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Will Troyer
No full textWill Troyer oral history interview as conducted by John Cornely. Mr. Troyer also worked with the Park Service.1
National Heritage Team of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Oral History Program
Subject/USFW Retiree: Will Troyer
Date: October 31, 2006
Interviewed by: John Cornely
John Cornely:
This is John Cornely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Heritage Committee, it's the 31st of October in 2006, and I'm with Will Troyer at his home near Cooper Landing, Alaska. And I'm here today to have him tell us about his life and his Fish and Wildlife Service career.
Will Troyer:
I was born on a farm in Indiana to actually Amish heritage, and my folks became Mennonite's later, but when I was a young kid we farmed with horses and drove the horse and buggy until I was about 10 years old. Anyways, I've often wandered how did a Amish/Mennonite farm boy end up in Alaska as a biologist! It is kind of an interesting story because I guess what got me interested in wildlife was that when I was in about the second or third grade I had a teacher that got us real interested in birds. In the spring of the year she would ask us who's seen a robin and then she would write the person's name on the blackboard, and the next day it might be a bluebird or something. Anyway, she got my interest really up and I became an avid birder. And then we moved from that particular farm to an area that had 40-acres of woods on it and the house was surrounded by woods. I've got a book here, the old Birds of North America, and I'll have to show it to you, it's in the library, but on the inside cover is... My mother saw that, she was interested in birds, in town and it cost 8,000.00 to operate only two, I don't think that counted our salary. Here awhile back I ran into one of my old WD Forms, and I think my salary at Kodiak, what was it then... it was 6,000. It was 8,000.00 or something back then. And we didn't get any overtime or anything in those days you know, we just worked it. But I was there eight years, and I also did work on Afognak. And then Dick Hensel became my assistant in 1960, and then he took over it when I left in '63. But we wrote quite a few research papers and so forth on Kodiak bear, the work we'd done while I was there and afterward. We had the go ahead to do a wildlife series on it and somehow or another we never did finish it. But anyways, that always bothered me and about a year ago, after I left Fish and Wildlife Service I also worked with brown bear with the Park Service at Katmai. But I accumulated all of my information there and I wrote a book, Into Brown Bear Country. I don't know if you've heard of it or not but it came out last year, it was published by the University of Alaska Press, and it is available in several bookstores in Anchorage and so forth and so on.
But anyways, I was at Kodiak eight years and mainly working with bear and I did some elk and deer work, and we were also responsible for managing the populations there and everything. And then after 8 years my wife was really wanting to leave. Anyways, the Kenai Refuge position came open, and I was really reluctant to take that job because all the oil business and I always thought I didn't want to get involved in that. And Dave Spencer, who was my boss at that time, well actually except for the three years I was an enforcement agent he was my boss my whole career in the Fish and Wildlife, 19 years I think he was my boss. But anyways, he told me, "Well, come on over to Kenai and take a look at it." And he said, "If you don't like it and don't want it, well I'll understand." But he said, "I think you might change your mind." So I did go over there and decided that, anyways accumulating the fact that I decided to take the job, and so I did become the Refuge Manager at Kenai in 1963 it was. I was at Kodiak from 1955 to '63, and I forgot to mention that, but in southeastern I was there '52 permanently to '55, when I went to Kodiak, and that doesn't count the 6 months I spent up here in '51.
John Cornely:
And when you were at Wrangell that was enforcement?
Will Troyer:
That was strictly enforcement, yeah. And I did, the last 6 months I was down there Sandy, I can't think of his last name, was the enforcement agent at Juneau, and he retired and he asked me to come up and temporarily take that until Fred Robards moved down from Cordova and took it, so I was there during that 6 month period. That's where I met 4
my wife by the way and we eventually got married after I went to Kodiak. She worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service too at that time. And then we went to Kenai, and I should say at Kodiak in the summertime when I was doing that bear research it was pretty... we were in the field every day during that season, and most of the year I moved my family out to Camp Island, we had a little cabin out there that we stayed. And all my kids were born in Kodiak while I was there, but the youngest one was only about a year old when we left.
But at Kenai it was actually a pretty challenging refuge, and I really ended up liking it there. I was there 5 years and we did a lot of moose work, I did a little sheep, but we had a lot of recreational, a lot of campgrounds and stuff like that. The biggest interest and my pet project was putting in that canoe system, which we built there in that time. And when I went there they had talked about doing it some day when they got money and I, as usual I kind of jumped into things you know and I said, "Well, let's just start doing it," and the first winter we started putting portages in. At that time Ave Thayer was my assistant, and let's see I had another assistant, and then later Bob Ritchie I hired him as my recreational guy, and Bob Siemel was my range man there. The staff actually we had seven people when I left there, something like that. Which was big compared to my two staff at Kodiak! But there in addition to putting in the canoe system, and this lasted over several years, it took several years to put that in, but we did a lot of work on moose and surveys, and we did a lot of habitat improvement and things like that. Then we did some sheep surveys, I did a minimum of research on sheep but not a lot. But I also did some Trumpeter Swan work there, and kept that going. And that accumulated into I'm one of the four authors in the Trumpeter Swans of Alaska [Wildlife Monograph # 26; 1971] that we put together, and I forgot what year that came, but it was one of those wildlife series and the Professional Wildlife Society and General Wildlife Management.
John Cornely:
It seems to me it was in the '60's, but I don't remember exactly what year.
Will Troyer:
Yeah, yeah; I think it came out about '65, or something, it was after I left the Kenai I believe. And Hank Hansen put it all together, and Pete Shepherd and I was trying to think who the fourth author was, Jim King maybe, I think maybe it was Jim King, yeah. But anyways, we put that together.
I also when I was at Kodiak I did bald eagle work, but most of my work was with big game. And it was interesting because when I was going to Oregon State I always thought I was an upland game biologist! But because I ended up at Kodiak it was natural that you got into and started out with the brown bear work and so forth.
And then I was there at Kenai five years and I wasn't really ready to leave, I liked the job and so forth, it was challenging because of all the different activities we had going on there, the oil and recreational things, plus the wildlife. But it was about that time they decided they were going to fill a job, the wilderness coordinator. When congress passed the Wilderness Act in '64, they directed Fish and Wildlife and Park Services to do 5
studies, add additional stuff. And I didn't really want to leave the Kenai but I was really interested in that project and felt strongly about wilderness, and I was kind of afraid somebody would take it that wasn't interested in it, and Dave Spencer kind of encouraged me to take it too. So after five years I did take that project and it was very interesting, it got me into a lot of areas in Alaska; the Arctic out in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and the Aleutians, Izembek, a lot of the island refuges. But it was kind of frustrating in the end, we started holding hearings, and we did get a couple of small islands in the wilderness, but at that time the Alaska Native Land Claims Act came along and everything was put on hold. Eventually it was kind of disbanded and everybody went different directions and so forth.
And I actually became assistant refuge supervisor under Spencer, but then about that time, to be honest with you, I wasn't getting along with our regional director, Watson, and the Park Service offered me a field job and I decided to take it. And one of the things that enticed me to do that was because they wanted me to do additional brown bear work at Kodiak, or at Katmai. And I worked in Katmai, McKinley, and Lake Clark mainly during that career. But that's basically why I left the Fish and Wildlife.
But the wilderness job was a great job, it's just that we did all of that work and then all the sudden everything was brought to a halt. But one thing that did happen is when they finally completely like the Kenai studies they basically followed the recommendations that I had made, and actually they added a couple of places, they added a little more than what I'd recommended and so forth. But that's kind of a nutshell on my career.
John Cornely: Gordon Watson was the regional director?
Will Troyer:
He was the regional director, yeah.
John Cornely:
Go ahead and talk about your Park Service work, and go ahead and do kind of the same thing, just go through what you did with the Park Service.
Will Troyer:
Well, I was with the Park Service 7 years and 23 years when I left the Fish and Wildlife Service. And I really hated to leave because all of my friends were in Fish and Wildlife, and I put a lot of effort into it, but on the other hand the field work the Park Service offered me was really good. So I was really the only biologist at that time out of the regional office, and I was really scattered too thin. But I also got my flying license when I was at Kodiak, and so I started flying for the Fish and Wildlife Service and then I did the same thing for the Park Service. And so I was doing brown bear, mainly brown work at Katmai and I had a caribou study at McKinley. And I collared some of the first caribou and followed that heard because the population was way down and we were trying to figure just what was wrong, why the reduction in the population. Well, they used me to do a lot of preliminary work, like I did a lot of moose, sheep, caribou 6
population surveys to get ideas of the numbers and so forth. And as a flying biologist, why that kind of fitted right into it. So I did a lot of that stuff, the same way at Katmai I did winter moose surveys and things like that. And I worked until let's see, I retired I think the first of January of '82, so I put 7 years in with the Park Service on that and so forth.
John Cornely:
Where was their regional office?
Will Troyer:
Their regional office was in Anchorage; I worked out of Anchorage all of the time. But I was gone a lot, sometimes I'd go out to Katmai for a month, I flew my little Cub, I had a little Cub out there. And I was really stretched too thin; in the spring of the year I spent most of my time working on caribou during the calving and stuff. And then in the summer, July and August, when the bears were on the stream I spent a lot of time Katmai. And in the fall, again, they wanted some information and we decided to collar a few bear out there, and I did that the hard way too, we strictly did it, by then we had good dart guns. And we managed to collar a few bears by following them around and shooting them with darts, and then got pretty exciting too you know at times.
John Cornely:
Were these just regular collars?
Will Troyer:
We had radio collars by then. See, that's one thing I didn't mention, when we were at Kodiak we didn't have radio collars, we used colored collars. They started, I think Dick Hensel and some of his cohorts started some of the first radio work there after I left, but that was relatively new. Yeah when I went, see I hadn't done any bear work from the time I left Kodiak in '63 until I went with the Park Service in '74, and during that 11 year period it was like going from the horse and buggy days to modern technology because by then they had worked out good methods of drugs and deliveries, and they did a lot of work by choppers, flying around. But because of the public awareness there at Katmai they didn't want a lot of disturbance, so that's why we opted to strictly sneak around and put a few collars by following them and darting them and so forth. But caribou in McKinley we collared them basically when they were outside the park on the end, but we only kept about 10 or 12 and then I followed the herd from that on there and so forth. And I did a little few extra things with the Park Service too where I get sent different places.
John Cornely:
Did you ever get any insight into why the numbers were declining or why they were low in the caribou?
Will Troyer:
Well not for sure but indicated that the population had dropped, and there's no doubt about it that once it was depressed that low predators kept it low for quite a few years. 7
And it's gradually built up a little bit after but it was a very slow process and so forth. Yeah, I used to think I never wanted to study caribou because they are, its fascinating work but you can't ever figure them out because they're constantly changing. They're moving different and everything, it's really kind of difficult but it was pretty interesting. But bear on the other hand were pretty difficult to work with too because it's hard to get a population figure number and things like that because they are not out in the wintertime in the snow where you can count them and things like that. But it was interesting, years later when the Fish and Wildlife did lots and lots of collaring on Kodiak; when Dick Hensel and I were there we sat down there one year and based on our work down at Karluk, and I did a lot of population surveys, stream surveys down there. If you do it long enough you kind of get an idea of what's there, and we came up with a figure of almost 2,500 bears on Kodiak on the refuge there. And when they did all of their work they came in at a couple of hundred bears of what we had, so we weren't too far off, and we did it based on habitat types. We figured number one, top priority habitat like Karluk Lake and how much of that we had on the refuge, and then number two in acreage, and we came up within 100 or 50 bears of what they did with all their...
John Cornely:
Yep, all their expensive techniques.
Will Troyer:
Yeah, right, right. But we had no proof, we just kind of estimated it but it came out pretty good.
But I really enjoyed my career; I did mostly field work, I managed to stay in the field all the time. And I know I was offered a couple of jobs to go back to Washington and turned it down. And one time right after I went back and got a masters degree at Montana State at Missoula when I was working with the brown bear at Kodiak, it was the same time that John Craighead was starting his grizzly work in Yellowstone. So I went back there for that reason, and I did it in two different hitches; I went back in January of 1960, and I took two semesters and then I came back to Kodiak for a year, and then I went again in the fall and I finished up in March of '62, I think it was, and I
Walter Stieglitz
No full textWalter Stieglitz oral history interview as conducted by John Cornely.
Mr. Stieglitz discusses the opening of the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and the Bicentennial Land Heritage Program, Exxon Valdez oil spill, Kodiak Island land acquisitino additions, hunting regulations for migratory birds, North American Waterfowl Management Plan.
Organization: FWS
Name: Walter Stieglitz
Years: 1960-1994
Program: Refuges
Keywords: Biography, Employees (USFWS), History, Biologists (USFWS), Management, Migratory birds, Military, Wildlife refuges, Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge, San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Complex1
Oral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover SheetOral History Cover SheetOral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover Sheet Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Walter Stieglitz
Date of Interview: May 20, 2004
Location of Interview: Stanley's West Arm Resort, Eagle Lake, Ontario, Canada
Interviewer: John Cornely
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 34 years [June 20, 1960 - August, 1994]
Offices and Field Stations Worked: Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge; South Florida National Wildlife Refuge Complex; Atlanta Regional Office [Region 4]; San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge; Washington D.C.
Positions Held: Assistant Refuge Manager; refuge biologist; refuge district management biologist [for FL, GA, AL];refuge district supervisor [for NC, SC, VA, MD]; Chief of the Branch of Natural Resources in the Division of Refuges; Chief of the Office of Program and Development for Wildlife; Deputy Regional Director Region 4; Deputy Associate Director for the National Wildlife Refuge System; Assistant Director for Wildlife Resources; Coordinator-Bicentennial Land Heritage Program; Regional Director Region 7.
Most Important Projects: Opened the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge;
Bicentennial Land Heritage Program; Exxon Valdez oil spill ;Kodiak Island land acquisition additions; hunting regulations for migratory birds; North American Waterfowl Management Plan;
Colleagues and Mentors: Larry Givens; Ken Black; James Pulliam; Pres Lane; Dr. Robert E. Putz; John Rogers; Dick Pospahala; Galen Buterbaugh; Ralph Morgenweck; Mark Plenert; Ron Lambertson; Dr. Willard Klimstra; Mollie Beatty; John Turner; Dick Smith; Dave Olsen; Curtis Wilson;
2
Most Important Issues: ANILCA [Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act) implementation; Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster; Alaska Native subsistence hunting and fishing; Arctic National Wildlife Refuge [ANWR] 1002 oil drilling; annual migratory bird hunting regulations; Various issues relating to the management of national wildlife refuges.
Key Words (Please highlight or circle those described in the interview):
Refuges
fisheries
law enforcement
ecological serv.
personnel
realty
director
public affairs
game
contaminants
animal damage
river basins
Regions 1-9__
Patuxent
Federal Aid
international
CITES
habitat
ESA
wilderness
fishing
Hunting
birding
boats
aviation
surveys
flyways
Waterfowl
potholes
migration
eagles
condors
cranes
pesticides
pelicans
Olaus Murie
Ding Darling
Ira Gabrielson
J. Clark Salyer
Al Day
Rachel Carson
H. Zahniser
Dan Jantzen
J. Gottschalk
J. Gottschalk
Spencer Smith
L. Greenwalt
Bob Jantzen
Frank Dunkle
John Turner
M. Beattie
Aldo Leopold
Stuart Udall
James Watt
Bruce Babbitt
inventions
research
ecosystems
invasive species
reintroduction
red wolves
gray wolves
Mexican wolf
condors
spotted owl
3
National Heritage Team of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Oral History Program
Narrator/USFW Retiree: Stieglitz, Walter
Date: May 20, 2004
Interviewed by: John Cornely
John Cornely: This is John Cornely, a member of the Fish and Wildlife Service Heritage Committee. It is May 20, 2004. Our narrator today is Walt Stieglitz, who retired as the regional director in Region 7 in Anchorage, Alaska. We're at Eagle Lake, Ontario at the annual Harvey Nelson Fish Camp at Stanley's West Arm Resort.
Walter Stieglitz: This is Walt Stieglitz, a retired Fish and Wildlife Service person, speaking to you from beautiful Eagle Lake, Ontario.
I might give you a real quick background on my early years. I was born in a very small town named Bunker Hill, which is in central Illinois. I basically grew up in a rural farm-type environment. I was born April 14, 1934. I went through both elementary school and high school in Bunker Hill, and I was a member of the largest graduating class in history in high school, I mean like 44 students graduated.
From there I took a year off. I was only 16 years old when I graduated from high school, so I was a little young to go to college. So I took a year off and did farm work, I worked for the U.S. Forest Service in southern Oregon for the summer, and then I started college in the fall of 1951.
I received my bachelor's in 1955 [at Southern Illinois University], with a major in zoology, specialization in wildlife management and a minor in botany I went to ROTC in college and received my commission in 1955. I went to graduate school for one year, then the Air Force beckoned me, so I went on active duty for three years. I came back and finished my master's in 1960.
I might mention, while I was in the Air Force I went to flight training, I got my pilot's wings and also ammunition officer school. So I spent my Air Force career either in training or as a pilot and a munitions officer.
I started work for the Fish and Wildlife Service about ten days after I received my Masters. Actually, I had a choice of jobs when I graduated. The jobs seemed to be quite plentiful, so I had several offers from the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as from several state and fish game commissions. But I'd always wanted to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service, so it was really an easy decision for me. I started as a GS7 at Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge in Tennessee. I spent about a year there.
Then I moved to Delray Beach, Florida, where I was assistant [refuge] manager what was then called the South Florida National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which all that has changed today, of course. Basically, that took all of the refuges in south Florida, 4
including the Keys , the west coast, and up the east coast, as far as the old Brevard [National Wildlife] Refuge, which is now part of the Cape Kennedy Complex.
I had a couple of jobs while I was in south Florida. I became a refuge biologist, a little later I became a district biologist for all the refuges in the state of Florida. I did that for a while and then I went to the Departmental Training Program in 1965. Following that, I was made the district management biologist for all the refuges in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.
From there I moved into the regional office in Atlanta in 1967, where I was a district supervisor for all of the refuges in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. At that time, Virginia and Maryland were part of Region 4. Now, of course, they are part of Region 5. I had various jobs while I was in the regional office, all in refuges.
Then, in January of 1973, the director of the Service felt that he needed me at a different location. So I went to the San Francisco Bay area and started the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which was one of the highlights of my career. Very enjoyable starting a refuge from scratch, basically, and seeing it through its formative years.
Then I moved to Washington in 1975, where I became Chief of the Branch of Natural Resources in the Division of Refuges. Subsequent to that, when the Bicentennial Land Heritage Program came into being in the late 1970s, I was put in charge of that program for approximately two years, more about that later. That was one of the highlights of my career I'd like to talk a little bit more about.
I think I forgot to mention earlier, the school I attended, I did go to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois.
I also should have mentioned, when I was talking about some of my early career jobs, that one of the people that became very influential in my Service career, one of my mentors, was Larry Givens, who was a longtime refuge supervisor in Region 4. So I owe part of my success in the Fish and Wildlife Service to the tutelage I received from Larry.
Okay, going back to Washington again, then in 1979, I became Chief of the Office of Program Development for Wildlife. I did that for a year, and then moved back to Atlanta as Deputy Regional Director, where I worked for a couple of regional directors; Ken Black was my immediate supervisor when I went to Atlanta, and subsequently Jim Pulliam became the regional director.
While I was in that particular job, I completed the training program for the Senior Executive Service, and was called back to Washington in late 1984 to be the Deputy Associate Director for National Wildlife Refuges. I was in that job for a couple of years, 5
and then became Assistant Director for Wildlife Resources. I was in that position until 1987, when the director asked me to go to Alaska as a regional director, which I very happily did, and stayed in that job until I retired in August of 1994.
I need to go back one more time and mention another person that was pretty influential in my career, and that was my very first boss in the Fish and Wildlife Service, his name was Pres Lane. Pres was manager of the Reelfoot Refuge. It was rather interesting, I was the first assistant manager he had ever had, let alone have a smart-aleck college kid on his staff. So it was kind of an interesting experience for all of us, but it worked out very well. Even though he didn't have a college degree, Pres was extremely street-wise and was very, very helpful, I think, in getting my career off to a good start.
John Cornely: Walt, you said that you directed the BLH Program, the Bicentennial Land Heritage Program, for a couple of years. That program had started just before I came into the Fish and Wildlife Service. I believe it was very important to the Service at that time and, you know, for some time to come. I'd like you to tell us a little about your experience in directing that program.
Walter Stieglitz: Well, probably, as others have said, the Bicentennial Land Heritage Program was a real blessing for the Refuge System back in the late 70s. It had been many, many years since there had a been substantial program available under which a significant amount of construction and rehabilitation of refuge facilities could take place. The Bicentennial Land Heritage Program certainly met a lot of the needs, certainly not all of them at that point in time, but many, many of the needs on refuges.
It was kind of interesting the way it got started. The story was is that President Ford, who was going to be running for re-election in the fall, needed and was reminded by staff that he didn't have a wonderful environmental record and needed to do something to make his mark in the environmental field. So, someone came up with the idea of a very significant program to improve national parks. During the discussions, the very early discussions regarding the program, the story goes that someone from the Park Service said, "Well, how about National Wildlife refuges? They have a lot of problems similar to ours, and they certainly have a lot of needs similar to ours." So, it was decided to throw the Refuge System into the mix for BLHP.
It just happened over night, practically. People were throwing numbers together and trying to come up with projects in a very short timeframe. I missed out on the first 24 hours of that effort because I went home early, I didn't get caught by the director to help him put together something overnight.
As it turned out though, it was a real godsend for the Refuge System.
One of the problems that we faced is that, at that point in time, there were very, very few current master plans, as we called them back then. We hadn't had any significant 6
funding for a number of years for rehab or new construction and so, frankly, we were sort of caught with our pants down. We weren't ready for this kind of program, nowhere near ready for it. But we knew we had to come up with some credible program, we had to be able to answer to the Congress and to the Congressional staff who were going to be monitoring the program.
We came up with the idea, not my idea, but actually it came out of Region 3, as I recall, the idea of one sheet master plans. The director gave us practically free reign to do whatever we needed to do to get the program organized. He even offered to give me the conference room, to turn it into a war room, but we didn't really think that was necessary.
We went through a crash program, I would call it; each region appointed a BLHP coordinator to help pull things together. Every refuge of significance had a one sheet master plan thrown together, I guess would be a good way to put it and by taking those one sheet master plans, we were able to develop a composite needs list. We came up with ranking criteria that we needed to rank these and using this process we were able to put together descriptive projects that were needed, both new construction and rehabilitation. We also received something like 500 additional positions in the BLH program, and I've forgotten the O&M amount, I want to say it was around 5 million, which, of course, was a one shot effort.
One of the problems with the program is that Congress had to appropriate funds for each year. So for the first couple of years, we were highly successful in getting a substantial amount of money. It was supposed to be a five year program, as I recall, and it sort of petered out as we reached the end of that five year period. Frankly, I don't recall the total amount that was appropriated under BLHP for refuge work, but my recollection tells me it was in the range of 200 million.
But it was a wonderful program, we got a lot done. Regions did a wonderful job, really. All in all, I think it was a huge success and it's the kind of program that the Refuge System needs right about now.
I would like to talk a little about the early beginnings of the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Starting that refuge, I guess I would say, was one of the highlights of my career. It's always fun to take something from zero and develop a program around it.
The background of the refuge is kind of interesting, I think, and that is it was one of the early urban refuges that were added to the National Wildlife Refuge System. My recollection is that the Service wasn't particularly enthralled with developing a refuge in south San Francisco Bay because it was urban and everyone knew there was going to be a lot of public use associated with the refuge. Back in those days, we were more of a duck refuge system than we were interested in public use.
My assignment to it was kind of interesting. I was actually sitting in Atlanta at the time, 7
being offered a job in Washington. An individual by the name of Arch Mehrhoff was actually selected to be the first refuge manager. The story goes that Arch was at the time living in government housing on the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge in southern Illinois, and went out on a house hunting trip after he'd been selected. He took a look at the environment [there were about 5 million people at that time surrounding the refuge] and Arch decided it really wasn't his bag, he really didn't want to do that, so he went back to Crab Orchard. Then the Service was in a real bind, trying to find a refuge manager for this refuge on short notice. Well, to shorten the story, I ended up being the individual tapped to start the refuge off.
It was a lot of fun, really, for two and a half years. One of the good things about it was that the refuge really came to pass because of the efforts of a local citizens group who just banded together to seek legislative approval for the refuge, and they worked for several years to do that. An individual by the name of Art Ogilvie, who was employed by Santa Clara County, as I recall, was the ring leader of this group.
They worked very hard and finally got the legislation passed through the leadership of Congressman Don Edwards, who continued, even after the legislation was passed, to be a real champion for the refuge. Mainly through his efforts, even though it was very new, we almost immediately received funding to do master planning for the refuge. As a matter of fact, within less than five years actually, we were building facilities. I say we, by that time I had migrated back to Washington and someone else took over the job.
But it was a unique experience, a very enjoyable one, and I met a lot of wonderful people when I was out there. Actually, my job was more of a realty specialist/PR [public relations] type than it was anything else, because actually we only had about 40 acres that were donated to the refuge to manage when I first went out there. So it was basically working with the Leslie Salt Company, who owned a significant amount of acreage within the exterior refuge boundaries, and working with other local interests, and there were a lot of them to deal with, to try and get the refuge started off on the right track.
We already had some other refuges in the system when I went out there. The Farallon Islands [Farallon National Wildlife Refuge] of course had been a refuge for a long, long time. The San Pablo Bay [National Wildlife] Refuge was established earlier. Dick Bauer was the manager at San Pablo when I went out to the Bay area. Dick subsequently transferred into the Portland regional office and San Pablo was added to the San Francisco Bay Complex. We also had a refuge for the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander in existence at that point, that was part of the complex. While I was there, we started work to add the Salinas Lagoon area to the refuge complex.
Anyway, that was a lot of fun. We had a lot of good times there, but after two and a half years it was time to move on, back to Washington, and get involved with some other things.
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John Cornely: Walt, when you were the regional director in Alaska, if I remember correctly, why there were several very significant things that occurred in your tenure. The Alaska Native ANILCA [Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act] Settlements, Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster and a lot of, I think, related to ANILCA, a lot of subsistence, native subsistence harvest issues. I would like you to fill us in on some of the details of those significant events during your time in Alaska.
Walter Stieglitz: I may not get the sequence in order in all of these but yes, a number of pretty significant things happened while we were in Alaska that made life a little more interesting.
I might talk about Exxon Valdez first. A lot of people may not know what that was, but a huge oil tanker struck a reef out of Valdez [Alaska] and spilled about 11 million gallons of crude oil. This became one of the largest natural disasters of all time. It created untold problems for the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as a lot of other state and federal agencies in the state.
It happened in 1989, after I had been in Alaska for a couple of years, and unfortunately, no one was really prepared for a spill of that magnitude. The Coast Guard and others thought they were, but when it actually happened, it was impossible to cope with it.
We, the Fish and Wildlife Service, became involved because a number of the natural resources under our responsibility were harmed significantly by the spill. In order to deal with it, it was recognized early on by several agencies that we needed to immediately begin to put together a research program, if you will, to try and determine the total impacts of the spill on wildlife resources. Everyone knew somewhere down the road there would be an attempt made to recover damages from Exxon for the damages that were incurred by wildlife resources. So, this became a huge effort.
A trustee council was established, made up of federal and state agencies with lots of lawyers involved, of course. We did put together a program involving research, both by the federal agencies and by the state, which eventually gathered some excellent information that was used and is still being used, for that matter.
The upshot of the whole thing was that eventually Exxon did settle, and paid a very substantial restoration payment. Of course they were also charged with criminal charges, they were sued by a number of other interests like commercial fisherman and, Alaska natives whose subsistence resources were damaged in some cases.
One of the real good things that did come out of the spill, relates to Kodiak Island. When the Alaska natives were allowed to select lands under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, on Kodiak [which is famous, of course, for its brown bear populations and other wildlife] the natives selected most of the choice, very best bear habitat along the numerous streams that course through the refuge. But, by using Exxon Valdez 9
funds, most of those very, very critical lands on Kodiak were eventually acquired, many years after the spill of course, and added to the refuge.
So while there were some major damages to wildlife resources, many of those resources have recovered at this point in time, and we were able to protect some very, very important wildlife areas as a result of funds that were derived from the spill settlement.
That is maybe an over-simplification in retrospect. The Service and Service employees in Alaska did a fantastic job of responding to the spill, collecting the information, helping staff otter and bird recovery centers, etc.
I should mention that the response to the Service in general was very, very
Tina Dobrinsky
No full textTina Dobrinsky oral history interview as conducted by John Cornely. Ms. Dobrinsky worked mainly out of the Washington D.C. headquarters office and Denver Regional Office.
Ms. Dobrinsky coordinated Friends Group Program, Volunteer Program at Washington level.
Organization: FWS
Name: Tina Dobrinsky
Years:1990-2014
Programs: Visitor Services, Regional Office, Budget Analyst
Keywords: Employees (USFWS), History, Biography, Budgets, Waterfowl, Partnerships, Volunteers, Public policies, Recreation1
Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Tina Dobrinsky
Date of Interview: January 28, 2016
Location of Interview: Wheat Ridge, Colorado
Interviewer: John Cornely
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 24 years
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: Secretary/Budget Analyst in North American Office; Budget Analyst in Refuges; Washington D.C. as an Outdoor Recreation Planner in the Visitor Services branch under Rick Coleman working on different programs; Denver Regional Office as Facilities Branch Chief; Special Assistant in Denver Regional Office.
Most Important Projects: Recreation Fee Program, working on conferences such as Fulfilling the Promise and the Vision Conference, involved with Stepping up to Leadership, working on Friends and Volunteer Programs and Partnerships.
Colleagues and Mentors: John Cornely, Carol Lively, Mitch King, Kathy Donovan, Rick Coleman, Jean Dennis, Max Peace.
Brief Summary of Interview: Ms. Dobrinsky talks about her career and how she did things a little backwards, getting married at 18 and having a daughter before she started her career with the Service. She shares memories of her time pre-Fish and Wildlife Service, work she did for the Service, and what she is doing now.
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JOHN: This is John Cornely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Heritage Committee; as part of our oral history project, I have the pleasure today to be visiting with Tina Dobrinsky in her home in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. And had the pleasure of working with Tina for a number of years, and without any further introduction, Tina, I’ll let you tell us your story about your life and career and we’ll just get going here.
TINA: Alright. Well, I was born in Denver, Colorado, actually at St. Anthony’s Hospital in January, 14, 1956; I’m 60 this year. And grew up in Arvada, Colorado part of my life and my parents got divorced and we moved around a few times and ended up in Lakewood, went to junior high school at Dunstan, and high school at Bear Creek; graduated in 1974. So I kind of had a backwards way of doing my life and my career, than probably most people that you’ve interviewed. But I graduated in June of ’74 and I got married in June of ’74 to my husband, who I’m still married to, Paul; and we’ve been married 41 years. So he and I were babies at 18 years old and he was in the Army, so we were married for a couple of months and then he went overseas; well first he went to training in Kentucky and I followed him there and he was there for a couple of months. And it was an interesting experience living in the Louisville, Kentucky area and getting used to what the military was all about.
JOHN: You probably hadn’t lived outside of Colorado when you moved.
TINA: I had traveled a lot, but never lived outside of the state.
JOHN: Never lived outside of Colorado when you moved to Kentucky.
TINA: Correct.
JOHN: Let me ask, so Paul and you went to high school together, I assume.
TINA: Correct. We actually met in junior high school.
JOHN: Okay.
TINA: Yeah, Paul said in 7th grade, he remembers me in a purple dress and knew he was going to marry me then. [laughing] Whether you believe that or not, that’s what he still says, so that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. So then when he finished his training in Kentucky, which was just 6 weeks training, I moved back Colorado with my mom and he went over to Germany. At that time he was a Private, PFC, and so he, you know he couldn’t take me with him right away, you don’t have that privilege at the very beginning of that for the Army. So three months later he had gotten a place for us to live in the basement; it was a beautiful, big, huge, stone home and it was owned by a doctor and his wife and we lived in the lower level of it; it was actually like a garden level. It was teeny, tiny but one of the most awesome, beautiful places you’d ever seen. Our entry way was this beautiful, like little castle door; really awesome.
JOHN: And in what city or town?
TINA: It was in Erlangen, Germany.
JOHN: Okay.
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TINA: I’ll make sure that’s spelled right when I see the transcript.
JOHN: And what base was Paul stationed?
TINA: It was the Erlangen Army Base there.
JOHN: Same name.
TINA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we lived there for three years, and it was a wonderful experience. I traveled there in December and he picked me up in the airport and took me home and showed me around a few places, and two weeks later he left for three weeks. I didn’t have a driver’s license yet, because you have to get a special driver’s license. I didn’t speak the language yet, I spoke Spanish but not German; I took Spanish all through high school. And I really didn’t know how to get around very much. So he left me a tiny bit of money, and “See you in a few weeks,” kind of thing. And so I was like, okay, I don’t know anyone, I don’t know how to get around. So after a couple of days, I just started walking around the town, and Erlangen is also a college town; so it’s really a quaint, little town.
JOHN: So it’s fairly small.
TINA: It is, it’s near Nuremberg, it’s probably 20 miles from Nuremburg, so it’s close to Nuremburg just to give you a general idea of where in Germany, but a lovely little town. So I just started wandering around, getting on buses, riding to wherever they took me, and getting back and forth and figuring out how to go and shop, and the shops and money. So when he got back after a couple weeks, I knew how to get around, I had friends, I knew how to get to base, I knew a little bit of German.
JOHN: So were there very many Germans that spoke English? I suppose in a place where there’s a base that it was more than maybe some other places.
TINA: Yeah, but they mostly didn’t want to admit that they could speak English because they really didn’t like the military people in general. I mean once you got to know them, that was different, but at first the impression was usually on the negative side and then moved to the positive as you got to know people. So yeah, it was a great place though. And one time I got really lost, I didn’t know where I was, I was like panicking. Here I’m 18 years old, lost somewhere in Germany, didn’t know how to get home, so I was trying to get people to talk to me in English and no one would admit they knew. So finally I started speaking in Spanish and asking people if they spoke Spanish and finally got directions back to my home in Spanish in Germany.
JOHN: Very interesting.
TINA: Yeah, it was quite an adventure. So that was kind of the beginning of my welcome to, here’s the military life, figure it out as you go ‘cause nobody’s going to help you figure it out. And then, so as far as career wise, we lived there for several years and I started actually, when I was 19, I started working for the government in the commissary, which is like their grocery store on base. It was half German nationals, half American, so we had a mixture of employees and that kind of thing; it was really great, it was a good job, a lot of fun, people were very nice. 4
Just some funny things, like one time the General came in, there was a big three star General that came to visit our tiny little base, which I think the highest ranking person on our base was a Colonel, so it was a big deal. And he came there to visit and he came in the commissary and he was just giving a once over. And I was stocking some shelves, and he just started talking to me and I was just casually chatting with him like anybody else and didn’t think a thing of it. Well, my boss was in the corner panicking, “Oh my God, she’s talking to the General! What’s going to happen?” And so I think what it was is that I reminded him of his daughter, he talked about his daughter and felt well, I probably remind him of his daughter, I was 19. So anyway, that was just one funny experience in the work environment. I got called to the office, after he left, “What you say? What you say?” “I was just talking about the weather, and stuff, and nothing bad about my job or anything.” So that was my introduction to working for the federal government. So I worked there for about a year and then I got pregnant with our daughter, so I quit working there because it was heavy lifting. And I didn’t work for several years; we came back to the States and let’s see, we were back here, then my husband went to Korea for a year after our daughter was a couple years old.
JOHN: That was an unaccompanied assignment for him.
TINA: Right, he was on the Demilitarized Zone at Camp Casey. So the families weren’t allowed to go, so that was a different kind of experience. And during that time I just worked a couple little part time jobs, ‘cause she was a little one; it was just a temporary thing. So that was a challenging experience, not having him around and I think he really regrets some of those times missing out on our daughter’s life and stuff like that, but that’s just the way it went.
JOHN: There’s not much you can do about that in the military life.
TINA: No, you don’t get choices like you do in the civilian world where you apply for jobs, they just tell you, “You’re going here.” “Okay.” So after that…
JOHN: So about what year did he go to Korea, about?
TINA: I, let me think, late ‘70’s, maybe, it might have been ’80; it was either ’79 or ’80, somewhere in that time frame. Then we lived in Georgia for a while and then we lived, let’s see where did we go next; we moved 17 times so…
JOHN: Wow.
TINA: …I’m not going to hit them all, I’m just going to generalize. But as far as career-wise, then we moved back here and bought this house in ’84 because we wanted to start establishing a home base, so to speak, and since we were both from Colorado and this was where our extended family lived here, we thought well this is probably where we’ll end up living. So we bought our home so that we could keep it and rent it out and stuff as we built up, but I started working, when we moved here; I started working at Office of Personnel Management in their Correspondence Course Section. So I worked there as a clerk, just in correspondence course work where you 5
get in applications, you send out the courses, people send in their tests, you grade them and all that kind thing. So just a, I’m not sure that section even exists anymore, I think it’s now part of USGS or something; it changed to one of the other departments.
JOHN: I took a correspondence course when I was in the Air Force, but I remember, yeah, it was in biology.
TINA: We had a wide variety.
JOHN: But I don’t remember where I sent my application or any of that kind of stuff; that would have been in about 1969 that I did that.
TINA: I think they were in existence then.
JOHN: Is that right?
TINA: Yeah. So anyway, I worked there for about a year as a clerk and then I got a supervisor job there.
JOHN: Okay, and what location?
TINA: It was over in Lakewood, just out near where the Park Service office is now in the office building there; they leased out a section of it there. And so that was an interesting experience, because first of all I was the youngest employee and then all of a sudden, as a co-worker of everybody and then I was the supervisor of all these people who were older and more experienced than myself. So that was one of the more challenging job changes that I ever had was going from being a peer to the supervisor of the group that I was a peer to. And in addition to that being the youngest person in the room. But it was a good experience and they were really good people, so it all worked out. Yeah, so that was good. And then from, let’s see, there we went to, we moved to Connecticut where Paul was a recruiter and we lived in Westport, Connecticut, which I don’t know if you know anything about Connecticut but that’s a very wealthy area. Like Paul Newman lived there, and corporate CEO’s there, and rock stars lived there; our daughter went to elementary school with all these people. And we lived in a little, tiny, military house, housing area. So there was a street with 16 houses; they were left over from the Nike missile days and it was all a mixture of all Services. We were all recruiters, or in the recruiting command.
JOHN: It wasn’t on a base per say….
TINA: No.
JOHN: …it was just a housing area owned by the military.
TINA: Correct. One street, it was connected to Fort Devens, which is in Massachusetts, but it was a remote; just one little street with 16 houses on it.
JOHN: I’ll be darned.
TINA: But every Service, Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, so that was kind of an interesting experience. Plus the fact that we were so out of place, like total fish out of water as far as income bracket, background, you know northeasters, we didn’t know anything; never really lived in the northeast before.
JOHN: Was there a military installation close enough to go to a commissary or any of that kind of, like a PX?
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TINA: It was way, let’s see, it was about a two hour drive. So we’d go up there like once every six weeks or something and stock up, ‘cause, yeah, it really helped us financially.
JOHN: A lot cheaper than going to the grocery store.
TINA: Exactly. But it was really great and my daughter had a great experience there and met some really nice friends and stuff. While we were there I worked, my first job was at the Social Security Administration, so I worked at the Social Security Office in Norwalk, Connecticut, and it was kind of a bad area and so we had a security guard up front and all that kind of stuff. And I started out as a clerical person and then I got a second job in the same office doing all of the, calculating all the benefits, you know like you were the fact checker, making sure everything was correct for people’s Social Security benefits. So I worked at that job for a year or so, and then I started working in Connecticut in Norwalk as well, but for Department of Defense, the Defense Logistics Agency. And it was in a plant, we were an office of, I think there were 12 of us, and we were stationed in one office in this big plant where they make things like O rings for space shuttles and that kind of thing and our group was the QC, the Quality Control.
JOHN: So it was a private corporation’s plant…
TINA: Right.
JOHN: ….with military quality control people on site.
TINA: Right, and you have had a few military people and then a few of us civilian workers there too and the group was the quality control for that group, and I was their secretary; that’s what my job was there, I was their secretary. And it was a pretty fascinating experience too, really different, really a different twist on government job and that kind of thing but super important. And I still actually stay in touch with a lot of those people from that office. And then I went from there to work in Stratford, Connecticut and that was still for Defense; that was Defense Contract something, it was DCSMA, I can’t even remember what all that stood for. But anyway, at that plant they built tanks. So something you don’t think about.
JOHN: So from the space shuttle to tanks.
TINA: Yeah.
JOHN: So, and how far away…
TINA: From Westport?
JOHN: …from Westport was that?
TINA: That’s 32 miles, by I-95.
JOHN: And Norwalk was?
TINA: And Norwalk was probably 10 miles.
JOHN: Okay.
TINA: Yeah. But I started up there as the training, I was like training coordinator up there and helped them meet training needs, make sure people did mandatory training. Also put together any training needs that I thought 7
was appropriate; worked really closely with the Colonel who was like the top person and so I worked really closely with him to make sure all that stuff got done. So I was also, again, a very different kind of job, and a great learning experience.
JOHN: And all this, how far from where you lived was Paul’s recruiting office?
TINA: Well, he worked part of the time he was up in Danbury, Connecticut, which was quite a ways away, I’d say 50 miles. And then he worked in Hartford, not Hartford, but Bridgeport, Connecticut for a while. So they shuffled him around.
JOHN: Okay, so they had several different locations and they would kind of rotate around.
TINA: Right, exactly. And that was challenging there to recruit people who were very wealthy. In some areas where the demographics were different and the income levels were lower, they didn’t have quite as much difficultly but trying to get very privileged children, if you want to say, the usual thing is they wanted to get away from home, and adventure; that was the big recruiting carrot that they had there. So then we left there in, let’s see, ’82, no ’87; we were there from ’87 to ’90. We moved back here to this house in 1990, and Paul was a recruiter in Lakewood.
JOHN: Okay.
TINA: So we lived in Colorado Springs previously too, but that was a short term thing, and he was at Fort Carson. But this time he was in Lakewood recruiting and we moved back here and when we moved back here, that’s when I started working for the Service.
JOHN: Okay.
TINA: In 1990. I was looking all different; you have to remember that as government spouse; almost forgotten one really important job, sorry. I have to back up back to our second tour in Germany.
JOHN: Okay, which was?
TINA: Which was, I’m probably getting my…
JOHN: It doesn’t have to be, just approximate.
TINA: Yeah, it was prior, that one was ’80 to like ’83. And we lived there and I worked two jobs there at the elementary school.
JOHN: On base.
TINA: On the base, it was at Erlangen Elementary. We were back at the same place, and I worked as a kindergarten teacher’s aide one year, which was great, a lot of fun. And then the second school year I worked as a teacher’s aide but it was for a special class that was, kids that were either emotionally challenged or maybe mentally a little bit slower, so it was a wide variety of kids, and that was actually a really rewarding job because the teacher in that class was a screamer, she yelled all the time. And so the kids got used to that and they didn’t react to it, and I was the opposite of that, I was very calm and calmed the kids down where she would get them all riled up. One time I remember yelling at them and they were just about blown over 8
because they couldn’t believe. But it was really a great experience because the challenge of working with those kids and the things that they had seen and been through and stuff was really quite astounding and sad, but anyway. So back to starting with the Service, so I started working; I started looking for jobs when we got back here, just any job. I just pulled out the phonebook and looked up the government agencies and started shopping around; that’s how I did anytime we moved. And so I started looking around here and went back to some, like back to OPM where I used to work and some other places and actually ran into somebody who had worked for me at OPM, Pat Michael, who used to the payroll coordinator in Region 6. And I bumped into her and she said, “Oh, well I know they need some people at our place.” And I’m like, “Where do you work?” And she said, “The Fish and Wildlife Service.” And I said, “Well, what’s that?” [Laughing]. “And where is it?” So she told me and I went over to the office and went into the personnel office and talked to Kathy Donovan. And she was just as nice as could be, and so I was going to drop off an application and just say, if you have anything please give me a call. And I had learned by then to go on leave without pay instead of quitting…
JOHN: Resigning.
TINA: Yeah, and starting over and everything; so one of my co-workers at OPM clued me into that good trick. So I had done that, I was on leave without pay and I was trying to find other jobs. And actually during that time frame, there was a hiring freeze, but because I…
JOHN: But you were really, technically hired.
TINA: …already employed by the government. So Kathy Donovan called Carol Lively and I said, “Well, just let me know and I’ll come back.” And she said, “Well, can you interview right now?”
JOHN: So while you were there the first time talking to Kathy, she says, “Can you do an interview right now?”
TINA: Yes, exactly. And I was like, “Well, I’m not really dressed and prepared for an interview.” You know I was more casually dressed than I would have been normally for an interview, but I said, “Well, if you just ignore that and understand that I wasn’t prepared to interview.” She said, “Oh, that’s fine, that’s fine.” “Okay.” So I had my daughter with me and I said, “Well, I have my child here.” I mean she wasn’t a baby; she was like 10 or something. I said, “Is there someplace she can wait for me?” “Oh yeah, we’ll put her in the break room, she can have a candy bar or a pop or something.” I’m like, “Okay.” So I took Tanya to the break room and then she took me up and I met with Carol Lively. And Carol talked to me for a few minutes and basically hired me practically on the spot. So that’s how I got my job with the Service, there was no planning, there was no “this is going to be my career path,” none of that kind of thing. So I have a very different career probably than many people in the Service because probably most of them were focused from college years through.
JOHN: Yeah. In certain ways, but almost everybody, you know, has these opportunistic things that just happen. 9
TINA: That’s probably true.
JOHN: And it’s amaz
What has changed in the treatment of invasive candidiasis? A look at the past 10 years and ahead
No full textThe treatment of invasive candidiasis has changed greatly in the past decade and must continue to evolve if we are to improve outcomes in this serious infection. A review of recent history may provide insights for the future. The morbidity and mortality of invasive candidiasis remain difficult to measure despite an obvious clinical burden. Current treatment guidelines now recommend echinocandins as first-line empirical treatment, with fluconazole as an acceptable alternative for selected patients, reflecting the efficacy demonstrated by echinocandins and increasing resistance observed with fluconazole. The selection of antifungal therapy now must consider not only resistance but also the shift in predominance from Candida albicans to non-albicans species, notably Candida glabrata. The recent emergence of Candida auris has been met with great interest, although the longer-term implications of this phenomenon remain unclear. The broad goal of treatment continues to be administration of safe, efficacious antifungal therapy as soon as possible. Diagnostic methods beyond traditional blood culture present an opportunity to shorten the time to an accurate diagnosis, and earlier treatment initiation based on prophylactic and empirical or pre-emptive strategies seeks to ensure timely therapeutic intervention. In addition, there are novel agents in the antifungal pipeline. These developments, as well as ongoing studies of dosing, toxicity and resistance development, are important items on the current research agenda and may play a role in future changes to the treatment of invasive candidiasis
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Larry O. Spencer, Conference Author Presentation
No full textGen. Larry O. Spencer, USAF (Ret.), author of Dark Horse: A Journey from the Horseshoe to the Pentago
Liposomal amphotericin B-the future
No full textAdvances in medicine have led to a growing number of people with compromised or suppressed immune systems who are susceptible to invasive fungal infections. In particular, severe fungal infections are becoming increasingly common in ICUs, affecting people within and outside of traditional risk groups alike. This is exemplified by the emergence of severe viral pneumonia as a significant risk factor for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, and the recognition of influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis and, more recently, COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis. The treatment landscape for haematological malignancies has changed considerably in recent years, and some recently introduced targeted agents, such as ibrutinib, are increasing the risk of invasive fungal infections. Consideration must also be given to the risk of drug-drug interactions between mouldactive azoles and small-molecule kinase inhibitors. At the same time, infections caused by rare moulds and yeasts are increasing, and diagnosis continues to be challenging. There is growing concern about azole resistance among both moulds and yeasts, mandating continuous surveillance and personalized treatment strategies. It is anticipated that the epidemiology of fungal infections will continue to change and that new populations will be at risk. Early diagnosis and appropriate treatment remain the most important predictors of survival, and broad-spectrum antifungal agents will become increasingly important. Liposomal amphotericin B will remain an essential therapeutic agent in the armamentarium needed to manage future challenges, given its broad antifungal spectrum, low level of acquired resistance and limited potential for drug-drug interactions
Intensive care management of influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis
No full textBackground: Severe pulmonary infections are among the most common reasons for admission to intensive care units (ICU). Within the last decade, increasing reports of severe influenza pneumonia resulting in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) complicated by Aspergillus infection were published. Objectives: To provide a comprehensive review of management of influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis in patients with ARDS. Sources: Review of the literature pertaining to severe influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis. PubMed database was searched for publications from the database inception to January 2019. Content: In patients with lower respiratory symptoms, development of respiratory insufficiency should trigger rapid and thorough clinical evaluation, in particular in cases of suspected ARDS, including electrocardiography and echocardiography to exclude cardiac dysfunction, arrhythmias and ischaemia. Bronchoalveolar lavage should obtain lower respiratory tract samples for galactomannan assay, direct microscopy, culture, and bacterial, fungal and viral PCR. In case of positive Aspergillus testing, chest CT is the imaging modality of choice. If influenza pneumonia is diagnosed, neuraminidase inhibitors are the preferred approved drugs. When invasive aspergillosis is confirmed, first-line therapy consists of isavuconazole or voriconazole. Isavuconazole is an alternative in case of intolerance to voriconazole, drug–drug interactions, renal impairment, or if a spectrum of activity including the majority of Mucorales is desired. Primary anti-mould prophylaxis with posaconazole is recommended in haematology patients at high-risk. It may be considered in newly diagnosed influenza and ARDS, but ideally in clinical trials. Implications: The rising reports of influenza-associated pulmonary aspergillosis in patients with ARDS, who are otherwise not considered at risk for fungal pneumonia demands heightened clinical awareness. Tracheobronchitis and Aspergillus in respiratory tract samples should prompt suspicion of invasive fungal infection and further work-up. The management algorithm should comprise bronchoalveolar lavage, CT imaging, sophisticated ventilator-management, rescue extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and antifungal and antiviral therapy. To decrease the burden of influenza-related illness, vaccination is of utmost importance, specifically in patients with co-morbidities
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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