) wide had been completed by February 1914.

[10] In 1917, he moved his consulting forester office to Palo Alto, California, where he conducted inspections of logging operations to improve efficiency and future land productivity.

[45] Around the same time, the Diamond Match Company hired Olmsted "to introduce and supervise conservative cutting on its California holdings".

[10] In 1917, Olmsted hired architect Henry Higby Gutterson to design a shingle style house for his family at 773 Dolores Street on the campus of Stanford University.

[11] His uncle, Frederick Law Olmsted had created the master plan for the campus in 1888, but work had ended on the arboretum in 1891 before it was completed.

[48][49] Olmsted was a member of the Century Club in Washington, D.C., serving on its board of governors and as chairman of the committee of literature and art.

[10] In 1925, Olmsted died from liver cancer at his Dolores Street home in Palo Alto, California.