209,942 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
A letter from Deirdre Norton to Dr. Hector P. Garcia.
No full textA letter from Deirdre Norton to Dr. Hector P. Garcia regarding a potential cut in library funding
[Letter from P. J. Mitchell and A. F. Hawkins to Eleanor H. Norton - May 5, 1978]
No full textCopy of a letter from P. J. Mitchell and A. F. Hawkins to Eleanor H. Norton on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus discussing concerns about the proposal to change the position of regional directors of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from civil service to political appointment
Lisa Mandell
No full textLisa Mandell oral history interview as conducted by Dorothe Norton.
Lisa worked with the Division of Endangered Species, and with the Sea Lamprey at Marquette Biological Station.
Organization: FWS
Name: Lisa Mandell
Years: 1980-2001
Program: Endangered Species
Keywords: Biography, Employees (USFWS), History, Ecosystem recovery, Invasive species, Research, Wildlife refuges, Law Enforcement, Endangered and/or threatened, Biologists (USFWS)1
Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Lisa Mandell
Date of Interview: May 30, 2004
Location of Interview: Minnesota
Interviewer: Dorothe Norton
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 21 years (Spring of 1980 - June 2001)
Offices and Field Stations Worked: Division of Endangered Species; Sea Lamprey at Marquette Biological Station
Positions Held: Phsyiscal science technician; secretary; clerk typist; librarian; ecosystem biologist
Most Important Projects: sea lamprey chemical treatments; endangered species permits; ecosystem grant writing; Ozark Plateau karst topography grant writing;
Colleagues and Mentors: Dick Toltzman; Nita Fuller; John Blankenship; T.J. Miller; Bob Adair; Mamie Parker; Rick Schultz; Dorothe Norton; Gary Steinbach; John Murphy; Jim Engle; Don Hultman; Bob Braem;
Key Words: Refuges; Law enforcement; Director; Ecosystems; Invasive species; Research
2
Lisa Mandell: Hi Dorothe, how are you?
Dorothe Norton: Good. It's been a long time since I've seen you where we could really visit, but this will be kind of an informal interview. You can answer as many questions as you remember or if you want to or if you don't want to say anything you just say, "I don't remember" or "let's go onto something else. Okay?
Lisa Mandell: Okay, sure.
Dorothe Norton: First of all, I just want to know where and when you were born.
Lisa Mandell: I was born in Heidelberg, Germany March 19, 1957.
Dorothe Norton: Who were your parents? What were their names?
Lisa Mandell: My mother's name is Leona Sours Lauck and my father is Robert Gerald Lauck. He was working for the Department of Justice at the time, and so he was overseas for a couple of years and that was when I was born.
Dorothe Norton: I see, okay. Did your mother work too then?
Lisa Mandell: At that time she didn't, she had quit working when they were ready to move overseas. She had previously worked for the government as well and I think it was with the CIA, but she still won't tell me what, it's a big secret!
Dorothe Norton: Where did you spend your early years? How long were you in Germany?
Lisa Mandell: I was only in Germany as an infant, so I don't remember that. Then my parents moved to Paris, and I don't remember that either, and then when I was 3 years old they moved to Arlington, Virginia. We lived there for a little bit and then moved to Minnesota when I was about 4- or 5 years old. We lived here (Minnesota) until the summer before my sixth grade year, and then we moved to Florida for a year or two and then to Northern Virginia, which is where I finished out high school and went to college in Virginia.
Dorothe Norton: What did you do during your early years, with all of these moves and all, just make new friends and play?
Lisa Mandell: Yes, made new friends. The period of time in Florida I think was a hard age to move, I didn't have many friends during that couple of years. But then when we moved to Northern Virginia I remember making more friends and, you know, having invitations to parties and all of the things that young teens like to have, so that was a good move.
Dorothe Norton: Did you have any hobbies or books that you used a lot to help spend the time?
3
Lisa Mandell: I don't remember a lot about hobbies during that time. My grandfather started me stamp collecting, and I still have a whole bunch of that kind of stuff, I don't really spend much time with it. When I was in junior high, when we lived back in Northern Virginia, that was near my grandparents, who lived in Arlington, and my grandmother actually was the one who started me sewing. So that was kind of when I started sewing, when I was in junior high.
Dorothe Norton: Did you ever have a job before high school was over?
Lisa Mandell: Oh yeah, I worked at a shoe store and I worked at a department store up at Tyson's Corner and those kinds of things, retail type stuff. Then the first year out of college was when I first started working for the Department of Interior, so I worked as a typist then.
Dorothe Norton: Did you ever hunt or fish when you were a kid?
Lisa Mandell: I fished, yeah, I was my dad's fishing buddy. But he was not a hunter, so I never learned how to hunt.
Dorothe Norton: What high school did you go to and when did you graduate?
Lisa Mandell: I went to Langley High School in McLean, Virginia, and I graduated in the dark ages, 1975!
Dorothe Norton: What university did you attend?
Lisa Mandell: I went for my first two years to Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and then I transferred to William and Mary, and that was where I got my degree in 1979.
Dorothe Norton: What was your degree?
Lisa Mandell: Biology and Spanish, I had a double major.
Dorothe Norton: You didn't go for a masters or a PhD?
Lisa Mandell: I took some additional course work at American University, I took some toxicology classes. By then I was working for the Fish and Wildlife Service, so then when I was up in Marquette I took a couple of other classes, a fisheries management class and dabbled in other things like the wildlife classes, as I needed those kinds of credits to progress in my career. But I didn't get a masters degree, no.
Dorothe Norton: Did you have any mentors or courses that you especially liked and they stuck with you?
Lisa Mandell: I enjoyed the wildlife management class at the University of Minnesota a lot, and I think part of the reason for that was that I could already relate it to what I was working 4
with at the Fish and Wildlife Service. I really liked that one. In college I was thinking I was going to go to veterinary school, so I was focused more on internal stuff with the animal sciences and that kind of stuff. I remember a couple of those classes very fondly too.
Dorothe Norton: You were never in the military were you?
Lisa Mandell: No, never in the military.
Dorothe Norton: How, when, and where you met your husband?
Lisa Mandell: In May of 1979, right after I got out of college, I was working at the Department of Interior in the Congressional Liaison Office and he was working there too. I did controlled correspondence stuff, you know, pushing the letters around for the Secretary [of Interior], and he did phone calls, contract calls to the Hill when contracts were awarded from the Department of Interior. So that's when I met him.
Dorothe Norton: When and where did you get married?
Lisa Mandell: We got married a couple of years later,1982, in Georgetown, Maryland at Holy Trinity.
Dorothe Norton: Oh, by Washington, D.C., how cool!
Lisa Mandell: Yes, and we had our reception over at Georgetown University.
Dorothe Norton: You have three children?
Lisa Mandell: I have three kids, yes. Jenny is 18, Christy is 16, and Bobby is 14.
Dorothe Norton: Jenny just graduated from high school, so she will be starting college?
Lisa Mandell: Yes, Jenny will be starting college in the fall. Christy is just finishing up 10th grade, and Bobby is just finishing up 8th grade.
Dorothe Norton: Did you ever feel that your career with the Service affected your family in any way?
Lisa Mandell: Well, yes. One of the things that I think related was that for a long time I was a girl scout leader, and because I had connection with like Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, my girl scout troop could do some additional things like, you know, overnights at the refuge or stuff that maybe some girls didn't get to experience in scouting. So yeah, in a good way.
I'd say there were sometimes too, especially when my kids were little, when it was difficult to travel. That would probably be the only negative thing, is that I really did struggle emotionally with feeling like I needed to be at the meetings or at the events that were important to make 5
things happen with the Fish and Wildlife Service. But at the same time, I was missing out on the concerts or the cub scout meetings or that kind of stuff. So, it was not always easy.
Dorothe Norton: What was your first professional job then with the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Lisa Mandell: I guess the first would have been as a biologist for Dick Toltzman.
Dorothe Norton: In Fish and Wildlife Service here in Minnesota?
Lisa Mandell: Yeah, yeah. I had other jobs like the library job or the technical job up at Marquette, killing sea lamprey, you know, that required some of the degree.
Dorothe Norton: Do you remember what date you started with Fish and Wildlife?
Lisa Mandell: Well, I know my service comp date was September of 1978. But I really started working for the government in, well I can't even remember now, I got out of college in 1979, but I had had some summer work for other offices. But Fish and Wildlife would have been the spring of 1980. I worked for about a year with another office before I got into the Service, I worked with [Division of] Endangered Species, actually.
Dorothe Norton: You started, though, with Dick Toltzman?
Lisa Mandell: Well that was the first professional serious job, yes. But in 1980, it was with the Division of Endangered Species in Arlington, working as not a secretary, I think it was called an information management technician, a secretarial type of a job administrative.
Dorothe Norton: Where did you go from there?
Lisa Mandell: From which place, the Endangered Species or from working with Dick?
Dorothe Norton: Well, you started with Dick Toltzman, and then you went?
Lisa Mandell: That was after I worked in Law Enforcement and had the different administrative technical jobs. I thought you were talking about the professional series, when you actually...
Dorothe Norton: Just your job? Okay, well the consider that a professional job. So you started in?
Lisa Mandell: In 1980, actually, was my first job with the Fish and Wildlife Service. I held several administrative type jobs and technical jobs.
Dorothe Norton: Which jobs they were, where you started, where you went from there?
6
Lisa Mandell: In 1980, I worked for Division of Endangered Species for about a year, and that was a clerical job. Then I went to Marquette, Michigan and I worked for a couple of years on the sea lamprey crew [at Marquette Biological Station], the chemical treatment crew and physical science technician was my position there. After that, I worked as a secretary in Law Enforcement and that was for a couple of years.
Dorothe Norton: Back in the Twin Cities.
Lisa Mandell: Back in the Twin Cities now, that was 1983, the summer of 1983, we moved here. After a couple of years of doing that, then I worked in refuges for a little while as a clerk typist. Then I got the library job, and I don't remember the exact dates of that, but I think the library job was around 1988. Then in the late '80s, about 1988-89, was when I got the job in refuges as a biologist. From there, it was various refuge jobs and endangered species jobs, kind of progressing up the ladder as a biologist until...
Dorothe Norton: You had promotion opportunities then after you started?
Lisa Mandell: Yes, I did, I did.
Dorothe Norton: You started out as a clerk typist?
Lisa Mandell: Right, right.
Dorothe Norton: A GS3?
Lisa Mandell: Yes.
Dorothe Norton: What was your title and your grade when you retired?
Lisa Mandell: My title was ecosystem biologist and I was at a GS13.
Dorothe Norton: Very, very good. When you started with the Service, what did you think the pay and benefits were like?
Lisa Mandell: Well, I thought the benefits were really good, I thought the pay was quite good too.
Dorothe Norton: Plus you were pretty young when you first started.
Lisa Mandell: Yes, I was 19 years old and I could not make the kind of money that I made as a clerk typist for the government anywhere in the Washington, D.C. area. That was the best money around, so I was very happy with that.
Dorothe Norton: Good, okay. Did you socialize with people that you worked with?
Lisa Mandell: Yes, I did. 7
Dorothe Norton: What did you do for recreation with those people?
Lisa Mandell: Oh, I guess the same things other young 20s do, go to parties or out for dinner, pizza, that kind of stuff.
Dorothe Norton: Why did you leave the Service?
Lisa Mandell: I left the Fish and Wildlife Service because I had an opportunity to purchase a business that was sort of near and dear to my heart. I had been kind of hoping that some day I would be able to own a business doing something relative to my sewing, which I love, and the opportunity was there and I just sort of went for it. It felt like the right thing to do.
Dorothe Norton: How many years did you have when you retired?
Lisa Mandell: Almost 23 years.
Dorothe Norton: That's very good. So what kind of training did you receive for the various jobs that you had?
Lisa Mandell: The Fish and Wildlife Service paid for some of my course work along the way at universities, like Northern Michigan University or University of Minnesota. I also went to several training classes through the NCTC [National Conservation Training Center]. I can't remember any other specific classes, but I never felt like I wasn't given an opportunity to learn what I needed to learn to progress. I always felt like I had that offered to me.
Dorothe Norton: So a lot then you learned too on the job, working with other people.
Lisa Mandell: Oh definitely, lots of on the job training, definitely.
Dorothe Norton: Did you just always work the regular office hours, or did you work overtime or any assignments?
Lisa Mandell: Mostly regular office hours. The Michigan job, the sea lamprey crew, during the summer hours would often have evening hours and so forth because of the nature of that job, with the way the river systems ran and so forth. When they did treatments, they needed to have 24-hour day monitoring of it, so yeah.
Dorothe Norton: What were your day-to-day duties in your jobs after you were no longer a secretary or typist?
Lisa Mandell: Oh man, it was so variable for awhile. I was the endangered species permits person, so I wrote terms and conditions on endangered species permits, did research about the particular animals and so forth so that they would be appropriate. As an ecosystem coordinator, I did a lot of meeting stuff, grant writing. I don't know, it was just sort of all over the map. 8
Dorothe Norton: Well that's good. Did you ever witness any new Service inventions or innovations that related to the work that you were doing?
Lisa Mandell: I don't remember anything in particular, no.
Dorothe Norton: Did you ever actually work with animals? Like if you went out onto a refuge or anything, did you ever have an occasion where there were animals?
Lisa Mandell: A little bit, but not a lot, not a lot. Maybe helping to band a goose or something like that, but not a lot, no.
Dorothe Norton: How did you feel toward the animals?
Lisa Mandell: How I felt towards the animals? I don't know, I suppose I felt compassion for the animals. But I felt like the Fish and Wildlife Service was always doing the right thing in terms of the biological community and so forth. So even if we were handling a goose and whatever, it was sort of the right thing.
Dorothe Norton: How did you feel the support was that you received, like locally and regionally and federally? I mean, as far as the projects that you were working on, did you feel that assistance?
Lisa Mandell: I always felt like there was a fair amount of support for the projects from the Fish and Wildlife Service. I think the harder part was the financial end of it. That even though we might all think we're doing the right thing and whatever, that there wasn't always enough money to do everything that needed to be done.
Dorothe Norton: How do you think the Service was perceived by people outside of the Fish and Wildlife Service? Like here on refuges or special projects and did they put it in the papers in little towns as to what you were trying to do or that type of thing?
Lisa Mandell: I think most of the time people perceived the Fish and Wildlife Service as doing good things. I think there was an awful lot of confusion, at least in Minnesota, there was a lot of confusion between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the DNR [Division of Natural Resources]. Lots of discussions about fishing regulations or whatever, which really we didn't do.
I think that the confusion by the public about what part of the Fish and Wildlife Service, I mean what function was the Fish and Wildlife Service, what function was the State Wildlife Agencies. I think the public also, sometimes, felt a little threatened or whatever by the Fish and Wildlife Service because of the authorities that we were trying to enforce, the migratory bird stuff or endangered species stuff. They sort of felt like it was government intrusion, but it's also the law of the land.
Dorothe Norton: What projects were you involved in?
9
Lisa Mandell: I wish I could think of something really cool. I was involved with some really interesting stuff with the Ozark's ecosystem and helping to save the karst topography and that kind of stuff, through some of the grant writing stuff I did towards the end there.
I loved working on stuff relative to the refuges, whether it was getting a new visitor's center funded or helping to do environmental education stuff or whatever, I really liked refuges quite a bit.
Dorothe Norton: Were you ever involved in any major issues that you had to deal with?
Lisa Mandell: I can't think of anything right off the top of my head.
Dorothe Norton: Did you ever feel there was a major impediment to your job and to your career?
Lisa Mandell: No, no.
Dorothe Norton: Well that's good.
Lisa Mandell: Other than budget issues.
Dorothe Norton: Now, do you remember who all of your supervisors were?
Lisa Mandell: Let me think! I probably could reconstruct who all of my supervisors were. When I left the Service Nita Fuller was my supervisor. I was also supervised by John Blankenship for awhile. I was supervised by T.J. Miller, by Bob Adair, by Mamie Parker for awhile, and I was supervised by Rick Schultz, Dick Toltzman, Dorothe Norton, Gary Steinbach, and I think John Murphy in Endangered Species when I first started. There's probably one or two I've missed in there. Oh, Jim Engle was my supervisor for awhile when I was in the library.
Dorothe Norton: Any one of those help shape your career or anybody other than your supervisors that helped you to stay right where you were and keep going for those promotions?
Lisa Mandell: You know, somebody comes to mind that was more of my day-to-day supervisor while I was in a training type of a program, and that's Don Hultman. He was very encouraging. He supervised me for about a year when I was in that program and then on and off we had other kinds of working relationships, I acted for him quite a bit towards the end there when he was refuge supervisor. He was very encouraging, helped me to kind of see possibilities and go for it, so yeah.
Dorothe Norton: That's good. Do you remember who was President when you came to work for us? Who the Secretary of the Interior was or the directors of the Fish and Wildlife?
Lisa Mandell: I remember the Secretary of the Interior was Andrus from Idaho, Secretary Andrus, Cecil Andrus. I don't remember who the President was then, it might have been Jimmy Carter, yes I think it was Jimmy Carter. That was a long time ago! 10
Dorothe Norton: Okay. And the director, you don't remember who the director was?
Lisa Mandell: Of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Lynn Greenwalt.
Dorothe Norton: Oh good, yeah. Lynn is a great guy and he's still very, very active in so many things.
How did changes in the administrations affect your work? You mentioned before, money.
Lisa Mandell: It always, other than the money issue, it always seemed to change. Some of the sentiment of whether being conservation-minded was really a great thing or the flipside would be the sentiment being more economic-oriented and business-oriented. That's the way I always felt when a republican administration was in place, it just felt like the Fish and Wildlife Service wasn't as valued as when a democrat more environmentally-oriented secretary was in place.
Dorothe Norton: In your opinion, who were some of the individuals you think who helped shape the Service to what it is today?
Lisa Mandell: Oh wow! I don't know that I was in a high enough position to really have a handle on that. I mean, I . . .
Dorothe Norton: You don't think like people like Art Hawkins or Harvey Nelson or Lynn Greenwalt?
Lisa Mandell: Harvey Nelson certainly influenced our region and the North American Waterfowl Management Plan stuff very strongly, but I guess I don't have an opinion about that one.
Dorothe Norton: Now we get to the fun part!
Lisa Mandell: The fun part!
Dorothe Norton: What was the high point of your career?
Lisa Mandell: The high point of my career, wow! I think probably the last couple of years of my career, when about a third of the time I was acting refuge supervisor on and off and really very involved with some of those issues and helping to push things through for the various refuges in the region. That was probably the most fun, the most gratifying part, making things happen.
Dorothe Norton: Did you ever get an award for anything special that you did?
Lisa Mandell: I got a few awards for special things! I don't remember them all, but that was kind of neat getting recognized, yeah. 11
Dorothe Norton: Did you ever have a low point in your career?
Lisa Mandell: Oh yeah, I think p
Harry Pinkham
No full textHarry Pinkham oral history transcript as conducted by Dorothe Norton.1
National Heritage Team of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Oral History Program
Subject/USFW Retiree: Harry Pinkham (passed away 10/23/09)
No. 3101702
Date:
Interviewed by: Dorothe Norton
Dorothe Norton:
Good afternoon Harry, it's really good to see you. So first thing I want to know is how old you are and where you were born.
Harry Pinkham:
Well, I was born in Windsor, Maine in 1920.
Dorothe Norton:
What date?
Harry Pinkham:
March 25th.
Dorothe Norton:
Okay, so you were just 82?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes. And that was the same year that women and Negroes got the right the right to vote.
Dorothe Norton:
Oh! Well, I guess that's good. And your parent's names were? Your dad was Harry P.?
Harry Pinkham:
No, Harry W. He was in law enforcement.
Dorothe Norton:
In Maine?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, actually yes, but he went all over. He was appointed by Eisenhower as a Marshall, U.S. Marshall for the state of Maine, which means they do that, one for each state. And what they do is transport prisoners, they do that a lot now but they didn't very much 10 years ago. But that's what he did, that's what he ended up doing. But he was in law enforcement all of his life.
Dorothe Norton:
And how about your mom, what was her name? 2
Harry Pinkham:
Gertrude Arneli
Dorothe Norton:
And did she work at all?
Harry Pinkham:
No, she never worked, she had 6 children.
Dorothe Norton:
So she was plenty busy, she didn't have to work outside the home.
Harry Pinkham:
That's right. And that was during the Depression, there weren't very many people that could find extra work. That was our growing up period, right during the Depression days.
Dorothe Norton:
So did you spend all of your early year's right there in Windsor?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes I did, until I graduated from high school. And then I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, I went into the Marine Corps and then after the war I got out. Then I hung around for awhile. Well, Millie was in the Marine Corps to.
Dorothe Norton:
Was she really?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes, and when we were discharged we came back to Maine (she was from Wisconsin). Well, then I was getting ready to figure out what do with my life, and I had three opportunities that showed up; I could have kept my old rank in the Marine Corps if I reenlisted, and then I had thought about going to an undertakers schools, and then I thought about going to the Maine Conservation people, the State Fish and Game Department. And I went right to there because that was my first choice, and that's where I started issuing these uniforms things.
Dorothe Norton:
So you did not go to college?
Harry Pinkham:
No, I never did. I've had to answer that question many times, but no I didn't. 3
Dorothe Norton:
When I started most of the agents had not gone to college, but they were really good agents.
Harry Pinkham:
(Well, it was good thing I quit). But Christ it took another 15 years to educate me! No kidding! All the time in Marine Corps they'd send me to one school, when I'd come back they'd send me to another school. That's what I did the whole time in the Marine Corps when I was stationed in California in the Mohave Desert, but Millie was too for that matter.
Dorothe Norton:
So did you know Millie before you met her in the Marine Corps or how and when did you meet her?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, we were at the same base out there; she used to come over the mess shop. I put a sign up telling them that I didn't like to have these women come over here making coffee and disturbing my working men!
Dorothe Norton:
And was she also from Windsor?
Harry Pinkham:
No, she's from Wisconsin.
Dorothe Norton:
Oh, she's from Wisconsin! When and where did you get married?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, we got married in Bakersfield, California. We hitchhiked up to Bakersfield one weekend on a pass on the backend of a flatbed truck!
Dorothe Norton:
While you were still in the service?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes, over the Tehachapi Mountains right into Bakersfield, a beautiful town. We got married. The preacher, well a preacher, I don't know what he was... We got this hotel room, and we told him we were going to get married and he said, "Wow!" I said, "Where could we find a preacher?" And he said, "Who would you like marry to marry you?" He was probably a justice of the peace, I don't know, I never saw him again, but we got married there in the hotel. 4
Dorothe Norton:
What year did you get married?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, it must have been in '40's, in '43 I guess.
Dorothe Norton:
And how many children do you have?
Harry Pinkham:
We have 4.
Dorothe Norton:
And what are their names and what are they doing now?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, Jim is an electronics specialist. He's in Dover, New Hampshire. And I hold my breath every day when the newspaper comes out to see if he's got a job the next day or not. They've been firing like mad, it's all over the country; electronics people are hitting the dirt. But he's still working, he's well thought of in the company.
Dorothe Norton:
That's good. He's the oldest?
Harry Pinkham:
No, he's the youngest.
Dorothe Norton:
And who are the other 3?
Harry Pinkham:
The next one is Stephanie, and we call her Steve because she was supposed to be a boy! She was our third girl, and she was born in Alaska. She was real active, drum majorette, loved the band up there and all of that stuff. She enjoyed her high school very much. And Melodie is the next oldest. And she and Steve both loved high school; they had good schooling there in Minnesota. And they went right from there right into business training, so they both turned out to be RN's. And boy, you should see what they, those RN's, what they get paid for now. Oh gosh, they can't hire them because they can't find them anymore, students or anything like that. Gosh, you can name your own price.
Dorothe Norton:
Well that's good. But they came from two pretty smart parents, that's how they got so smart themselves because you and Millie must have willed that to them!
Harry Pinkham:
Well, we didn't will it to them; we willed everything else to them! 5
Dorothe Norton:
You can tell them we're smart but you can be smart too.
So whatever made you first think you wanted to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, I went to work for the state first. That was Fish and Wildlife we called it, but that was State Fish and Game Department. Actually, after the war I decided to go to college. And so I went up to the University of Maine and I thought I would like to be a forester, I liked forestry and I liked wildlife and stuff, I liked being out in it in the woods. But I stood in this long line of people registering for college, and I'm about five people from the end of the register and I decided, oh this is too much! We just turned around and walked out. So I never went back to forestry. But I got started thinking that way and so I went right to the Fish and Game in Maine. And I worked for them for 3 years I think; they were awful nice to me.
And then when I left, I resigned from there, I went and joined the jet fighter squadron in Augusta. They were just starting that up there then. So they let me in on that. And I enjoyed that, it was right near where I worked in Augusta at the airport, the headquarters. So when I decided to make this big move I talked to my boss in the Fish and Game and he said, "Yeah, like I'll accept your resignation!" He said, "I just want to give you a year's leave of absence." And he said, "I always wanted to go to Alaska myself."
And so I got out of the National Guard, that jet squadron, and got out of the Fish and Game in Maine, and bought a truck and got the 2 kids that I had then and my wife and away I went up the highway. That new highway they built because they thought the Japanese were on there way. And the highway was nowhere near done, and we crossed on ferries and on ice and everything. It worked fine until we got near a creek and I looked over the other side of this big river, it was the Smoky River I think, and there was a bulldozer with a long chain down in the water and he was pulling something out of the water. I was on the Maine side of the river, I got there early enough, and I said, "What the heck are they doing?" And he said, "Oh, that's the last car that was crossing." He went through the ice, and they were pulling him the rest of the way. I guess they got the people out first probably. So that's what the road was like then.
Dorothe Norton:
So you were going to Alaska then to work for the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes.
Dorothe Norton:
So that was your first job with the Fish and Wildlife was in Alaska? 6
Harry Pinkham:
Well, not really, they weren't ready for me. It takes awhile to get in with the federal you know. So I went to work for the Army on the big expansion going on. The Japanese were coming and everybody was excited, and they were getting excited again about Russia, and they were getting more excited about North Korea. Oh yeah, we built 2 air bases right there while I was there right in Anchorage. I helped them get started on that, and then I went to work for the Fish and Game.
I probably was one of the few people, and Douglas was another one, who went to work for Alaska Game Commission. You probably never heard of that. But that was composed of old hunters, old people, they were all old. Gosh, they were all in their 75 and 80's. And they knew something about the old ways that the people liked to live, and that's why they probably appointed them, but they were appointments. Gruening, who was a Representative to Congress for Alaska, he appointed them I think. That was what my first badge that's what it said on it, "Alaska Game Warden," something like that. But that was recalled and then we were made Game Enforcement Agent.
Dorothe Norton:
Was it Fish and Wildlife Game Management Agent?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes, a Game Management Agent. Then I carried that badge ever since, or until I retired, when I retired in Minnesota.
Dorothe Norton:
So after Alaska you came to Minnesota then?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes. Well statehood came along you see. And they didn't have a Fish and Game Department or such, it was just a territory. And that's what it was when I went there. Half of the time I was there it was still a territory and it just finally got statehood. That's another thing that happened. Well I stayed on for about 3 years; I was in charge of Fairbanks at that point. That was after Clarence had got lost on (unclear) Mountain, or we lost him. His son and the guy in charge of Fairbanks at the time, they were lost for some time, many years. They finally found them in the Brooks Range right near the Arctic Ocean. Doug got good information on that. And he was a well-loved guy.
Dorothe Norton:
So, then you came to Minnesota and Doug Swansson was your supervisor --- no, Bill Urbrock.
Harry Pinkham:
Well, they were both supervisors.
7
Dorothe Norton:
You know why I said that Harry, he was my first supervisor.
Harry Pinkham:
Oh Bill was?
Dorothe Norton:
Yes. Oh dear, he only lived about 3 blocks from mother's home, so I became very good friends with his wife Bernice, she was just a sweetheart.
Harry Pinkham:
I never knew her, he never brought her around.
Dorothe Norton:
No, she was very, very nice. And she's passed away too, Bill died many years ago.
Harry Pinkham:
Yeah, I remember when he died.
Dorothe Norton:
He was so thin, and he smoked.
Harry Pinkham:
Oh Christ, he had a lot of things wrong with him, I don't know what.
Dorothe Norton:
Our favorite name for him was the "Federal Sparrow," but we never called him that to his face, Edie and I.
Well, did you like the pay and benefits when you came to work for the federal government?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, it wasn't very much then. They've increased it a lot since then. Well yes, I should say that referring to that was that one of the reasons I left, probably the main reason I left Maine was they wouldn't pay anything up there. Maine was the lowest, they didn't pay anything. Christ, I think I was getting $40.00 a week and a 30 year retirement program.
Dorothe Norton: To take care of a wife and children, huh?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes, but that's when jobs weren't available, it was pretty hard to come by. That's why the guy that I kind of liked, the head of the Fish and Game in Maine said, "I'll give you a year's leave of absence." But he didn't say what his thinking was. I knew what it was afterwards. What they were going through was a situation where they were reevaluating 8
everything. The pay came up pretty fast. So they started paying the guys what they should have been paying them. But I'm glad I didn't stay for that.
Dorothe Norton:
When did you retire Harry? Do you remember what the date was?
Harry Pinkham: No, not really.
Dorothe Norton:
What year? Probably in '75, because you had to be 55, didn't you have to retire at age 55 back then?
Harry Pinkham:
I don't know when I had to retire, I didn't go by that. Whenever I could retire!
Dorothe Norton:
Howard Brown said he retired when he was 55.
Harry Pinkham:
Who did?
Dorothe Norton:
Howard Brown, the man that was just here with me.
Harry Pinkham:
Oh really. Well, I didn't go by that. I don't know, I can't remember really.
Dorothe Norton:
That's alright.
Harry Pinkham:
Well, I've got plenty of papers up there, one of them would tell me.
Dorothe Norton:
That's okay. Do you feel that you received lots of training to do the job with the Fish and Wildlife?
Harry Pinkham:
Oh, that's all they ever did to me was to try to make me smart! I guess they never completed the job. Christ, I was going to school on up to... What the hell, I went to that school down in... ?
Dorothe Norton:
Georgia? Down to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center?
9
Harry Pinkham:
Yeah, yeah, I forget what they called the school. It's where they trained their federal officers. And most of them were young college kids. And they stuck me in a great big class full of those people. My gosh, I couldn't believe it, I was probably the oldest man there, no there was one other guy that was about my age, he worked for the IRS.
Dorothe Norton:
Well their still using FLETC today except we have our Training Center down in Shepherdstown too for some things, it's beautiful down there too.
Harry Pinkham:
Well, this was a terrific thing, the Secret Service and all of the federal...
Dorothe Norton: Except FBI.
Harry Pinkham:
Except FBI, they did their own program, so that's what it was. Jeeze, that was tough, that was a tough course.
Dorothe Norton:
Yes, but it's brought us some wonderful agents.
Harry Pinkham:
Well, I did quite a lot, I studied like hell, I had to, I'm a slow learner. A lot of people pick things up just like. And me, I've got to sit there and mull about it for a month and come up with an answer of some kind.
Dorothe Norton:
Were you ever involved in any special projects?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes, I should say so. I was involved in the Mongoose Project. That was a strange one. People would come into Duluth, boats from Europe and they would bring pets, these sailors when they came in. So one day the newspaper said, "We had a mongoose to put in the zoo here." Well, mongoose are prohibited you know. They ruined the Hawaiian Islands, the mongoose did. They're like rats. And they killed every bird that couldn't fly, young birds you know, and they wiped out an entire species almost. So that why we went to the zoo, we had a hell of a time. And a fellow named Udall ran the show then in Washington. I was seizing the thing and the newspapers were wondering what the hell I was doing taking that animal away from that nice zoo. Well wouldn't you know, we got another president or somebody got with him and he gave them permission to keep it, which is not an unusual thing to do.
10
Dorothe Norton:
Were there any major issues you ever had to deal with?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, yes. There was a problem period of what they called the "Great Duck Shoot" up there in Point Barrow with the Eskimos. Well, at the time the we were having trouble, we weren't but Kennedy was, was having trouble with the Negroes in Alabama because they wanted to be in the integrated schools, they wanted to be with the white kids. And they were having a big fuss about that, and they were having riots and they were having marches and this and that. Nobody got killed I guess, but they had an awful lot of publicly going on. About the same time I got involved with these Eskimos in Point Barrow, which is the furthest point north in the United States, it's at the tip tippe top up at the Arctic Ocean. Traditionally, all of their lives they had killed these King Eider, which would come up the shoreline during migration periods, and they would kill them. Just a tradition, but I don't know how many they'd eat. When I went up to investigate it was pretty hot spot. Christ, they had big 50-gallon drums for collection like garbage, that's how they took care of their garbage up there, just full of ducks overflowing over the top, dead, rotten. So it wasn't a serious eating problem. But nobody else in the Fish and Wildlife Service, when I say nobody else I mean I'm talking about the supervisors, they always wanted to do it but they never did, so they picked me and sent me up there. And that's the end of the world.
Dorothe Norton:
You probably did a good job up there though Harry.
Harry Pinkham:
Well, I thought I did. I picked up 150 or so of them, illegal --- what they were doing they were violating a treaty which was made by Great Britain and Mexico and the United States having to do with migratory waterfowl.
Dorothe Norton:
Who were your supervisors when you were in Alaska?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, the guy I came in contact the most with was Dan Ralston and Doug Swansson. And then of course Clarence Rhode was the "top gun."
... I picked up all of these Eskimos, it was getting kind of ugly, and they didn't have enforcement up there at all, it was just do what you want to. I mean their right up there in the Arctic Ocean. So they threw me in there, and it was 150 of them and I got them all set up for court and that's as far as it went.
You had the Negroes down in the south and the Eskimos up in the north I think Washington, D.C., including Kennedy, didn't want anymore hotshots.
11
Dorothe Norton:
So do you remember who was president when you were working or secretary of interior, or the directors of the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Harry Pinkham:
Oh yes, most of them, but I don't know in what order. I remember Udall. And presidents I knew. Christ, they were pretty knowledgeable.
Dorothe Norton:
I can't even remember who the presidents were when I was serving.
Harry Pinkham:
No kidding?
Dorothe Norton:
Well, I can remember the ones now but when I started way back when, you know.
Harry Pinkham:
Well, Kennedy, I remember him because he was my bug, he really got me. That's the reason I had to drop the case just like that, dropped it. It was a political move.
Dorothe Norton:
Did you think that changes in administrations affected our work in Fish and Wildlife Service, like democrats were in or republicans?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, I can't see that it has very much, if any. But maybe I'm not that knowledgeable about what goes on in the higher echelon!
Dorothe Norton: When you're in law enforcement you're in law enforcement.
Harry Pinkham:
Yeah, you generally don't get your nose much out from under the rug.
Dorothe Norton:
What do you consider the high point in your career? Or did you ever have one?
Harry Pinkham:
Oh, I had a lot of high points. Escaping a few crashes in the damned airplane were the most memorable ones! I don't know anything but I can think of all kinds of things that I've written about.
Dorothe Norton:
Did you ever consider you had a low point in your career?
12
Harry Pinkham:
No, I never did.
Dorothe Norton:
That's great.
Harry Pinkham:
And as old as I am, I look back and every day is nothing but good.
Dorothe Norton:
Did you ever have a dangerous or frightening experience when you were working in your law enforcement?
Harry Pinkham:
Quite a few!
Dorothe Norton:
Quite a few, huh? How about humorous, did you ever have any humorous ones?
Harry Pinkham:
Yes I did.
Dorothe Norton:
What was the most humorous you would remember?
Harry Pinkham:
Well, remember I mentioned that mongoose thing?
Dorothe Norton:
Yes.
Harry Pinkham:
The mongoose is built something like a big rat, only bigger and heavier and uglier. Well, they had all of this publicity going on, seizing this damned mongoose from the zoo, which was a local thing there in Duluth. And everybody was up in arms about it and they didn't like me worth a darned, but nothing I could do about it. Udall took care of that, he just gave it to them. But the funny part of that was halfway to Duluth, which is quite a little ways down there from Minneapolis, I mean halfway to Minneapolis in a little town, Aitkin, Minnesota. And somebody called me on the phone and said, "There's somebody that's got a mongoose down in Aitkin and he's showing it to people." Oh God, I leaped in my old buggy and away we went. We got down there and I got the guy's name. I got into Aitkin and I went over to the post office because they know a lot of names, and I said, "Do you know this fellow?" And he said "Oh yes." I said, "Well, I'm the Fish and Wildlife guy here from northern Minnesota and I hear that there's somebody around town that's got some mongoose that they're displaying." "Yeah" he says, "the name is mine." I 13
said, "Do you mean you've been displaying the mongoose?" And he started laughing, and he said, "Oh no, it's nothing like that," and then he told me the story. His wife had a group of women that she entertained now and then, probably a book club or some sort of a club that they met. Well, he made a little box
Lohmannia carolensis Norton, Metz & Sharma 1978
No full text<p> <i>Lohmannia carolensis</i> Norton, Metz & Sharma, 1978</p> <p> <i>Larva</i>: Norton <i>et al.</i> 1978 (Ds, FB)</p> <p> <i>Protonymph</i>: Norton <i>et al.</i> 1978 (Ds, FB)</p> <p> <i>Deutonymph</i>: Norton <i>et al.</i> 1978 (Ds, FB)</p> <p> <i>Tritonymph</i>: Norton <i>et al.</i> 1978 (Ds, FB)</p>Published as part of <i>Norton, Roy A. & Ermilov, Sergey G., 2014, Catalogue and historical overview of juvenile instars of oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida), pp. 1-132 in Zootaxa 3833 (1)</i> on page 15, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3833.1.1, <a href="http://zenodo.org/record/5122134">http://zenodo.org/record/5122134</a>
Maid of the morning. [By] Frederic Norton.
No full text5 p. 33 cm. Caption title. On cover: Songs by Frederic Norton. In binders collection
Larry Sisk
No full textThis is the transcript of the Larry Sisk oral history interview with Dorothe Norton.
Mr. Sisk discusses early life growing up in Central Kansas, his military time, meeting his wife, and working for the Fish and Wildlife Service. He talks about the various hatcheries he worked at, policies he worked on, and his views on the politics of the Service.
Organization: FWS
Name: Larry Sisk
Years:
Program: Ecological Services, Hatcheries, Regional Office (Minnesota)
Keywords: History, Biography, Personnel, Fish hatcheries, Training, military, employee, public attitudes, politics, work of the Service, Senecaville National Fish Hatchery in Ohio, Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery in North Dakota, D.C. Booth National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota, Jordan River National Fish Hatchery in Michigan, Hebron National Fish Hatchery in Ohio, Regional Office in Minneapolis, Arden Trandahl, Bill White, Chuck Sowers, Artie Stolz, Bob Burwell, Jack Hemphill, John Gottschalk, 1978 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement .INTERVIEW WITH LARRY SISK
BY DOROTHE NORTON, AUGUST 8, 2002
ROSEMOUNT, MINNESOTA
MS. NORTON: We are going to do this interview so that the National Conservation
Training Center will now be able to add it in to the Archives. Can you please tell me your
birthplace and the date?
MR. SISK: I was born January 16, 1941 in Stafford, Kansas. It’s right the near the
Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. It’s an area I used to hunt ducks on.
MS. NORTON: What were your parent’s names?
MR. SISK: Lawrence Sisk and Marie Oleander. My mother’s maiden name was
Oleander.
MS. NORTON: What were their jobs and education?
MR. SISK: Dad worked in the oil fields. We moved around Kansas with the oil play.
He eventually ended up as a Manager for a mud products firm in Great Bend, Kansas.
My mom was a housewife. She stayed home and raised us kids, me and my brother.
MS. NORTON: Where and how did you spend your early years?
MR. SISK: I spent my whole growing up time in central Kansas. I helped farm on the
homestead, east, in Rice County, Kansas. I also worked around the oil patches and at
various ranches around the area. I did just whatever job I could come by. I spent most of
my time hunting and fishing ever since I was about eight years old.
MS. NORTON: Did you have any jobs as a child?
MR. SISK: I started working on the farm when I was eleven years old.
MS. NORTON: What high school did you graduate from? When and where?
MR. SISK: I graduated from Great Bend Senior High School in Great Bend, Kansas in
1959.
MS. NORTON: What university did you attend, and when did you go?
MR. SISK: I attended the University of Kansas from 1959 until 1964.
MS. NORTON: What degree did you get?
MR. SISK: I had a degree in Zoology with a minor in Botany.
MS. NORTON: What aspect of your formal education equipped you for the future?
MR. SISK: I think that mainly it was my association with Dr. Frank Cross, who wrote
the book The Fishes of Kansas. He kind of got me interested in raising Catfish and getting
out in the woods and seining ponds and stuff like that.
MS. NORTON: Did you have other mentors, or courses that especially stuck with you?
Would you consider Dr. Cross a mentor?
MR. SISK: I didn’t really have any mentors. I was basically going by my personal belief
in working in the outdoors and doing something for nature.
MS. NORTON: Did you have any adverse influences?
MR. SISK: From college? Just the fact that we were under threat from being drafted to
Vietnam all of the time.
MS. NORTON: Did you serve in the military?
MR. SISK: Yes, I served as a volunteer from 1964 to 1967 in the U.S. Army.
MS. NORTON: What duty stations did you have?
MR. SISK: I was in the U. S. on various assignments and then overseas in Germany and
Austria.
MS. NORTON: Did you get any decorations?
MR. SISK: No, just it was just another federal job.
MS. NORTON: What was your job?
MR. SISK: I was in the Army Veterinary Corps.
MS. NORTON: Did your military service relate in any way to your employment with
the USFWS?
MR. SISK: None whatsoever that I know of.
MS. NORTON: When, where and how did you meet your wife?
MS. SISK: I met my wife while I was trout fishing in Austria. I got caught in a rainstorm
and went to this little guesthouse to get out of the rain. That’s where I met her.
MS. NORTON: When and where did you marry?
MR. SISK: We married in Austria in August of 1966.
MS. NORTON: How many children do you have?
MR. SISK: I have two children. One is Seesa who was born in Austria and Tom, who
was born in Spearfish, South Dakota.
MS. NORTON: What are they doing now?
MR. SISK: My daughter is a manager for a bookstore. My son is a production manager
for a video reproduction firm.
MS. NORTON: Why did you want to work for the Service?
MR. SISK: I had had a love for the outdoors ever since I was a kid growing up. My dad
used to give me a handful of .22 shells and send me out across the farm hunting
jackrabbits. I used to fish with my grandmother and other people ever since I was a little
kid. I just loved the outdoors. I think I fought fires with the Forest Service in Idaho back
in 1960. I decided I wanted to continue working in the outdoors.
MS. NORTON: What was your first professional position after the military?
MR. SISK: My first position was at Senecaville National Fish Hatchery in Ohio, with
FWS. Back then it was the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.
MS. NORTON: What did you do there?
MR. SISK: I was a trainee under Arden Trandahl, who was the manager and Jack Bollow
who was the assistant manager. I basically was learning fish culture techniques for catfish
and bass and different pan fish.
MS. NORTON: Where did you go from there?
MR. SISK: I went to Garrison Dam in North Dakota. From there I went to Spearfish,
South Dakota to the Training Academy for Fisheries. Then we went to Jordan River
NFH in Elmira, MI. It’s a Lake Trout hatchery. From there we went to Hebron, Ohio
and then to the Regional Office in the Twin Cities.
MS. NORTON: What were the pay and benefits like when you started?
MR. SISK: Lousy! I could have gotten more money working for the State of Kansas. I
applied for a job there.
MS. NORTON: But did you have promotion possibilities with FWS?
MR. SISK: Well that’s what drew me to the federal government; the pension plan and
the promotion possibilities.
MS. NORTON: Did you socialize with the people that you worked with?
MR. SISK: Well in the early days we always did because we had a lot of fun together.
Every Friday on the hatchery the women would all fry up chicken, and we’d all buy beer
and sit out on the lawn and eat fried chicken and drink beer. We just enjoyed being
together. It was like a large family.
MS. NORTON: That’s good! How did your career affect your family?
MR. SISK: It’s hard to say how it affected them. I know my wife gave up a lot coming
to this country to begin with. I think that just the disruption of moving around so much
was very hard on my wife and on the kids. In those days you had to move around
because you had to get the varying experiences that the government wanted.
MS. NORTON: Why did you leave the Service?
MR. SISK: I retired after thirty-seven years. I just decided that I had done enough time I
guess.
MS. NORTON: What kind of training did you receive for your different jobs?
MR. SISK: I guess outside of my personal interest in the outdoors, where I learned a lot
about trapping, hunting and fishing, my college work in zoology and seining catfish for
the State of Kansas. I learned the things I needed to know about fisheries from Dr. Cross.
Basically most of the training I had for my jobs was on the ground; working at different
hatcheries around the central region at that time, which included North Dakota, South
Dakota and Nebraska.
MS. NORTON: What hours did you work?
MR. SISK: In those days, we didn’t care how many hours we worked because when you
are raising fish, and in fish culture work, you’ve got to be there when the fish are ready.
On Jordan River for instance, the lake trout always hatched on Christmas Eve. So you
spent all of Christmas Eve and Christmas day working with the eggs and the hatching
fish. A lot of times you worked a lot more than just an eight-hour day. You worked
according to the schedule of the fish; their breeding cycles and that kind of thing.
MS. NORTON: What instruments and tools did you use?
MR. SISK: In the old days we used a lot of stuff that we built ourselves. Mainly we
were using hatching troughs and hatching jars, phernal pails, milk cans sometimes, to haul
fish in. There were just basic tools, mainly. In my first year at fish hatcheries I probably
skinned out thirteen road kill deer just to feed the catfish!
MS. NORTON: Did you witness any new Service inventions or innovations?
MR. SISK: Oh yeah, there was quite a few in fish culturing work. We knew more about
the diets of the fish. In fact, when I was in training school at Spearfish I worked on the
Lake Trout diet that was used initially for raising Lake Trout. The improvements in the
diets and in the ways the fish were handled. We knew more about chemical treatments
and how to do them properly. There were a lot of advances, even in fish disease and it’s
relation to nutrition. Cataracts for instance; we knew more from the nutrition what
caused cataracts in fish and caused blindness. We learned a lot about the physiology of
the fish and that kind of thing.
MS. NORTON: Did you work with any animals other than the fish?
MR. SISK: In terms of muskrat and beaver control on ponds, I used to get rid of a lot of
them!
MS. NORTON: How did you feel about those animals?
MR. SISK: I didn’t like it. In February when it’s cold, and raining in Ohio and having to
stand out there and dig our muskrat dens to keep your dikes from leaking!
MS. NORTON: What support did you and your programs receive locally, regionally
federally?
MR. SISK: Back in the 1960s and 1970s there was large support for the fishery program.
I was working with the farm pond program back then and there was a huge degree of
support from the SCS and from local farmer and people who built these farm ponds all
over the country that we stocked. There was a real advantage between the two agencies
and working with the farmers trying to create these small fisheries all over the farms of
the Midwest.
MS. NORTON: How do you think the FWS was perceived by people outside of our
agency?
MR. SISK: I think in the early days, before 1978, we were perceived as a very
professional, scientific agency that had a lot of credibility in terms of what we said,
people listened to even in the waterfowl regulations; I think we had more credibility in the
early days.
MS. NORTON: So agency and community relations were good?
MR. SISK: I think they were very good because everybody knew where we were and we
worked with local clubs. We worked with the local groups like Toastmasters and the
Lions Club and Kiwanis and groups like that. We gave talks, and I personally used to
give a lot of tours for inner city kids on the farm ponds; talking about frogs and turtles.
Once I even got snake bit! I grabbed a snake in front of the kids and it drew blood on me.
They were all “ooohing and awing”. It was quite an experience for them! They had never
seen a snake bite a person before!
MS. NORTON: What projects were you involved in? Were there any special projects at
different hatcheries or in the Regional office?
MR. SISK: At the Senecaville hatchery I was involved with restocking the Walleyes back
in to the western basin of Lake Erie. We raised the fish there and then I hauled them up
to Toledo. The state people met me there and we stocked the western basin. That’s
probably the genetic stock that’s now being caught in Lake Erie; the large Walleyes there.
The other thing was when I was in Hebron, Ohio I got the chance to work with Dr.
Milton Troutman who wrote the book The Fishes of Ohio. We were working with the
suspected Blue Pike, and he was the expert on Blue Pike from years ago. We never did
find a true Blue Pike but we did see what we thought were hybrids. Another project I
worked on was that I wrote the first paper ever written on the usage of hatchery
chemicals while I was at Garrison Dam, North Dakota. It was utilized by the Service for
a few years. At Spearfish I worked on Trout diets, and specifically a diet that was later
used for Lake Trout at Jordan River in Michigan where I would transfer to after I left
Spearfish. Other projects that I worked on that I had a high degree of interest in is that I
worked on the Treatise of the Great Lakes with the Great Lakes Water Quality
Agreement. And I did help write sections of the 1978 Water Quality Agreement and also
the protocols. I worked directly with the Great Lakes Water Quality Programs
Committee for a number of years. I had a high degree of interest in that because I wanted
to see the Great Lakes restored. To my way of thinking, the Service allowed me to
interact and to be involved in a number of projects that I thought were worthwhile.
MS. NORTON: Would you consider those as just projects, or were there any major
issues that you had to deal with?
MR. SISK: In terms of major issues; those were always management calls. I was just a
“worker bee”. When I was working on the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements we
had to make decisions at the negotiating table. Those issues revolved around industry
trying to weaken the standards that were being applied in the Great Lakes. We had to
hold firm and make sure that the agreement progressed towards the future to allow for the
cleanup of the Great Lakes. To me that was the one major issue I was involved in.
MS. NORTON: Has your perspective or opinion on any of these issues changed with
time?
MR. SISK: No, in fact I think the Service has weakened its professional stance towards
trying to address issues. I blame that on the implementation of the 1978 Civil Service
Reform Act, which basically created a spoils system within the federal bureaucracy and
deluded the professionalism that the Service had prior to that.
MS. NORTON: What was the major impediment to your job in your career, if there was
one?
MR. SISK: A lack of decision-making.
MS. NORTON: Who were your supervisors?
MR. SISK: I had many supervisors because I was at a lot of stations. Arden Trandahl
was my first supervisor at Secenaville National Fish Hatchery. Bill White was my
supervisor at Garrison Dam, North Dakota. Chuck Sowers was the supervisor at
Spearfish. Artie Stolz was my supervisor at Hebron, Ohio. I just hit a mind blank on
who was supervisor at Jordan River, and that it unfortunate.
MS. NORTON: What about at the Regional office, which you retired from?
MR. SISK: John Christian was my supervisor when I retired. I worked in three
programs at the Regional office. I was in Fisheries, Ecological Services and in Refuges.
Refuges was just a temporary assignment.
MS. NORTON: Who were the individuals who helped shape your career?
MR. SISK: Everybody I worked with Dorothe. I think back very fondly on a lot of the
technicians on the hatcheries and the people that I worked with in the Regional office.
Maurey Splittstoesser was excellent. There was Keith Grye and Bill Martin. When I
think back, I am just thankful to the people who helped shape me as I went along and
taught me what they knew. In the old days you learned from working with people that
you worked with. They were tremendous people.
MS. NORTON: Where were some of the people you knew outside of FWS? Would
they have been able to work for FWS do you think?
MR. SISK: You have to recognize that when I worked for Ecological Services, which is
the old River Basins group; most of those people came from outside of the Service, and
from within the Service both. There was Harry Anderson, who was my supervisor in the
Regional office when I first got there. He used to work for the Illinois Natural History
Survey. He was an excellent birder. He probably knew more about colonial nesting birds
than anybody I know of. He was a tremendous field biologist. Maurey Splittstoesser
worked for the Illinois Natural History Survey. Many of the old River Basin folks came
from Refuges, and from Fisheries and from all facets of research. In the Service the group
was made up of people who had an interest in field biologist. They were basically
naturalists who had grown up on farms and come from farm country. They liked to hunt
and fish and knew a lot about the natural resource just from personal experience. The
difference between them and the modern biologist is that the modern biologist believes
that if it’s not on a computer system, they don’t believe it.
MS. NORTON: What Presidents, Secretaries of the Interior and Directors of FWS did
you serve under? How many do you remember?
MR. SISK: That’s a tough one! Bob Burwell was the first Regional Director, when I
came to work for Region 3. I remember Bob personally. He came out to visit me when I
was in North Dakota. He was a very nice gentleman. He was always very nicely
dressed. Jack Hemphill was another one who took an interest in me. I really liked him
from the standpoint that he tried to balance Fisheries, Refuges and everything in the
Regional office; so did Bob Burwell. The guy that I remember most was when I went to
the Refuge Training Academy at Arden Hills back in 1967. I got to meet John Gottchalk.
I sat down and talked and had a beer with him. He was a very dynamic personality.
There were some very influential people in Washington. Abe Tunnison was one; A. J.
Douglas in Fisheries was one; we had a lot of support in Washington and a lot of people
in Washington who tried to promote the Service politically.
MS. NORTON: How did the changes of administrations affect your work?
MR. SISK: The biggest change, and I mentioned it previously, was under Jimmy Carter
who passed the Civil Service Reform Act in 1978. Jimmy Carter, I don’t think, liked
bureaucrats. He wanted a spoils system similar to the one he had in Georgia. I think that
one Act probably changed the Service forever, in terms of making the entire federal
bureaucracy more politically attuned. Now we have RDs who are politically appointed
rather than being people who came up through the ranks. They are professional people.
And I think that did more harm to the Service than any one thing I remember. The second
thing that harmed the Service very greatly I believe, is when they took the Research arm
out of the FWS.
MS. NORTON: In your opinion, who were the people who shaped the Service?
MR. SISK: The people who really saved the Service were the on the ground field
biologists. They were the people who were out there day to day actually doing the work.
Politically, the Service, if you go way back in its history to Baird, and the people who
started it; there have been a lot of people who field naturalists and had an interest in the
outdoor resource who shaped it. The thing that really made it work were the people on
the ground who actually got out and did the work.
MS. NORTON: What was the high point in your career?
MR. SISK: That’s hard to say. I guess that the high point of my career was actually
being assigned and entrusted to work with the Canadian government on the Great Lakes
Water Quality Agreement.
MS. NORTON: Did you have a low point in your career?
MR. SISK: Well, there are ups and downs in every career. I think the lowest point was
when I found out that I would never have a chance at any more promotions.
MS. NORTON: Is there anything that you wish you had done differently?
MR. SISK: Oh, I never look back and wish I had done things differently because to do
things differently; I probably could have gotten a lot farther ahead in my career politically
if I had been willing to sacrifice my family, but I won’t do that.
MS. NORTON: What was your most dangerous or frightening experience?
MR. SISK: I guess that was the night I fell asleep with a load of fish and almost took out
a couple of road signs in Indiana.
MS. NORTON: How about your most humorous experience?
MS. SISK: That was probably feeding fish in North Dakota one day. They warned me
about the ice on the raceway walls. I stood up on them while I was feeding the fish. The
next think I know, I am laying under that water watching the fish go over top of me. My
feet went out from under me and I fell in the raceway. It’s an interesting view; watching
the fish swim above you instead of below you.
MS. NORTON: At least you thought it was humorous! What would you like to tell
others about your career?
MR. SISK: It’s hard to say. For me, I was brought up in a very religious family, so to
me working with natural resources is something that man should do as part of their
stewardship of the land. To me it was a nature fit to work with the land and the critters.
To me, if a person has a sense of mission and is not interested in money, but wants to do
something that has a lasting affect on the environment, then, I would say that working in
the biological field would be a very rewarding career.
MS. NORTON: What would you tell others about the FWS?
MR. SISK: It’s hard to judge because the Service that I knew died after 1978. It’s now
very political. I think they’ve lost their scientific bent. I would like to see the Service get
back to the use of naturalists and retain its credibility in the scientific arena. I think they
need to reestablish the scientific arm. I think the Service needs to be rebuilt back to what
it was.
MS. NORTON: What were some of the changes that you observed in the Service?
MS. SISK: Well, I think I mentioned it previously; p
Rosemary. [Words by] Graham Robertson. [Music by] Frederic Norton. [For] low voice.
No full text7 p. 33 cm. Caption title. On cover: Songs by Frederic Norton. In binders collection
The norton anthology of English literature (seventh edition/ volume 2)
No full textThe outpouring of english literature overflows all boundaries, including the capacious boundaries of the norton anthology of english lierature.lxi, 2944 p.; ill.; 22 c
Carpetaniae partis descr. 1584; Vardusorum, sive Gvipvscoae regionis typvs; Sinus Gaditanus, nunc Baia de Cadiz / hanc insulam perlustrabat, et sua manu depingebat Georgius Hoefnaglius Antverpian. Belga
No full text3 mapes. Publicat dins: Theatrum orbis terrarum Abr. Orteli. London, printed by Iohn Norton, 1606. a) 17x24 cm, 1:250 000; b) 17x23 cm, 1:300 000; c) 23x47 cm, 1:100 000. - Text: anglès. P.20.47 x 59 c
- …
