Richard Tubb Oral History Interview

The interview opens with Dr. Richard Tubb describing his early life and his parents’ jobs, and talks about how his father’s expectations played into his own interests and career aspirations. Tubb began attending the University of Oklahoma as a wildlife biology major, but switched over to geology. He quit school during his second year because of the Korean War. He then enlisted in the Navy and was assigned to the air arm. His role was to train officers and flyers on navigation. After nearly four years in the Navy, Tubb enrolled at Oklahoma State University and finished his degree.

Tubb then talks about his graduate work as an aquatic biology student. He mentions several key figures in the discipline who were influential on him. He also talks about some of his early research on the ramifications of nuclear power plants for local ecological systems. He then discusses his transfer to Oregon State University and his motivations for coming out west. He also mentions the Environmental Protection Agency and its influence on his work. The interviewers then ask Tubb what he considers his greatest achievement to be, and he answers that it is the students he has taught and watching them go on to have their own successful careers. During his career at Oregon State, Tubb was very active in making the field of fisheries and wildlife accessible to women and minority students.

The interview then changes topic to Tubb’s personal life. In this, he talks about his wife and children and the sorts of activities that they like to do as a family, as well as his children’s careers and interests. He then returns to his work at OSU, mentioning that, as the head of the master’s degree in aquaculture, he had an international aid program working in Rwanda to help people access and maintain reliable protein sources. The session then segues into changes that Tubb has witnessed in Corvallis over the years, including the increasing cost of a college education. The interview concludes with Tubb encouraging the interviewers to gain as much field experience as possible, especially during the early years of their careers.

Dr. Richard Tubb was born in Oklahoma in 1931. Tubb developed an interest in stream ecology as a child when he would wander around the countryside enraptured by the small animals he saw and that he could not seem to find information on. This led eventually to him pursuing a career in aquatic biology, a discipline that was relatively knew at that time. He spent nearly four years in the Navy during the Korean War before completing his undergraduate education at Oklahoma State University in geology. He changed to aquatic biology for his advanced degrees and spent his career at Ohio State University from 1967-1975, researching the effects of industrialization on the aquatic life of the Great Lakes. He moved to Oregon State University in 1975 and retired in 1993.