H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest history workshop - afternoon session, August 7, 1996

Max Geier: (Introduction) This is the beginning of tape two of the Andrews [History] Workshop, August 7, 1996, starting at 1:15 p.m. While we were gone, it occurred to me that we haven't talked about some of the things on here [project list], but maybe we could take care of them before we get to the secondary level interviews. Most importantly, what I see in the interview list, actually, maybe we should clear it up before we continue this any further. Each person that is part of the initial interview phase, and then, secondary and follow-up 00:01:00interviews, will be signing a form, a release form before beginning the interview. Fred and I talked about the possibility of having two levels of authorization. The first level would be essentially an authorization for use of this study, with access after this study on the basis of prior approval from each interviewee. The preferred authorization would be open access, but my concern about that would be, I don't want people to feel like they can't talk frankly during these interviews, and I want them to feel like they have some control at the end of how the authorization that I envision being drafted, would be an authorization for use of that interview for the purpose of this study only. Then, beyond that, what Fred said earlier, to make this part of the Forest 00:02:00Science Database, and that's where the question of open access comes in. I think it's best if it's open access, and my anticipation is that after the interview, unless there's something unusual about the interview, most people would be willing to do that.

Art McKee: I think that's right.

Geier: So maybe we should just start with that request first, and then, if any person has any reservations we could have a follow-up, a back-up plan.

McKee: That's a different perspective than I've come at these things before, having friends who are reporters or journalists, and so on. This kind of information resides with the interviewer, and remains privy. Do you have any 00:03:00heartburn, from this perspective?

Geier: Any what?

McKee: Any heartburn, with these being open?

Geier: No. I come at it less from a journalist's standpoint, than a historian's standpoint. I envisioned this as an oral history project, where the tapes themselves are part of the product being generated. The Alaska project was different, where the agreement there was that the notes and everything else would remain mine. It was the product [report] I was delivering there. But in this case, at least partially, what is going on is this community re-evaluation Fred was talking about, where people are taking another look at what they did. I think that's a valuable thing that will come out of this and be useful, and interviewees should have access to it, so I don't have any problem with it, as 00:04:00long as people are aware when they're talking, that this is what's going to be done with it, and that that's not a concern for them.

Cindy Miner: With the Alaska history, we had some people who didn't want their interview to be used, so this is a good way to clarify it right up in front as to what the expectations are.

Geier: Yes. That problem there came up because of, you know, "burned fingers," after the project had already gotten underway. This is a different kettle of fish, if you start out with this at the beginning, things will probably go a lot smoother, I think.

Miner: Right.

Dyrness: Uh-huh.

McKee: [Discussing data management for group] Well, we've got the local Forest 00:06:0000:05:00Science Databank, and Fred's team also has their own separate, but pretty well-integrated data management system, and since this is being paid for largely or entirely out of Forest Service dollars, it probably is appropriate, from that standpoint, for it to reside with the team's data. So, if Fred wants to make it 00:07:00open, then it's not clear to me the mechanism for how that is to be handled. Probably, they would be accessible through the Forest Science Databank, rather than the College of Forestry [OSU], the OSU library, or something like that, and that these would reside here with the team databank and Forest Science Databank.

Geier: [Talking about focus groups/need for third-party coordinator to pull together theme-centered discussion groups] Fred's already reeled some of these 00:11:0000:10:0000:09:0000:08:00off and identified some possible groups, and he was telling me yesterday that he'd come up with, Ted and Jerry and Roy Silen at the Carpenter Mountain Lookout, Gregory [Stan] on river continuum, stream profiles and types, and Al 00:12:00Levno, Gordon Grant, Jerry [Franklin] and Ted [Dyrness], on watersheds.

Dyrness: Yeah, we did mention that.

Geier: And then, what he called an "IBP time, 1970s-period" group, and maybe you could give me some names of who should be in on that?

McKee: Jerry, Ted, Dick Waring.

Geier: Dick Waring?

McKee: Yeah.

Dyrness: Glenn Hawk? Where's he?

McKee: He's in New Mexico. (Laughter) Do you want to keep your groups to two or three? Because there's a lot of players around here.

Geier: Yeah, an optimal group for something like that is in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 people.

McKee: Yeah, if you want sparks flying. (Laughter)

Geier: Which of these groups would you put him in?

Dyrness: IBP.

Geier: Okay. What's his last name?

McKee: Scott [Overton], well, Scott tended to be disruptive. (Laughter)

Dyrness: Well, that was a funny issue. Yeah. He and Jerry were just at it, constantly.

McKee: I don't fully understand why that happened, other than unrealizable expectations, and basic personality. What Scott did during that time still stands as tremendously important, groundbreaking effort, in terms of 00:14:00hierarchical models, with his flex-reflex operators. When we revisit it today, 20 years later, it's state-of-the-art. Of course, there were people like James Hall, in fisheries science. He's around Corvallis and might be appropriate to toss in, and Jim brings a very good perspective on aquatic research. You get, let's see, who'd we get for that? Ted, Jerry -

Geier: Ted, Jerry, Dick Waring, Glenn Hawk, Jim Hall.

McKee: Then, a whole bunch of people are still here. Like Kermit Cromack, Fred Swanson, Art McKee, Jim Sedell, Bill Dennison, George Carroll; there's literally a cast of hundreds still around.

Geier: Could we pick some people who would be sort of representative of the 00:15:00diversity of the groups involved, and different levels of involvement?

McKee: Well, what we've got so far, Jerry, Ted, Jim Hall, Dick Waring.

Geier: Glenn Hawk?

McKee: Well, Glenn won't be able to make it. (Laughter) He's living hand-to-mouth in New Mexico.

Geier: Is that right?

McKee: Yeah.

Dyrness: Hand-to-mouth?

McKee: He can't get a teaching position that lasts more than a year. Teaching at military bases. Circuit rider, I think would be a good analogy.

Dyrness: How about Don [Dilbot]

McKee: Yeah, Don's still around.

Geier: Who?

McKee: Don Dilbot. That's probably enough.

Geier: We would need somebody to coordinate that.

McKee: If you give them a time and date to be there, and a location, is that something you'd want to do this year, for this particular thing?

Geier: I think that this would be something that would be in the next, the second phase, but if we were going to do it, we should probably start planning now. It would be good to get a site, if there was someplace where people could go, and get the invitations out.

Dyrness: And you were thinking we could do some of these in the field?

Geier: Yeah, that's the idea.

McKee: Watershed 10 for the IBP?

Dyrness: Yeah. Watershed 10 and 2, something like that? Reference stands?

Geier: How about priorities? These were groups that Fred came up with. Do you 00:17:00have any more to add? These things tend to be a little time-consuming, so we probably don't want too many of them, but if we come up with some good representative themes that follow up on some of the themes we talked about earlier, some of the intersecting themes, programs --

Dyrness: -- and stream people.

McKee: With streams, you've got Stan Gregory and Jim Sedell. We mentioned that in another group.

Geier: Yeah.

McKee: Jim Hall probably ought to be there.

Geier: Who's this Stan?

McKee: Stan Gregory.

Geier: Oh, okay.

Dyrness: And maybe he might be able to suggest some others that would?

McKee: Jim Hall hired Jim Sedell to be his post-doc, and he was the major professor of Stan Gregory, who was a graduate student at the time, and they all, two or three of them, belong in there.

Geier: Okay. That's probably good. I'm kind of interested in what you said 00:18:00earlier about getting somebody in there who could make the sparks fly. I can see several kinds of these things developing. One would be a group that worked really well together on something that was successful. Or, maybe we could find a project or an issue that was tried, but that didn't work too well, and get some of the people involved to talk about what went wrong. It might be helpful to have a few sparks flying here and there.

McKee: You'll get some sparks flying in the general IBP discussion groups you have. It's just that, when Jerry and Scott meet at national meetings, they chill, they don't talk.

Geier: Okay, well that's probably not a good idea, then.

McKee: Sparks is probably the wrong word. (Laughter) You would have strong differences of opinion about what IBP was all about with the mix you've got there. You've got Dick Waring, Jim Hall, but they'll be able to talk to each other, without getting too hung up on it. And Jerry, certainly, you'll have some 00:19:00sparks flying there, and any group that you toss Jim Sedell into is bound to have some sparks flying around. (Laughter) You can count on Jim for that.

Dyrness: How about a watershed-hydrology group?

McKee: Well, who would it be? Dennis Harr?

Dyrness: Dennis Harr.

McKee: Would be one. Let's see, Dick Fredrickson is gone, and Jack's gone.

Miner: Ros Mersereau might.

Dyrness: Ros is around, and Al [Levno]. In that crew, there's a lot of them deceased.

Geier: Hmm. Ros, you said?

McKee: Ros Mersereau.

Dyrness: He's around.

Geier: Dennis Harr, Ros Mersereau?

Dyrness: Dennis Harr, Ros Mersereau, and Al Levno.

Geier: Okay.

McKee: They're ones with the extensive history of involvement, a long period of involvement.

Dyrness: Where's Dennis Harr?

McKee: Must have retired. Would he still be in the Seattle area, do you think?

Miner: Last couple of years, he was going around the country, peddling an invention.

Dyrness: That card washing deal he was doing? (Laughter)

McKee: Yeah, that was his "card washing" deal. (Laughter)

Miner: I never knew if that was really true or not. (Laughter)

McKee: Oh, yeah. (Laughter)

Miner: He told that to Sherri Richardson, who interviewed him for his retirement, but I thought he was kidding. (Laughter)

McKee: No, he did it, and he was serious. (Laughter)

Dyrness: He was involved, he started out --

McKee: -- he came on as a post-doc in the IBP.

Dyrness: Yeah, and then, he was a faculty member in forestry [OSU-COF], and then he switched to the PNW Station, and so, he's got a long history.

Miner: You might be able to track him down.

Dyrness: I think if we wrote him, I bet you he'd do it.

Miner: Oh, I think he would.

Dyrness: And he'd be a good person to interview.

Miner: Oh yeah.

McKee: I can't believe that this is a big money-maker for him. But he insists it is. (Laughter)

Geier: A card-washer?

Miner: To wash playing cards, you know, poker cards. (Laughter)

Dyrness: They all break out packs, you know. How come, what sort of -- ? [Clientele and uses]

Miner: -- Casinos, you know.

Dyrness: Yeah? (Laughter)

McKee: It kind of looks like a rolodex kind of thing.

Dyrness: Oh, you've seen it, huh?

McKee: Yeah, I've seen it. (Laughter) It's enough of a money-maker that he can't get the feet for the base. Well, maybe he can now. But for a while, he couldn't get the feet for the base of this thing, directly from the manufacturer that makes little rubber things. They wouldn't sell it to him, because they had a previous agreement to sell this particular thing only to somebody who makes an 00:22:00item that has four feet with these little rubber gizmos on the bottom of it. So you had to buy the gizmos, take the feet off, put them on his own thing, and so he had a big stack of these. I don't know what they were, but he didn't know what to do with them, because they were useless to his card washer. He was paying like six bucks a pop for these little rubber feet that go on the bottom of this thing to hold it stable while you do something with it, turn the crank on it or something like that. (Laughter)

Geier: It must go to the second-tier casinos. The first-tier casinos get new packs all the time. (Laughter)

McKee: I don't understand it, but he professes that it's going real well. He's got a Winnebago they go around in, selling these things. (Laughter) Yes, Dennis is marching to the beat of a different drummer.

Dyrness: And the hydrology, more of a contemporary view, would be Gordon Grant.

Geier: What would be the point-of-contact to get these things organized?

McKee: If you can wait a couple of weeks, we can start the process, using our clerical administrative assistant, Carol Wood. She can start phoning about availability and interest, and we can, either Fred or I, could put some muscle on some of our own reluctant types to try and play games with us.

Geier: So in terms of strategizing for these initial interviews, I want to have 00:24:00some themes, and you've already talked about some of the themes we're dealing with, but more importantly, for the second tier of interviews, that would actually kind of be there, what their interest was?

McKee: It just occurred to me we have at least one conspicuous oversight, in that the Andrews Program has a national reputation, through LTER, for its data management, and Susan Stafford, professor in Forest Science, has played a lead role in upgrading our old data management system, making it state-of-the-art, and actually providing an example or model for other sites to follow. We might 00:25:00want to think about replacing one of your currently-stated interviewees, in this first round, with Susan.

Geier: Hmm.

Dyrness: Or just add her.

McKee: Of course, Max and I were thinking about time and so on. We were thinking about 6 or so people, and we've got over 6 already.

Geier: Yeah. Let's see on the list here.

Dyrness: When did Susan come here?

McKee: When did she come?

Dyrness: Yeah. '76?

McKee: No, it was after that, a little bit later, around 1980, as she's been here about 15 years. But we were limping along with, what the hell was his name, 00:26:00something Brown, or -- [George Brown]

Geier: Okay, so I've got Jerry Franklin, Fred Swanson, Roy Silen, Mike Kerrick, and Bob Tarrant. I think I put Carl Bernsten in the second group. I've got five people here now.

McKee: I think Susan should be in there. If I go to a site where I'm solo rep from the Andrews Group, a lot of times, I'm asked about two things; data management and how people can get information on how to model our data 00:27:00management plan, and the other is the stream team research, aquatic research.

Geier: Of those six, how would you rank her in terms of priority?

McKee: It's maybe ahead of Tarrant.

Geier: Because once we get past four, it's a question of whether we do it this summer or not.

Miner: Who is second?

McKee: Franklin, Swanson, or Silen.

Geier: I had Kerrick or Tarrant for the 4th one. So, that would be Susan and Bob 00:28:00Tarrant. She's in Forest Science here at OSU?

McKee: Correct.

Geier: Planning these interviews, what I want to do is have a preliminary list of people that might be key figures in their different fields, in working with them on various projects, especially the issue of science-management-research cooperation. And again, what I'd like to do is get a profile of the cooperative 00:29:00community from a three-dimensional perspective. Not just leadership, but also people at lower levels. I thought I had that list of people. Maybe if we look at these people and think who their contacts might be, who they might be more likely be able to talk about or relate their work to, the people we are dealing with. Jerry Franklin, my guess is he's going to be pretty much in everything. (Laughter)

McKee: Yes, he covers an awful lot of bases for us. (Laughter) If you're interested in this research-management partnership, certainly the IBP years, we 00:30:00invested some energy talking to management. But, when Jerry and I wrote the proposal for the EER [Experimental Ecological Reserve] and National Field Research Facility, contained in that was a concept we wanted. We came at it from different directions, but both had the same idea; we wanted to work hard at getting managers engaged on a regular basis in some kind of formal interactions. We felt if we had them participating in monthly meetings, annual reviews, and so on, there would eventually be a lot of informal cooperation as well, which is the way it worked out. Jerry was a key player in making and helping sell the 00:31:00concept to the forest supervisor [Will. N.F.], that he would designate someone to be his proxy, to attend the monthly meetings, and he was comfortable with the district ranger [Blue River R.D.] taking one morning of one day a month off to attend a monthly science meeting. Jerry played a big role in that. My role at that time was sort of softening up the opposition, and Jerry would come in and deliver the coup-de-grace. So, we worked as a team in that respect, but he's got that perspective, the science perspective, and he covers a lot of bases.

Miner: Would you fit into any of these groups?

McKee: A lot of them, sure.

Geier: That's a good point.

McKee: I'd like to see this evolve, because Fred and I are in pretty frequent contact with Max, and rather than just the list, Fred and I will be involved here and there, and it's important that these other people, very significant players, get a fair amount of your time.

Geier: Definitely a first interview should be with Jerry. Is he in town? Oh, I'm 00:33:00sorry, he's up in Washington, isn't he?

Miner: Yeah, but he comes down to Portland fairly often.

McKee: He hasn't called a lot, but he probably averages three or four days a month here in Corvallis.

Dyrness: What?!

McKee: He goes through a lot. I don't see him but about once every two months or so.

Dyrness: Yeah. That's about when I see him.

McKee: I see him across the parking lot or talking to some group, things like that, so actually, he's here quite a lot.

Geier: Maybe I should just give him a call sometime?

Miner: How do we get a hold of him? He might need some help with that.

McKee: I'll give you a number. The way to do it is to contact his handler, and try to make sure he gets with you. Here we go. [Provides phone numbers for 00:34:00Franklin and LTER network office]. Explain what you're up to, and explain that it's important. Then, they'll rag on Jerry to give you a response.

Miner: I think it's important to try several different angles to reach him.

McKee: You can call him at home at night. That's not a big issue with Jerry.

Geier: Okay.

McKee: Not an issue, he just may not be there. But if he is, he'll be happy to talk with you. He won't use the answering machines there, at least, he hasn't started doing that yet. His office is a joke. (Laughs)

Geier: Sounds like it's mainly because he's never there.

McKee: Well, if he's there, he doesn't always answer the phone. He uses the answering machine as a buffer, selectively, takes the "crisis calls," and responds. Until someone else tells him it's a crisis. That's what Adrian's role is. (Laughter).

Geier: When I'm talking with Jerry, what particularly would you suggest I get started on, initially?

McKee: There's so many facets, roles, he's played. He's been instrumental in the 00:36:00science being high quality. He's been instrumental in making sure that the management-research partnership existed. So, maybe science-vision, going to science-management partnership.

Geier: Okay.

McKee: And along the way, he'll take you on the side-roads. Probably.

Geier: I don't think there's much to worry about, finding something to talk about with him.

McKee: No. (Laughter)

Geier: Actually, it might not be a bad idea for you to give me some pointers with Fred. I've talked to him quite a bit and have a general idea, but --

McKee: -- Fred has a different spin on the situation than Jerry, by virtue of coming in later. Fred's strength is what he sees happening recently and currently, between the Forest Service and management, management of public lands in general, and the role science plays in helping shape those policies and management practices. You'll hear some of the same things from Jerry, too, but there'll be some differences as well.

Geier: In terms of these different areas of cooperation, I think this might be a 00:38:00misperception, but my perception is that Jerry worked with almost all these people. What about Fred?

McKee: Yeah. Anybody that occupies those niches is going to be engaged with people across the board.

Geier: Okay.

McKee: And in activities that follow those different areas.

Geier: Yeah. You know, Roy Silen has got more of a historical perspective.

McKee: Yeah. He was the first scientist assigned down there. [H.J. Andrews EF, 1948-54]

Dyrness: Huh?

McKee: Is Roy the first scientist assigned to the Andrews? He was one of the first. Whether he was the very first, I don't know. [He was first person assigned to the Andrews (called Blue River EF initially)]

Dyrness: Yeah, I think he was the first.

Miner: What year was it in, '50?

McKee: '50 or '51.

Miner: What are we going to be celebrating in '98?

McKee: The 50th.

Miner: 50th. And that's kind of a --

McKee: It was established in '48, and I don't believe that much happened before Spring of '50. Roy was the first one out there.

Geier: So, he was assigned there in the Spring of '50?

McKee: I think so. That's my best guess on that.

Miner: He's involved in a couple of other things, still.

McKee: Oh, he's still active. He's great. I called him about some --

Dyrness: [interrupting] -- He's not in the office much.

McKee: Yeah, he hasn't been in the office too much. He's just coming in 2 or 3 days a week, he says. That's what he's been doing.

Dyrness: Still active then?

McKee: Yeah. As a measure of this guy, when the genetics program took some big hits a few years ago, there were some entry-level geneticists waiting in the wings to find jobs. Roy said, "Well, I'll resign, take the salary savings, and hire some of these guys." But he continued to work for no salary after that.

Miner: That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing, isn't it?

Dyrness: It's also amazing that his educational background wasn't genetics. He was in regeneration silviculture, as I had mentioned, prior to his species work and so on. He just kind of came into genetics after he started, after he finished his Ph.D.

McKee: And I guess because of his silvicultural background, one of the first things I remember hearing from Roy, sort of tangentially. He got a copy of old plot or stem maps, how he could talk about really long rotations: 200-year, 300-year, rotations, because of the genetics aspect as well as cutting reserves or old-growth set-asides, and diversity of organisms. Yeah, he was saying it all.

Dyrness: Way before his time.

McKee: Yeah. I was fighting something about two years ago, and I called him about "that conversation we had many years ago, about such and such, and did you ever publish that?" He said no, that it came out in a couple of newspaper articles, but it was never published [in peer-reviewed journal].

Dyrness: No, no.

McKee: But he gave it to me, he was able to give me the dates, for his interviews with The Oregonian 20 years earlier, so we chased it down, and so we made reference to Roy Silen, Forest Service geneticist, 1973 to 77, or such.

Dyrness: You chased down that clipping?

McKee: Yeah, we chased it down. The Oregonian actually helped us on that.

Dyrness: Well, Roy expressed almost a reluctance to go back to the Andrews now. I've heard him say on several occasions, "I want to remember it the way it was."

McKee: Yeah, he said the same thing to me.

Dyrness: Yeah. So, you can expect that kind of an attitude, I don't think it's because he disapproves. But it was just such an idyllic place when he was there.

Geier: Hmm.

Dyrness: As I say, they had to walk, there were no roads to speak of, and for provisional road locations and landings, they had triangles of aluminum. They were so frugal, they didn't use the whole thing that comes in square sheets, and you staple it on the tree. They were so frugal, they only used half.

Miner: Really?

McKee: Yeah. They cut the squares in half.

Dyrness: Yeah. To this day, you can't go anyplace in the Andrews without seeing, "There's a triangle." It was just Roy, a lot of times, or it was Hank [Gratkowski] and Roy. They would go out for a week or ten days at a time, with 00:43:00packs, and he really looks back on those times, and says, "Back then, I didn't even need my paycheck. I let them stack up in the drawer, you know." (Laughs). So they [Forest Service] called him up and said, "Why aren't you cashing your paychecks?"

Miner: Ask him if that's true, if that happened.

Dyrness: Yeah. (Laughs)

McKee: He's quite a character.

Dyrness: Yeah, and a good guy. It's very fortunate he's still around, with a good memory.

Miner: Yeah.

McKee: Yeah.

Dyrness: Because it would be tragic to lose out on that story.

Miner: Wow, but he's done a history, himself, I think.

Dyrness: Has he? Did he?

McKee: I don't know.

Geier. A memoir?

Miner: What was that? Did he do something on the Wind River? Did he do work on the Wind River?

Dyrness: Yeah, about four years ago, he published a paper on the Wind River 00:44:00Arboretum, a trial of exotic species, but that was Wind River. So, he's interested in that sort of thing.

Miner: Yeah.

Dyrness: Recapture the past and so on. So, I think that with a few questions, you could really --

McKee: -- have a great time. There's no question about it.

Dyrness: Yeah. That would be fun for him.

Geier: That's an interesting point. Has anyone done any memoir-kind of work that you know of?

McKee: We've talked about having people record all their experiences, but it's something that never happened until this year.

Dyrness: Who was that guy at the dedication of the lab? [U.S. Forest Service, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Corvallis, Oregon] There was some guy, I think he was from the district or the supervisor's office [Willamette NF], going around and talking to some old-timers.

McKee: I think that was Vince Puleo. He was a silviculturist on the Andrews at 00:45:00the time, and he was interested in trying to record many of these kinds of things. So, he had his own initiative, and he was walking around, talking to people with his tape recorder, but I don't know where those tapes reside. Vince is up at the Detroit Ranger District, and he's going to be --

Dyrness: So that was Vince Puleo?

McKee: I think it was.

Dyrness: He was a Forest Service guy.

McKee: Yeah. A very tall fellow? Vince is about 6'6".

Geier. What's his last name?

McKee: Puleo. P-U-L-E-O.

Dyrness: You might ask him about what he has.

Miner: Jerry Williams is historian for the region [USFS, Region 6]. He has a history that he did of the Andrews, not much, just five or six pages. I sent that to Fred and he was going to pass it on to you.

Geier: I think I've got that right here.

Miner: Yeah, and when we start beating on the bushes, who knows what might --

Dyrness: -- Who's gonna come out.

Geier: That's right. What was interesting about this [Williams' short history], 00:46:00I was reading it over before we came in here, it has this section that goes from about 1954 or 1955, and then the next thing is 1972. So, 1955 to 1972, is just hopped right over.

Dyrness: Is that right? '55 to '72 is just -- ?

Miner: Yeah, I think he, I don't think he knows.

Geier: So after that, it's more or less publications.

Dyrness: Who did that?

Miner: Jerry Williams.

Dyrness: Who's that?

Miner: Historian for the region [Region 6, U.S. Forest Service].

Dyrness: What prompted him to do this?

Miner: That's what I couldn't figure out. And I don't think he finished it. He knows he left it kind of hanging. He almost reluctantly kind of gave it to me, because he said it wasn't much. He didn't finish it. But, for whatever it's worth, here it is.

Geier: It's actually helpful. He's got a list of citations here at the end of the reports, 1948 through 1986. He's got a list of them here, and he's got a summary by topic or by amount: 148 reports.

Miner: There are some, there used to be, a bibliography, I think?

McKee: There is a list of publications, and there are three of those.

Dyrness: What's the most recent one?

McKee: Most recent is this mimeo, no, photocopied thing, that we haven't put into a hard cover.

Dyrness: It's pretty complete up until that date, isn't it?

McKee: Well, up to March of this year, '96, or no, April of '96. We've got the one that goes up to '86, then an '86 to '88 supplement, then an '88 to the present, '96.

Dyrness: So about how many citations are there?

McKee: 2,000.

Dyrness: 2,000? Whoa! (Laughs)

Miner: I was just documenting, really, and we've got photographs, old 00:48:00photographs that Franklin took, and others took, including Roy Silen, up at the Andrews. So we do have historical photos. They are all old photos we would have. We have quite a few. We have a book on H.J. Andrews that somebody kept, that hasn't been kept up for years and years, but it might be worth looking at.

McKee: Oh, sure.

Geier: That would be in the historical records up there?

Miner: Yeah. And the nice thing, is that it's all organized.

Dyrness: There are good captions with them, so you know what you're looking at.

Miner: Yeah.

Geier: That's good. I'm a little surprised that more people haven't gotten some of this down, why more people haven't sat down and written down reminiscences of 00:49:00their involvement with this project. It sounds like you've been awful busy, though.

McKee: I don't know anybody who has. (Laughter)

Miner: I don't know if it would show up, in the book by Cowlins, or Collins? What is his name? He wrote a history of the Station [PNW].

Geier: Oh, yeah. Cowlin. [Robert C. Cowlin, PNW Chief in 1950s].

Miner: I don't know if this shows up in that or not.

Geier: I'd have to go look at it, because that wasn't what I was looking for on the Alaska project.

Miner: That's really all, and you might be surprised, as it might say something.

McKee: Well, it's been kind of surprising, we haven't had a historian/writer, or somebody like those people, in addition to writing science, that loved to write 00:50:00other things. We just haven't had anybody like that who's been involved.

Miner: It's probably because it's "that kind" of a project.

Geier: The other thing that's kind of interesting is the amount of writing about the Andrews from outside. That's something else I wanted to ask you, too, as this group is kind of a planning meeting. How much of that kind of literature do you want me to get into for this study? Do you want this to be more of an inside-looking-out, or do you want me to be balancing that?

McKee: My personal feeling, when Fred and I were talking about this thing initially, is that somebody may not spend a whole lot of time looking at the outside looking in, but it would be folly to exclude that kind of thing, because 00:51:00we shouldn't be just talking to and about ourselves, that such an effort would benefit society. I was reminded of this by Alston Chase's book, in which some stuff was distorted and heavily-filtered, that it might take time to sort through the disinformation and misinformation. That's a hard one for me to answer. I feel we'd just about have to shoot ourselves in the foot if we don't do some of that, and when I look at Alston's book, I just go nuts, because the guy selectively ignores things.

Dyrness: What book is that?

McKee: In a Dark Wood, and it's on my desk. I keep it there to get the blood 00:52:00pressure up every morning. (Laughter)

Dyrness: So, at least if your blood pressure is getting a little low, you can -- (Laughter)

McKee: Yeah.

Miner: What's his story-line?

McKee: The scary thing about this book, he's a pretty clever writer, and is very persuasive that he is carefully weighing all the evidence, all the information and issues, and is giving a balanced perspective. Some of the book is just top-notch, first-rate, with which I have no qualms, no heartburn at all. Then he accuses us of not learning any lessons from natural disturbances. Maybe as much as 15-20 percent of our research budget is involved in understanding the effects 00:53:00of natural disturbances on our system. He says we ignored that and view the forest as static. Where does he get that? I sent the guy reprints of our disturbance work and talked to him for hours on the phone, but some very selective quoting is going on, and he views us as not being in tune with the natural rhythms of nature, whereas some saw-log silviculturists he views very credibly, are. I hooted at the people he thinks are doing quality research. Talk about people putting out books and selectively quoting your stuff! It was just terrible. At any rate.

Geier: Fred and I talked about this a little bit, with Bill Lang too, and a couple of ideas he had. One was about how outside criticisms might influence the response of scientists in the public eye. You know, the urge to publicize what's being done here, and so, some of it may be important to deal with from that standpoint, as this kind of an interior response, or as an outside challenge as an impetus for, going public with research that might not have been in the past. The other possibility was to take a look at more subtle responses, for example, some comment that Alston Chase might make in the book, introduce that as kind of 00:55:00a chapter, a quote at the beginning of the chapter, and then have that chapter be an analysis of that argument, from the standpoint of what scientific research has been done.

McKee: I'd have mixed feelings about that. There was a review of this book, recently, in the Journal of Forestry, which Bill Ferrell [OSU forestry professor] brought to my attention, which, it basically forces us to write an article for that journal, which points out the problems inherent in that book. The things that have been intentionally left out. Bill said it was very favorably reviewed.

Dyrness: Is that right?

McKee: Yeah.

Geier: Who reviewed it?

Miner: What kind of journal?

McKee: In the Journal of Forestry. And, I forgot the person's name. It was somebody who was pretty influential in the society.

Miner: Not [unintelligible name on tape]?

McKee: No. Look at the latest issue. Came out a month ago, and "it finally 00:56:00pointed out the tyranny of ecology in a very conclusive way." (Laughter) The book is subtitled, The Rising Tyranny of Ecology.

Miner: Well, this book thing, it's interesting that this history will come on the heels of that.

Geier: Well, I guess the other question is, do we want this history to grapple with the outside criticisms, or, like you said, I don't think we want to be rolling around in the gutter.

McKee: Yeah, no I don't see it as that, and I would not want it to focus on that.

Miner: What's going to be driving it? It seems like more of a reflection on it than --

McKee: The idea is that's a separate issue. This thing needs a very direct 00:57:00rebuttal, and I was groaning and not wanting to do it, but it's real clear that somebody has got to do it. I may not end up being that.

Miner: What might be more interesting is having some of the things that happened in the past, and maybe have that, not really as a theme, but maybe a reflection on those things.

Geier: We talked a little bit earlier, this theme of the feeling, the conversation we were having that Fred was talking about, and it strikes me this is one of those issues where the goal is, like you were saying, the idea of doing something that has some impact on policy, at what level is policy a result 00:58:00of public opinion, and at what level is there a need to proselytize, in other words, convince the public? I forget the term, but the larger public and managers, at what level are they involved in Andrews research?

McKee: Well, that's a touchy issue, and I think you'll find a lot of pretty wide range of philosophical positions on that in our research community, from those that feel it's perfectly appropriate for out-and-out advocacy, to other scientists that say their role is to relay and offer information for consideration by policy-makers and managers, and to not get involved in those policy decisions.

Geier: Hmm.

McKee: So, you have --

[Tape Break]

McKee: We also had to have somebody to sort of take up this other burden too, so Pam's [Druliner --public information person, Blue River R.D.] sort of spread between the latter two, almost none in the science arena, but between tech-transfer and the general public. This other category of elected officials and policy-makers, to try and inform them, and we haven't aggressively pursued that very much. There have been a few invitations offered to members of the Northwest delegation, elected officials. The Willamette's contacted us several times as to whether or not we wanted to have a slot in their annual elected officials tour, which almost always runs heavy to county commissioners from O & C counties, and we participate in that. But more often, we've been contacted by 01:00:00congressional staffers, or by advocacy groups that have a lever on a congressman or a senator, and they want to bring them by, so we've been contacted more times than we've made contacts, so that's an arena where we've been more reactive than pro-active, in how to handle information transfer to elected officials. That seems to me, appropriate, the kind of thing that we do, although Jerry would be very quick to point out that if you want to affect change quickly, get the ear of a senator or congressman.

Miner: It's kind of interesting, to get the different perspectives on that. I think there's two things. One is the relevancy of what you do. It makes you come, like for floods, and you realize that, and you get something done at the 01:01:00Andrews, and that it's continuous, just continuous. The other thing, is it's a place where things got organized. It's not that there isn't other research in some of these areas that isn't happening in the Pacific Northwest, but sometimes it has a national perspective, for whatever reason, and probably it's worthwhile, then the recognition of the Andrews is so substantial.

McKee: Some of that spun out of, sort of inadvertently, almost serendipitous kinds of linkages. For instance, when we picked our study sites during the IBP years, we went to sites where there already was a history of research, which happened to have old-growth forests on them. We also had mature forests, not old-growth forests. We went to where we could do the kinds of research we wanted 01:02:00to do, but it wasn't because we wanted to study old-growth forests. And yet, from the mid- to the late-'80s, when the old-growth controversy was erupting, one of the few places that had really detailed information on old growth, the character of old growth and its structure, and differences between old-growth stands and young stands, came out of work at the Andrews, and people were saying, "Oh, God, you guys were so prescient. You knew this was going to be an issue." Well, give us a break, the information was there, and there were times when we were criticized as only studying old growth. And, that was nonsense.

Even during the IBP years, about half of our budget went into the study of young stands, but we did happen to be investing some energy in studying patches of ground that contained old growth. So, we didn't react to the criticism of wasting money on old growth. We stayed on those sites and continued doing 01:03:00research. The former dean of our college [College of Forestry, OSU] believed it was a waste of time, a waste of money. But then, there were other people who felt it inappropriate to study nutrient-cycling in old growth, because soon there wasn't going to be any old growth. It was all going to be logged off anyway, so what's the point? Yet we did. So all that was prelude to the Northwest Forest Plan, which I think, because of that and having information in certain areas, there's an assumption that probably buried in the Andrews research, was information on other things that emerged, like biological diversity, long-term productivity or sustainability, and sure, we did have things germane, as other places did too. When I got calls from reporters, I would give them our story, but then I'd say, "You also have to talk to so-and-so, who works in these other parts of the Northwest, because they're 01:04:00working in this area, too." It wasn't as if we were the only store you could come to, to get these things.

Geier: That was something else that Fred and I were talking about as something that we wanted to do. We talked with Bill Lang about this also, how we want to bring that into the story a little bit. My view of a viable community, which I've talked about with Fred quite a bit, is this idea of a non-isolated group of people that come together around a common goal. The tendency is, precisely what you are talking about, that willingness to go out and make the link with someone at a different program.

McKee: Yeah.

Geier: Direct people to it, or draw them into stuff. I think maybe we need to get into that in this study. Are there some examples of that?

McKee: Yes, I think anybody in the group could give you examples.

Geier: So, on the agenda here is, "other academic institutions." You touched on this, and then, we went past it to political supporters. I forget the names of initial contact people who were politically helpful in backing this kind of 01:05:00research, not necessarily just the Andrews, but that general concept, is something.

McKee: If we're talking about the national level, we've had people, most recently and then many years ago, Hatfield [Mark, Senate, R-OR], both times, and Les AuCoin [Congress, D-OR] was a sugar-daddy for us for a while, and Peter DeFazio [Congress, D-OR] has been a supporter who has found himself voting against research a couple of times, for political reasons, but assures me he knew they were going to fail anyway, so it didn't matter. So Peter would be a supporter. Gosh, at the state level, I am not sure.

Geier: Well with Peter, his district includes the Blue River area, doesn't it?

McKee: Excuse me?

Geier: That area would fall within his district, wouldn't it?

McKee: Peter's? Yeah, it does. We're in Peter's district. But we've had a diversity of support from people at the state level and county level, as Ted was mentioning. But recently, it's been pretty neutral.

Geier: Do any people stand out at the state and county levels?

McKee: I can't remember, as the state district keeps changing its boundaries. They call it the helicopter district, because it's a bunch of the west-slope valleys running north and south. But whoever it was, that state representative from the district including the Andrews, in the early '80s, was very critical. I can't think of the person's name. I had to write a letter in defense of the 01:07:00program many years ago, to the person in question, as to why state money was being "wasted" on the study of old growth. My response was that we don't study just old growth.

Geier: I talked to Fred a little bit about this, and we didn't get that far, but regarding the issue of community within a broader community, the Andrews is a locality that attracts people that have these particular research interests and financial goals. The reality is, the Andrews is in a region surrounded by towns and loggers and groups like that, and I asked Fred a few times about people that were, might have been hired from the community, to help in some of these treatments, and things like that.

McKee: There hasn't been much. In fact, a lot of the locals don't even know we exist.

Geier: Uh-huh.

McKee: There's no sign on the main road that says Andrews Experimental Forest, and so, we're "out of sight and out of mind." (Laughter). We've hired locals, 01:08:00but a small number, and it hasn't been a strong interaction. I tried in the late '70s to work with the local school district, to use the Andrews as at least a one-day stop for their outdoor program, their environmental education program. What I learned, not directly from instructors involved, but from spouses and friends, was that they didn't think the "ivory-tower" committed staff could talk to kids. So, we were just chilled out, and at the high school level, we've had very little involvement with students over the years. The teacher was not terribly interested in using the Andrews as a laboratory. He wanted to keep 01:09:00things close to school, to reduce travel time, he didn't have to fight to get the bus, and so on. And so we're not really a very conspicuous part of the local community.

Geier: The state legislature's opposition to the --

McKee: Pardon?

Geier: -- Questioning of the project, the dean [OSU-COF] over here, was that something that was initiated locally, or that was something that was? McKee: Early '80s was when we were in the depths of the timber recession; double-digit inflation and housing starts were down. It was just a whole lot of anger going off in a "jillion" different directions. Here was a bunch of people from the state that were studying old growth, so that the environmentalists could hve some ammunition to protect old growth, and I think it was spinning out of that.

Geier: Okay. It could be anything from corporate concerns to local?

McKee: I have no idea, but we never did get any direct contact with locals there.

Geier: It sounds like what you're saying, though, is the local community is not 01:10:00completely aware of the existence? [of the Andrews Forest]

McKee: They're not aware we're here at all. We had an open house two years ago, widely-advertised, in the Eugene paper, the Springfield paper, and the local paper, but we only had 12 people show up.

Geier: Hmm.

McKee: And six of them had been there through their membership in the Audubon Society or Sierra Club, where we'd offered tours to these groups in the past. I mean, they just know it's a great place, and they come up and hike around on their own a lot anyway, so it was like talking to the choir.

Miner: There is some kind of thing at the campground?

McKee: There is a campfire talk.

Miner: Wasn't there some kind of forum or something?

McKee: Oh yeah, we had an -- [Unintelligible -- likely seminar or class]

Miner: So, it seems like there's community ties.

McKee: Well, yeah, if the community would include Eugene. We're pretty well-known in Eugene.

Miner: Yeah.

McKee: But the communities of the upper McKenzie, about once every two or three 01:11:00years, I call up the McKenzie Community Center and reserve the center for some kind of function, and say, "Hi, this is Art McKee at the Andrews Experimental Forest," and they say, "Where?" I say, "Andrews Experimental Forest." Same person! I've been talking to this person for 25 years, and they still don't know, they still can't pick up on what's going on here, what's it all about. (Laughter) So, no, we don't have a very high profile. Here's an example of how low it is. We had "Neighborhood Watch" troops cruise by, I guess this would be four summers ago. Two retired gentlemen, well past retirement, they were octogenarians, probably, came driving in to the headquarters site, just as I was leaving the office, and asked to use the phone? They had to report some funny 01:12:00behavior. I said, "Sure. What's up?" They said, "We're coming back from such-and-such a spot, and we could see headlights up in the woods. Ain't no loggers working up there now. Something's up." (Laughter) I said, "Well, where'd you see this?" They answered," On such-and-such a road." I said, "I'd be willing to bet a 6-pack of beer that what you saw were the headlights of people studying the spotted owl, there on that particular spot in the road, because they can use their radio directional finders to cover a lot of ground. I'll bet that's exactly what you saw. And they said, "What?! People working this hour of night?! Don't give me that!" (Laughter) He said, "What are these scientists doing?" It was kind of like, "I don't believe anything that you're saying." They said, "We're going to call the district ranger, to see if they know what's going on up 01:13:00here." And so, I was talking to them, and one of them was a person I used to live two houses away from, and I said, "What are you doing? What are you upset about? Don't you think that this - ?" And he said, "Yeah, I don't know. I never knew what you did." I said, "Well, I talked to you about it a few times in the back yard." Well, apparently, it just never registered. (Laughter)

Miner: Doesn't sink in.

Geier: Hmm.

McKee: I've got a 3 o'clock that I might just walk off for 10 or 15 minutes, it won't be a very long departure, but that's why I keep glancing over my shoulder at the clock, to make sure I'm not late.

Geier: Well, actually, we can almost wrap this up here in a few minutes. If I can get some feedback from people here. Let's see, I had Kerrick or Burditt for the management perspective. Do you have an idea of which of those would be 01:14:00preferable here?

McKee: Well, it'd be two different things, they would provide different insights.

Miner: They didn't cross?

McKee: Excuse me?

Miner: They didn't cross in time, did they?

McKee: They overlapped a little bit. Lynn's been there for six years, and Mike's been retired for three, I believe, so Mike would have been her supervisor for two years, maybe three.

Miner: I think Mike Kerrick has probably the broadest perspective. But at the same time, Lynn likes how it now is, what's happening in the agency now, and Lynn might have the most current view, so I'd say it's a toss of the coin, which way you go. My thoughts; my order would be Mike first, and he'll probably defer to Lynn, and then Steve Eubanks, who is a former ranger.

Dyrness: You said secondary people. I think, the primary people would refer you to the secondary, and they'd have ideas of who you should talk to, too, and propose some people we wouldn't think of.

Miner: Yeah.

McKee: We're giving you names of people who've been involved, and I think all had real positive attitudes, and there are people you could talk to that might have some pretty negative spins on it, too. I don't know whether you want those names as secondary references, but people like Herb Wick, who was former district ranger at Oakridge, and is now in the supervisor's office with the Willamette, has some pretty strongly-held opinions on the value of this research, overall. He'd say, "It isn't bad, but what does it do for me on a day-to-day basis? And why are we paying so much for it?"

Dyrness: Yeah. That's the old-fashioned viewpoint.

McKee: Yeah, it is.

Geier: That's probably something you want to --

Miner: It's getting more, it's coming back in style. (Laughter)

McKee: And I view him as a worthy opponent, because he says, "Hey look, you guys are studying this. I'm a practicing ecologist. I'm making the choices out here." And he's pretty articulate.

Geier: Well, it's probably important to get some perspectives like that in this thing, so it doesn't leave itself open for re-interpretation by In a Dark Wood kind of way. You know, if you incorporate into the discussion, criticisms of the program, and not try to sugarcoat it, in the long run, it will come out better. At least introduce the criticisms and grapple with them, have scientists responding to those concerns.

McKee: Well, I don't have any trouble sitting down and matching Herb, his criticisms for instance, every one of them can be matched. He isn't afraid to 01:17:00mix it up with you, and I respect him for that. A former district ranger at the McKenzie District, a fellow named Randy Dunbar, is a person I also respect a great deal, and I think Randy felt that we were kind of elitist.

Dyrness: Hmm.

McKee: Because his district abutted the Blue River District and the Andrews, and some of the most heavily used research natural areas were on his district, including the Wildcat Natural Area. And it seemed like I never could find time to talk with him very much, and I think -

Dyrness: He felt neglected.

McKee: He felt neglected, and justifiably so, probably because so many balls were up in the air. Picking the one that came up for Randy just didn't happen very often. So he might have a perspective of the group as more aloof and more detached than I and others would offer, like Lynn Burditt. And the current 01:18:00ranger there, John Allen, might feel the same way, I don't know. Herb Wick, is kind of, well, he is not a carefully-considered person, sort of a loose cannon, but Randy's pretty carefully-considered. But they're both people that I don't personally have any problems talking with, or debating things with. They're pretty up-front, straightforward people. One that was devious and obstructionary in the past, Bob Burns [Blue River Ranger District], is retired. I don't know where you'd find him yet, but he would be a person that would have a real negative spin on it.

Miner: Some basis of the comment you were mentioning, how the Andrews was sort of a money hole.

McKee: A what?

Miner: Money hole. Word at the station [PNW], is a high percentage of the station's budget goes to the Andrews relative to other groups, and I think there's some kind of jealousy thing, "The Andrews gets more than their share." I 01:19:00don't know.

McKee: That's interesting. From our perspective, when we see monies earmarked by Congress shunted off to other areas, we get a little testy, because where the hell is this concept of meritocracy that we earned those bucks? How come they aren't coming our way?

Miner: Well, it's not the earmarked funds, I think it's just in the general fund.

McKee: There was one case where funds earmarked went off to --

Miner: Yeah, there was some painful earmarks.

McKee: Well, I think that those ought to be listed as well. We as a group ought to be hearing those, and having an opportunity to respond. As a site director, 01:20:00chasing monies, a lot, I find we're often viewed as neither fish nor fowl. The university [OSU] doesn't want to talk to us, because we're kind of a Forest Service show, and the Forest Service doesn't like to talk to us, because it's mainly a university show. Every once in awhile, we fall through the cracks.

Dyrness: Yeah. (Laughs)

McKee: And the National Science Foundation, the last, one of the most wacko reviews we had in our last proposal was --

Dyrness: --"You don't need the money!" (Laughs)

McKee: Yeah, because we were doing it, you know.

Miner: Yeah, right, that's the other.

McKee: We don't need the money.

Miner: I think that's where the statements come in. "They already have so much money. Why do you want to give them more money?" Or, "They'll take care of themselves. They know how to do it."

McKee: That reminds me of an anecdote regarding the Dean's Award [OSU-COF]. The new dean wanted as a precedent to cast his personality on the college, and he 01:21:00established a thing called the Dean's Award to recognize outstanding contributions to Oregon forestry. The Andrews Group was one of the first, and shared that award with another group on campus. I was expected to attend the awards banquet, one of the few times I'd go to those things, and bumped into the former Dean of the College of Forestry, Carl Stoltenberg, who's always gregarious, a guy who always smiles. He was telling me how pleased he was, how proud he was at the success of the Andrews Group, because his strategy had worked. I went, "What?" (Laughter) "Say that again?" I listened, and he said, "I knew what you and Jerry and the others got going down there, there's no way the College of Forestry could afford the kind of program you wanted to put together, 01:22:00and the only way to succeed was if you did it on your own." (Laughter)

Dyrness: That was my strategy, huh? (Laughter)

McKee: That was his strategy. "So," I said, "It was the 'Boy Named Sue' approach to management. I hadn't heard that one before." (Laughter). And he said, "The what?" And I say, "Johnny Cash's old song, A Boy Named Sue." And he said, "I've never heard of that before." I said, "Too bad Carl, because you and Johnny could -- (laughter]" I couldn't believe that. I said, "I'm glad you really had our best interests at heart." (Laughter) Geez. I couldn't believe that.

Dyrness: "My strategy paid off." Ooohhh. (Laughter) That's a good one. Should be in the book.

McKee: Yeah. Carl Stoltenberg said, "Oh, God."

Geier: If I remember, the way you characterized that earlier, was that he was guilty of benign neglect.

McKee: Yeah.

Geier: He wasn't opposed to it, but he just wasn't supportive, is that right?

McKee: He would occasionally be opposed to it, but by-and-large, he let it have 01:23:00a life of its own. I think to a large extent, the kind of thing that Ted was talking about earlier today, that the project leaders, that he and Jerry had early on, allowed them this flexibility. And then, when the final years began, the amalgamation of scientists, faculty members from all the different colleges on campus, along with the University of Oregon, they were acting as free agents. It was a grass-roots --

Dyrness: Grass-roots, uh-huh.

McKee: -- Effort, and not top-down by any means. This occurred in an atmosphere of a lot of freedom. The officer-in-charge of the Andrews then was Jack Rothacher, who was very flexible and very tolerant of university types being there. There was no sense of a turf war at all, which is not true of other places. We're able to define ourselves and grow as the group wanted to grow, 01:24:00without a lot of constraints.

Dyrness: Yes, that grass-roots thing is really characteristic of the Andrews. There's not much meddling by the higher echelons [OSU reference]. The same with the station directors [PNW Station, Forest Service]. They just say, "Go out and do your thing."

McKee: So long as you don't embarrass us, it's okay.

Dyrness: Yeah, yeah.

McKee: And there were times like when this person wrote a letter, a representative, who wrote a letter about studying old growth. Carl Stoltenberg was dean at the time, and he said, I know the kind of response you're going to make to this, and I want you to write the letter for my signature. And I said, why don't you and I co-sign, and he said, "Okay. Fine." So, I think benign 01:25:00neglect is a more accurate term than hostility. Although there were times when he would be outspoken, critical in certain venues. Many times he was responding to cheap shots people had made at him from our group, that were inappropriate, so he was reacting to that. I don't think, well, probably were times when they were offered "gratis," but most of the time, he was "returning a compliment."

Geier: Hmm.

McKee: His strategy sure worked. (Laughter)

Geier: It sounds like one of the issues to get into here would be, possibly, the perception of resources from the outside, versus the availability of resources from the inside. This was kind of a touchy issue with the Alaska project [history/science project by Geier] if I recall, and there's a little bit of that 01:26:00here, where the perception from the outside is that the Andrews has more than its share, but from what you were saying earlier, that much of that share is earned from outside grants, money coming in?

McKee: Right. At the National Science Foundation, you succeed by having a recognition from your peers that what you are proposing is cutting-edge.

Dyrness: And a track record of productivity.

McKee: Right. Right.

Dyrness: If you don't produce the papers and reports, you're in trouble, too.

McKee: And while the system doesn't work perfectly, it's getting kind of strange with all the congressional spins put on the monies that go to NSF. And it's increasingly common, at least you can challenge decisions, you have an 01:27:00opportunity, if you feel they're bogus, and there's some other agenda being played out at the National Science Foundation. Things aren't so clean at the university level or at the station [PNW] level for how funds are distributed. The campus politics, station politics, can play a pretty significant role in how monies are spread out. So there's an element of needing to be a street fighter for state [Oregon-OSU] and station resources. We've been lucky to have, at least in my department, the last two department heads, people who were pretty strong advocates for the program. Within my department, we provide all of the computers and the hardware and software for our initial local area network, which included nearly all the computers for the teaching facilities here, and all hardware for 01:28:00the multi-area network to patch in the computers for the individual faculty members outside of the Andrews program. That came as a package. The next departmental meeting, I'm told we're parasites on the department, you know, sucking the department dry. We bring in a whole lot of indirect costs and overheads, and where is this coming from? Plus these, we just barely finished, or got this multi-area network up, which these guys haven't put a dime into, and I just couldn't deal with that. That was pure bullshit. So we have that kind of thing here on campus.

Dyrness: But Logan's [Norris -- former Forest Service team leader, then OSU COF].

McKee: As a department head, he really has.

Geier: Logan Norris?

McKee: Logan Norris, yeah.

Dyrness: He was a Forest Service employee who worked with Bob Tarrant early on, so you know, he's got a built-in history of knowing what was going on in the 01:29:00Andrews, and accepted that.

McKee: A feeling I've had over the last few years is that at the Station [PNW] level, I hear these guys' criticisms, that if we have an opportunity to sit and present a case, it's almost always successful.

Miner: Oh, I would concur.

McKee: Yeah. And it frustrates me that these things happen, because everybody's frustrated. Money's becoming harder and harder to get, so it's a constant struggle to stay even, and the program was well- poised to grow, and continue growing for a while, but the resources are shrinking, so it's cutting into it.

Miner: Yeah, on money, people get frustrated. They just lash out.

McKee: Yeah. Well, the last year we've had some weird things again happen within our department that, to me, made no sense whatsoever, that were easily interpretable as reactions to budget strictures, that otherwise, we wouldn't be 01:30:00hearing this kind of nonsense. We have several people in post-doctoral positions, researcher positions, professor positions, that are totally on soft money. Bringing in everything, including a lot of indirect cost to the department, and here are people talking about how we've got to make sure that these indirect costs don't go to support these people on soft money. But anyway, they're the ones that bring it in, but it's gotta go to the tenured faculty. It's just a money issue.

Geier: Well, you said you had to leave.