Ted Dyrness Oral History Interview - Part 2, September 11, 1996

Ted Dyrness: [tape begins mid-sentence]...the block [funding/tasks] wasn't big enough for both of them, that type of thing. Although, I must say, they reached an accommodation. But early on, Dick [Waring] was really influential in what we were studying.

Max Geier: So the IBP was kind of a selling point, but also provided the funding, kind of a structure it would have actually imposed on the group that was working out there?

Dyrness: Yeah, that was the watershed-type thing.

Geier: Am I in your way [speaking to Acker]?

Acker: I was just going to get a copy of that paper I was telling you about.

Geier: Okay [banging in background]. This is probably the last point I wanted to address today. I'll be talking to Jerry Franklin and then I'll probably be coming back to you to revisit some of these themes, but I wanted to get your sense of how people viewed the purpose of an experimental forest in the period.

Dyrness: How they viewed what?

Geier: The purpose of experimental forests in the period of, about '70 to '74. We talked about that in relation to the earlier period, I think.

Acker: Here. [Paper he had been looking for]

Dyrness: What's that?

Acker: Oh, it's the paper I was mentioning earlier. Dyrness: Oh, great. That would be good background for him [Geier], as far as where the permanent plots and things are.

Geier: Yeah. Thanks. [Brief conversation between Dryness and Acker concerning vacation plans, office schedules, etc.]

Dyrness: Take care [to Acker]. He's a good guy and a really outstanding example of this new generation that's come along. He's really sharp as far as technical competence. He's probably a lot better than we were.

Geier: I was trying to get a sense of how, what you think perceptions were in 00:02:00the period about the time the IBP was established, and shortly after that, about the purpose of research was for the Andrews itself, and how people viewed that?

Dyrness: The view towards experimental forests?

Geier: Yeah. As opposed to that earlier period.

Dyrness: Early on, the Forest Service went through a stage when experimental forests were big. That's when the Wind River was established, Pringle Falls, and H.J. Andrews. Then, in the late '50s, early '60s, the emphasis was on labs, "We're getting real scientific now. We're gonna have labs." They put the labs on the university campuses. And I think that turned into the idea, "Well, the 00:03:00experimental forests aren't really important anymore." So, a lot of people had to fight tooth-and-nail to preserve the experimental forests we've got today. Because the people who got them running, they may be at the Washington D.C. level, maybe at the headquarters at the station [PNW], so that's a thing of the past. We're beyond experimental forests. We fought the same thing on research natural areas. They said, "Why have these things when we're not using them?" That's why we needed a program like the IBP, or LTER, today. We needed that to give us some kind of funds to attract people to work in these areas. And that's 00:04:00why we, Jerry, had the brilliant idea of putting out this publication [sound of papers shifting-pause].

Geier: That's the Guide to Research Natural Areas in Oregon and Washington [USFS Publication, Sarah Greene, Jerry Franklin, et. al., 1986].

Dyrness: Yeah. Because we said, people at the universities don't know about these places. What they offer in terms of research opportunities, where they are, and who administers them, so we needed to get this guidebook out. That's been a good deal.

Geier: That came out in 1972? [Early incarnation of what became 1986 guide.]

Dyrness: Then we followed that up with this with another publication]. We asked, what would a good, well-rounded system of natural areas look like in the Pacific Northwest?

Geier: This is the one that laid out a grid of cells?

Dyrness: All the cells we were going to fill. Yeah. And that's what I was working on just before I transferred to Alaska.

Geier: Just before this came your way, and about the time IBP was established, which as you pointed out, kind of saves the experimental forest idea, I've heard Fred Swanson mention there was a letter written proposing to disestablish the Andrews? Are you familiar with that?

Dyrness: Yeah! Yeah. Yeah.

Geier: He wasn't sure if that was a rumor, as he'd never seen the letter, but he said that Jerry told him about it.

Dyrness: I think that you'd have to ask Jerry about that. Because, that's how far it went, that they were really proposing to disestablish or de-activate the Andrews. You know, come on! Hello?! I think we're past that now. We've got millions of dollars of research there, and it's an international gem. [Internationally-recognized scientific research site.]

Geier: Yeah.

Dyrness: It's an international gem.

Geier: From talking to Art McKee, it sounds now it's more about who gets credit for it.

Dyrness: Yeah.

Geier: And who gets to control it.

Dyrness: Yeah. Yeah.

Geier: Instead of getting rid of it.

Dyrness: And you know, that's why it's such an ironic thing. We were ignored. 00:06:00Sure, "You guys can go out and have fun, but you're really not doing anything." And now, everyone wants to take the credit for it? Like I say, it was very grass-roots. Really grass-roots. Guys like [OSU College of Forestry Dean] George Brown and the director of the [PNW] station, they don't even know what's going on [at the HJA EF]. To a certain extent, Fred's probably glad about that. You know, "Keep out of my hair and we'll do our thing." But it's not top-down. It's just purely bottom up. It's bottom-up.

Geier: Roy Silen related a similar thing relating to your perception of the experimental forests. Silen was talking about when he was there in the early '50s, how the snows would come down and they'd get closed in, he'd get involved in this social circle of dinners around the local community, and there was kind of a sense that it was pretty isolated. He said nobody really knew what was 00:07:00going on up on the forest [PNW Station or Region 6], but there was a sense of close interaction with the local residents there.

Dyrness: Uh-huh.

Geier: I was just wondering if you had any sense of how that evolved, from the period you were there, from the late '50s through the early '70s? Did that continue or dissipate?

Dyrness: That community [dynamics - HJA and locals] in Blue River?

Geier: Yeah. In other words, how did people that lived around Blue River perceive or interact with people who were working on the experimental forest, or at all?

Dyrness: There wasn't very much. Principally, the concerns were, did it contribute to the accommodations there, the motel industry.

Geier: But did people previously stay in motels? I'm trying to remember if there are any in Blue River.

Dyrness: There's one or two down near McKenzie Bridge. If you're going east on the highway, to the north of the highway, there's a restaurant and motel nearby. 00:08:00They are used on occasion. I remember, we had an LTER meeting a couple of years before I moved back [from Alaska], that involved bringing people from across the West, and we stayed in a motel there. There were meetings like that. There was just not the capacity for an administrative site.

Geier: Did you make use of the restaurants then?

Dyrness: Oh yeah, we used to always make use of the restaurants. This kind of question, you ought to ask Al [Levno]. He'd have a lot better feel for it.

Geier: Yeah. Because he was living on site there, too.

Dyrness: He was living there on site, and Art [McKee], too. He would know. Art still knows a lot of the people there, but I don't. I think the community [locals] really doesn't know what's going on, or the gem the HJA is. Although, from time-to-time, recently, they've tried to invite community members up for a "show-me" trip. It kind of blew up around them and they didn't know what was going on. There may even be some Forest Service people down there [Blue River] who didn't know, but now, everybody knows. I remember the distinct feeling that we were just irrelevant, as far as they were concerned.

Geier: Last year, you mentioned something (more in relation to Alaska) about up there, that you had pretty easy access to the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest. You'd drive up there, 15-20 miles outside of town, and you would come back in the evening. Then, down here, you almost have to go down there and spend the day or evening.

Dyrness: Oh yeah, we always used to spend a week at a time. We'd go down Monday morning and stay in the trailer until maybe Friday night. I remember what I used 00:11:00to do in order to keep track of what's going on at home, by the phone booth.

Geier: Did you pretty frequently run into other researchers during those trips, or were you usually there by yourself?

Dyrness: What would happen was, especially after IBP, we were bulging at the seams in the little 8 x 30 foot trailer. I remember, we had technicians going out to these reference stands, and one of the ways to measure moisture stress in vegetation is to use a pressure bomb, which is a pressure chamber you put a twig in and exert pressure, and the pressure needed to exude some sap out of this twig, is directly proportional to the tension it's under, so it's a measure of 00:12:00moisture stress. One of the primary times to do this is pre-dawn. It's called "pre-dawn moisture stress measurement," because that's when it's lowest, and it's kind of at equilibrium, and there's no sun shining or any force put on it to trigger evapotranspiration. We used to send out guys in the middle of the night to do this, and our favorite thing was to do was to fill them with Sasquatch stories, before they went out! (Laughing) We got a good bit of 00:13:00hilarity out of that kind of thing. That was the fun of it, as you have people working on different things; small mammal people talking to the silviculturists, people measuring fire intervals, and talking to the vegetation classifiers, all that kind of stuff. And that led toward the "pulse" idea. [See previous reference.]

Geier: Huh? [Asking for clarification on "pulse."]

Dyrness: We would go other places and have this same kind of interaction going on. We worked together all day, then sat around the campfire at night, sharing what you observed and what questions you had. That was the first "pulse." I only 00:14:00went on one or two, because the pulse idea hit its stride after I went to Alaska. The first one was to the Mt. Adams area on the Steamboat RNA. Jerry wanted to get some permanent plots put in. It was Jerry, Art McKee, and Bob Woodmansee was visiting, an ecologist back east now. That was an attempt to get some field work on an RNA done in a short interval. What we did was stay at campgrounds, but we ate at the Trout Lake District of the Gifford Pinchot 00:15:00National Forest. They had a mess hall for crews and we just signed up and ate at the mess hall, and sat around our campfire at night. It was a really, really fun deal. As I recall, as our family camped out a lot, I used to have the family come up at the end, so we could get some of camping in, and go up to Mt. Rainier, for which I took a few days off at the end.

Geier: I was going to ask you whether your family ever camped out at the Andrews. Camped out there, or wherever?

Dyrness: Not a great deal, although we did make a point, Jerry and I, several times. We said, "Let's bring our kids this time, or pick a kid, the oldest one, 00:16:00probably." At that time, my oldest was 8 or 9, and she still talks about it. What I did, come to think of it, was when I took time off for vacation, especially when the kids were real small, you might have noticed on the way up to the Andrews, there's cabins by the river that you can rent? Geier: Yeah.

Dyrness: We used to rent a cabin, then go to the Andrews, and I'd fish up Lookout Creek. That's the way the family would engage, in part, in reaction to the claim, "Daddy's there all the time." And they want to know what it's like. Time was when Jerry, in the early '70s, I remember him getting on this. Jerry gets on these kicks, you know, what to worry about now, and he said, "Well, what 00:17:00we ought to do is buy property up at Blue River, so we can retire there!" (Laughter) Which never really came to fruition, but it shows you what a special place we thought it was.

Geier: That's an interesting dynamic there.

Dyrness: And I think, can I suggest a title?

Geier: Sure.

Dyrness: "A Special Place," something like that. The H.J. Andrews, the first 40 or 50 years on the H.J. Andrews, something like that. But, "A Special Place." Use the phrase.

Geier: You know, there's something I could probably do. The first chapter there, I'm looking at the idea of a sense of place.

Dyrness: Yeah. Dig in. Are you going to get some history on the Indians in the area?

Geier: Yeah.

Dyrness: Early sheepherders?

Geier: I probably will have something, what I can find. I've got some friends in anthropology who've studied that area.

Dyrness: Good. That would be kind of neat. I'm hoping this is going to be kind of a common interest history. I can give it to people who don't know anything about ecology, and they'll be interested in this.

Geier: I think it's really got a lot of potential here for that. That's what Bill Lang [Portland State University history professor and editor of book series in which Geier hoped to publish Andrews history] is interested in, really, is that it sells. So, I want to do that, and still keep it interesting enough so people who are informed about this, will like it. I think an informed layman might be the best target.

Dyrness: Getting back to the community-at-large in Blue River, I think we have always been kind of a community apart, except for those guys that lived there 00:19:00all the time. But we would always mainly hang out with the other researchers. Although, I can remember times where you'd go down to the local tavern and dance with the local gals, and stuff like that. But it wasn't that much. It was kind of a rare occasion when that happened.

Geier: Was there a favorite hangout in Blue River that you'd go down to?

Dyrness: Yeah, early on. It was called the Cougar Room. It burned down later.

Geier: Cougar Room?

Dyrness: Yeah. At one time it had "go-go" dancers [topless for a period], which made it more attractive, sometimes. It was kind of the local joint. Remember, I mentioned this meeting we had down at the Andrews in the late '80s, and we ate 00:20:00there. It was just before the thing burned down. Now it's burned down. Did you go into the town of Blue River?

Geier: Yeah, we drove through.

Dyrness: Yeah, and there's this café here and a grocery store there, and then you go out and you join the bypass?

Geier: Yeah.

Dyrness: Right at that "Y," was the Cougar Room [where it was located].

Geier: That was there until the '80s?

Dyrness: Yeah. I don't know how much of a hangout, but to go and have a beer and stuff.

Geier: Well, that's pretty important to the idea of a community, a home-away-from-home kind of a thing.

Dyrness: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Geier: Place where you're likely to run into someone else by accident.

Dyrness: Oh, yeah. When we lived in the trailer at Blue River Heights [name for 00:21:00residential area above Blue River Ranger District], people would always stop by and see who was there. I remember, Jerry especially, if he had to write a manuscript, he'd go there, because it was away from the office, and he'd feel the "muse" better at Blue River than he would in Corvallis. He'd drive off and work.

Geier: That ties in with what Fred was saying, people using the Andrews as a refuge and source of inspiration.

Dyrness: And Art, he has a little cabin, a little summer house there.

Geier: Oh, is that right?

Dyrness: Yeah, at the administrative site. It's sort of a little place. As director of the forest [HJA], he goes down there and hikes. It's great.

Geier: I had a little field trip when I was down there. We had a little picnic 00:22:00there, and that was one of the more relaxing days I've had in a long time.

Dyrness: Yeah. It's a therapeutic place.

Geier: I was just thinking that I'm real interested in the community dynamics up there, comparing it to Bonanza Creek, where you had people who were going out and working and then coming back, and the [Fairbanks, Alaska - USFS] lab was the site of interaction.

Dyrness: Uh-huh.

Geier: Then, here at the Andrews, people go there from all sorts of different areas here [in Corvallis], but they don't interact here as much as they interact there [Alaska].

Dyrness: Yeah. The administrative site is now the community hub. They play volleyball, and there's people, lots of kids, undergrads, that research program for undergrads at NSF [Research Experience for Undergraduates], and graduate students from all over the country. They converge on that site. People are catching the idea and the vision. It's just amazing.

Geier: It's interesting to know the impact that has on the kind of science that's done there. You mentioned the pulse idea, which kind of grows out of that basic idea?

Dyrness: Yeah!

Geier: That spurt of creative energy, and then people go off and have time to kind of assimilate those ideas, and then come back and reconnect. It's a different pattern, and it was also true at Fairbanks, where you had this continual family connection going on there all the time. You've worked at both places. Do you have any sense of that dynamic?

Dyrness: I remember when I got to Fairbanks, I thought this is kind of anachronistic. I'm in the middle of the wilderness here, but yet, I can do fieldwork and be home every night! I also thought, "But this is kind of nice." It does place a strain on family when you're gone just about all summer. I remember when I would come home from an arduous week of tromping up and down those slopes in the watersheds [HJA]. Every day is a picnic in the woods, and 00:24:00you joke about that, bring your lunch and your pack, that everyday indeed is a "picnic in the woods." "We get paid for doing this?" You're right. But when I come home, the family's been around home all week, and they might want to go have a picnic, and even that could cause friction, because I want to stay and lay in front of the TV, and watch a baseball game. Something stupid like that would be a source of a little friction. Most of that time my family was living on a small farm, so there was concern about getting the hay in, and I wasn't there except, maybe, weekends.

Geier: That was in the Corvallis area?

Dyrness: Yeah, we lived on an 8-acre farm on Tampico Road. If you're familiar, 00:25:00on Tampico road there are a few minor bends, and then it takes a big bend to the right. If you go straight, you'd run into the place we used to have.

Geier: Yeah, we almost bought a place out there.

Dyrness: Is that right?

Geier: Yeah, we came real close to it last year. It was right before you get to the road that goes over to the dump.

Dyrness: Oh, is that right?

Geier: Yeah. And that was the blow that turned us against it. I don't know if you've been out there recently, but that dump has gotten so huge.

Dyrness: Yeah.

Geier: And I was really concerned that, potentially, trash from the dump, would be right up against the back of the property. It was about a 10-acre piece, and the dump was right up against the back boundary, and that's not what I wanted for a neighbor. (Laughter)

Dyrness: Yeah. Yeah.

Geier: That's what turned me against it, but otherwise it was a beautiful place.

Dyrness: We really enjoyed it, because there's nobody on either side of us, nobody in back. Now there are houses in back, but when we were there, nothing. That was one of the things that was hard to leave, because we'd just remodeled 00:26:00the house, gotten all new carpets down, we'd planted an orchard with any kind of fruit tree you could think of. I had a strict spray schedule, as I take "orcharding" very seriously. We had ponies for the kids, we raised cattle, and had a small feed-lot operation kind of thing. Buy feeders. I'd call home and something's gone wrong with the well. I'd be down in Blue River. "What do I do?" It had its frustrations. Getting hay in with a small operation like that is hard, and I didn't have any tractor or anything. I had to get a guy to cut the 00:27:00hay, rake it and bale it. For a small place like that, nobody wanted to even do it.

Geier: Do you see any difference between the kind of research programs that developed at the Andrews in comparison to Bonanza Creek?

Dyrness: Well, a big difference between the Andrews and Bonanza Creek was the number of people. We just really had a skeleton crew there at Bonanza Creek. That had its advantages, because I used to think that up there, every person was 00:28:00more valuable, because there was just so few. Every person had their role to play. If somebody crapped out on you, you really feel it. Here, there are backups in just about any discipline you can name. It boggles your mind how many people are involved.

Geier: Would you say you get more of a sense of continuity, then?

Dyrness: How's that?

Geier: Down here [HJA], I mean. You said that part of the puzzle could always be filled by somebody. That would prevent having gaps?

Dyrness: Yeah. But there's more feeling that you're dispensable here, I think.

Geier: Oh, I see.

Dyrness: And you don't feel that up there, as you really have a role to play, and you're really valued. So, I've got to think about this, as far as commuting 00:29:00every day and not commuting. I think you may be on to something that does cause a change in --

Geier: Well, it would be different, I'm sure. I would guess that there might be some kind of an impact on the kinds of projects you would be willing to take on, versus ones that you really wanted to do? It wouldn't necessarily mean better research or worse research, it would just be the kind of work you take on, if there's a difference. You might think about that, if anything occurs to you.

Dyrness: Yeah, I'll think about it. Because, like I say, the overwhelming difference I always think about, is just the number of people. We really had a skeleton crew [Alaska]. Of course, with Keith [Van Cleve] retiring, Les [Viereck] is ready for retirement now, Skeeter [Richard Warner] is retiring, and of course, [mumbled asides]. Herman [Gucinski] really tried to rectify that, and 00:30:00the first step was maybe to get Terry [Chapin] to stay. Do you know Terry?

Geier: No, I don't.

Dyrness: He was one of our early cooperators up at Bonanza Creek. A really sharp ecologist at the University of Alaska. Then, he transferred to Berkeley. Well, it's a 20-times more prestigious place than Alaska. You can't blame him for doing it. But now, they've talked him into coming back, and heading up the LTER.

Geier: Oh, I see.

Dyrness: And he's a guy with a national, an international reputation.

Geier: I was asking Cindy [Miner-PNW Communications Director] to put together an 00:31:00epilogue for the Alaska study, which should be coming out pretty soon. And one of the things was the closure up there, and the people who've left.

Dyrness: As you can well imagine, I don't even like to think about it.

Geier: Yeah.

Dyrness: It really pisses me off.

Geier: I was talking to Ross, what's his name? I went to see him out at Bend? Mitchell, Russ Mitchell.

Dyrness: Russ Mitchell?

Geier: I went out to see him, and there's the same kind of feeling at Bend. I'd never been out to the Bend Lab, but they closed that down at the same time. He's been out there, and I went out there to meet him at the lab. It's nice and quiet, but it's like a morgue out there, because there's nobody around.

Dyrness: That's stupid.

Geier: Yeah.

Dyrness: Once you lose a group like that, you don't just go out and build another. We had 12 people! We had 12 researchers! [In Alaska]

Geier: That's amazing, because that's in the '80s, you said it reached that 00:32:00point, right?

Dyrness: Yeah!

Geier: So, it's only about a decade ago.

Dyrness: I think it's top leadership. When Tarrant was practically [PNW] station director, Tarrant and Buckman [Bob], we had people that believed in Alaska research and were behind it. I think Ethington [Robert] was, too. And now, with what's his name?

Geier: Philpot? [Charles]

Dyrness: Yeah. I don't think he really knew. You said something about him not liking your manuscript.

Geier: Well, Cindy asked him to write an epilogue. I wasn't real keen on that, he said he would. Then he read through the manuscript, and said his interpretation would be so different from mine, that he didn't want to write an 00:33:00epilogue, or deal with it. So Cindy and Ken [Wright] pulled something together. He was not, to me at least, he was not specific at all. In fact, he would not return my phone calls. I tried to talk to him.

Dyrness: Oh, God, that guy is an arrogant bastard. You know, man, oh man! He's part of the reason I retired. I just couldn't stand to deal with that guy.

Geier: I've never met him, although he was PNW Station Director at the time I was doing the study [Alaska]. I tried several times to contact him for an interview, as I wanted to get his view of what happened in Alaska.

Dyrness: Well, he's a Johnny-come-lately. He doesn't know what's going on up there, and never did. He wasn't that interested.

Geier: He didn't ever return a phone call. I never heard back from him.

Dyrness: (Laughing) Regarding his antipathy, have I ever told you about this story about his visiting a project leaders' meeting?

Geier: No, I don't think so.

Dyrness: His antipathy dates way back, and I don't know what the genesis of it 00:34:00is, but in about 1983, something like that, we had a project leaders meeting. At that time, there was a Missoula Lab [where Philpot was stationed], and he attended our PNW project leaders meeting. I forget where it was, Salishan, something like that, and he was just an observer sent by Rocky Mountain Station to see how PNW conducted project leaders' meetings. As you do at a project leaders' meeting, you have different things to discuss, and one thing on the program was to talk a little bit about multifunctional research work units, of which ours was a prime example. I was given the job to say how we handled it in 00:35:00Fairbanks. Made a lot of sense. I said how we did it and what kind of disciplines we had represented, how we all got together and decided how to spend the budget, and the cooperation with the people at the university. When I got done, Charley Philpot stood up, and just ground me up one side and down the other: "Well, we would never do that in our station." I forget what he said. I was so nonplussed, I didn't even know what to say!

Geier: Hmm. So, he just blind-sided you?

Dyrness: Yeah. Like he had a vendetta against me, or something. Or our unit.

Geier: What were his points?

Dyrness: I don't know. It was just totally out of the blue. Who is this guy? Where did he get off? He's not even in the Station! He's just an observer!

Geier: Huh.

Dyrness: He and I just got off on the wrong foot, and I've not had any reason to change my opinion of him. He's been known to be a burr under a lot of people's saddles. And what he did when he came to PNW Station, he immediately re-organized everything. He did away with project leaders, and he had guys like Herman [Gucinski, a program manager], who, I've got nothing against Herman, he's a nice guy, quite a brilliant guy, but he was trying to run Fairbanks Lab from here [in Oregon]. He'd go there twice a year, three times a year, and get into 00:37:00shouting matches with Keith.

Geier: Hard to imagine Keith shouting.

Dyrness: Yeah, Keith was upset, as he said that this was a "goddamn carpet bagger." That's what we used to call these guys that just showed up for research in Alaska in the summertime. We were the "sourdoughs" and these were the "carpetbaggers." (Laughs) But, with the demise of the project leaders, we just didn't have any local leadership. Everybody was running out and doing their own thing, and you kind of need some kind of person who deals with the university [U-Alaska] and the public. It's interesting, because I heard, via the grapevine, that what he didn't like, least of all, was the Fairbanks section.

Geier: Oh, is that right?

Dyrness: I don't know who told me that. Maybe Martha [Brookes] or somebody.

Geier: Obviously, by the time you get to the end of that, I didn't actually have it closed, in the section I wrote, but I'd shown that the resources were limited.

Dyrness: Just kind of drained out.

Geier: The handwriting was up on the wall. Of course, I didn't see anything personally that he wrote, but Cindy told me. The only information she gave me on it, was that he didn't see that last section as being remotely close to how he would view that same situation. Obviously, he wanted to tell his own story about the reorganization, but he didn't want to do it for that study. For some reason, he just didn't want to write it.

Dyrness: Is that right?

Geier: I don't know, and haven't talked to him. He didn't really want to tell me his story.

Dyrness: You never did talk to him?

Geier: No, he never called me back. I tried several times, and his wife was there, I talked to her, and she said, "I'll have him call when he gets back." 00:39:00That was his wife, but he sure never returned the phone calls. That's rude.

Dyrness: Yeah. That's him. Doggone it. S.O.B. How did he get to be Station Director, for Pete's sake? Geier: I'm always curious about that. Who appoints these people, and how do they get their positions? We were talking about that in relation to the current director, Art and Martha and I. I guess the Chief [USFS] appoints them, you know, but how are the recommendations made, and how the decision process is conducted, is a little black box.

Dyrness: The best station director we ever had, and this is a very personal viewpoint, and I've known him for many years, is Bob Tarrant. And he was the only one that didn't have Washington Office [USFS] experience.

Geier: Is that right?

Dyrness: He never went back-and-forth. Visited lots of times, but was never stationed in Washington D.C. He took a lot of flack for it, and people told him, 00:40:00"You really need that in your career path." That's what they tell you, because I did the same thing. In my employment, I let it be known I wouldn't consider it. I wasn't with this outfit long before they were nosing around to get me back in the Washington Office. I just said, "No."

Geier: Yeah. That's a common thread I'm finding. I think it's really interesting. In the Andrews Group here. Kerrick, didn't he hire Steve Eubanks, who not only had University of Minnesota connections with him [Kerrick], but also, until that time, had never been in the Washington Office? Those two people, everyone is telling me, were really crucial to the development of the management --

Dyrness: Yeah.

Geier: -- science relationship. And Bob Tarrant was avoiding it, also. That's 00:41:00interesting. I hadn't known that about him before, that he was never in the Washington office.

Dyrness: Oh, no. And Bob, I think he only had a masters. Yeah.

Geier: I think you're right about that. I talked to him about that last year.

Dyrness: Is that right?

Geier: Yeah, for the Alaska study. And I think that's right.

Dyrness: He got his masters in soils and started working with SCS [Soil Conservation Service], went in the Army, and came back. Of course, Tarrant's a story-teller. I bet you guys really like a guy like Tarrant, because he loves to tell stories.

Geier: He was fun to talk to.

Dyrness: Oh, he's a great guy. Great guy.

Geier: He reminded me a little bit of Ronald Reagan, the way he'd kind of lean back. I can see how he can be real effective.

Dyrness: He was the kind of guy, when he was [PNW] Director, he'd send you notes for your birthday. Stuff like that. You felt like you had a friend, a good friend. He'd come on these inspection tours, we'd just have a great time and you 00:42:00wouldn't feel threatened. He was a happy guy and just wanted to be helpful. He'd explain what personnel moves were. They were trying to get rid of Francis Herman, and they thought the way to do it would be to offer him a directed reassignment to Fairbanks, you know, send him to "Siberia." (Laughing) That he wouldn't do. Everybody who knows Francis Herman, knows he is the most stubborn guy on the face of the earth. Great guy. He'd give you the shirt off his back, but he's stubborn, and he's not about to be taken advantage of. So, Herm called the bluff, and said "I'm going to Fairbanks!" Tarrant was telling me one day, we 00:43:00had John Zasada in silviculture, and he's reproduction, regeneration-oriented. We need someone else in silviculture, and growth-and-yield, to establish permanent plots, and to investigate how trees grow long-term. Old Tarrant, well, he's a great guy.

Geier: I'll be talking to him some more, probably not until December. I probably should stop, because you've been talking for a long time. It gets kind of wearing after awhile. We can talk more in the future.

Dyrness: Yeah, okay. Well.

Geier: I suppose you probably want these back.

Dyrness: Like I say, when's this Alaska book [recording ends].