4,091 research outputs found
Jim Olson Interview, 2018
No full textJim Olson, professor emeritus of chemistry, talks about the his time a University of Minnesota Morris. Jim was here when the West Central School of Agriculture transitioned to the University of Minnesota Morris. He discusses the challenges of building programs and majors at a new institution.https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/stories/1066/thumbnail.jp
Jim Olson Interview
No full textJim Olson, professor emeritus of chemistry, was interviewed for the University of Minnesota Morris documentary Promise of the Prairie: Education in Three Parts.https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/stories/1023/thumbnail.jp
Bill Harney on a spear fishing expedition with Eric Jolliffe and Robert Fitzpatrick, off Long Reef, New South Wales, ca. 1940s [picture] /
No full textTitle based on information from acquisition documentation and from caption on verso.; Part of collection: Collection of photographs of author and bushman, Bill Harney, ca. 1940-1962.; Photograph taken by Jim Fitzpatrick, a photographer with the Department of Information in the 1940s in Sydney. Robert Fitzpatrick is the son of the photographer.; Also available in an electronic version via the Internet at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn3706122; Purchased from Michael Treloar Antiquarian Booksellers, List 90, Lot 64, 2006
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[Portrait of Jim Marrs]
No full textPortrait of Jim Marrs smiling at the camera while sitting on a wooden bench. He wears a plaid button-up shirt, black hat, and sunglasses. Marrs was an American journalist and author of publications such as his book, "Crossfire." Marrs is known for his conspiracy theories, specifically in relation to the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Oral History Interview Sig Olson, Jeaneau, Alaska, May 15, 1999 interview conducted by: Jim King
No full textOral history interview with Sig Olson as interviewed by Jim King.Sig Olson
Oral History Interview
Sig Olson
Juneau, Alaska
May 15, 1999
Interview conducted by:
Jim King
Jim: Sig, what we would like to know is how did you happen to go to work for the Fish
and Wildlife Service in the first place?
Sig: I was just in the process of graduating with a master’s degree from the University
of Minnesota and I had my sights set on going to work as a wildlife biologist for the State
of Minnesota up in Northern Minnesota where I came from. My dad had done the first
research on wolves and one of his students, by the name of Milt Zahn was the State
biologist in charge of that area. My goal was to go to work for Milt. However, Dr.
Marshall, my advisor, came up to me one day when I was just in the process of finishing
up there, and he said to me, “hey, Sig, how would you like to go to Alaska?” I was kind
of overwhelmed. I had never even thought about going to Alaska. I had my sights set on
Northern Minnesota. He told me to think about it.
I did some thinking about it, went home to talked to my wife and we finally decided that
maybe we ought to be halfway serious about this. I talked to Dr. Marshall a little bit
more, found out that the man that he was referring was working for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in Juneau, a former graduate from the University of Minnesota. He was
looking for somebody to come up and do some wildlife work for the Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Jim: Would that have been Pete Nelson?
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Sig: Yes. The next thing I knew I was on my way to Juneau, Alaska, to be a wildlife
biologist. That is just about as simple as it happened. I imagine I filled out a form or two
but I don’t recall. It seems to me it was pretty informal. I just showed up there one day
and Pete put me to work.
Jim: There were some exceptions for Civil Service employment in Alaska then, I think.
We didn’t have to take a test or be competitive; just somebody had to say “yes.”
Sig: I don’t remember any formalities other than just coming here.
Jim: Did you work in Juneau or did you go off to Petersburg?
Sig: I was in Juneau for awhile, just doing a few local things. I can’t actually
remember what they were, just sort of a familiarization with what was going on with the
agency itself, and with the enforcement agents that were in each of the towns in
Southeast. I can’t remember exactly just how long I was in Juneau, but about two weeks
later I was transferred down to Ketchikan. That was the first place that I actually worked.
The first thing I did, however, was to go up to the Yukon Delta and conducted waterfowl
surveys the first summer.
Jim: That was 1950?
Sig: Yes. __________, my wife, didn’t come up to Alaska until we were ready to
move to Ketchikan. In the meantime, I had a son, Robert, my youngest that I had never
seen before. We then were stationed in Ketchikan. We were there for 3-4 years. My
main responsibility there was learning about black tailed deer; their range, distribution,
hunting pressures, just sort of a broad study. Nobody had done anything to speak of on
anything. Anything known at that time was very general. My first efforts were to try to
accumulate some information that was a little more positive than just guesswork. That
was the primary thing other than the summer waterfowl surveys in the Yukon Delta that
first summer.
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Jim: Did you do the waterfowl surveys in the Delta for just one summer?
Sig: Yes, just one summer. That was the year that I hired Jack Paniyak and Mathew
Peterson. That was a good summer and we learned a lot of things about Alaska and the
way of doing things. It was one of the more exciting years that I had had up to that point.
I met a lot of people that worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service – Ed Chatelain,
Mauri (Maurice) Kelly were in Anchorage at the time. They helped point me in the right
direction. I think Ed Chatelain was my supervisor. I didn’t see enough of him out there
to really know. At any rate, they were a great help in just getting myself established. It
was a far cry from anything that I had ever experienced in Minnesota.
Jim: Then you moved to Petersburg?
Sig: Yes, the next step was to move up to Petersburg. I spent several years there doing
essentially the same type of work, with a little more detail and a little more “know-how.”
When I was there, I also had the opportunity to do some wildlife survey work on the
Stikine Delta, getting information on snow geese and just general waterfowl use on the
Delta, nothing very extensive or in-depth. That was just part of the job. It was just
general knowledge, nothing that people didn’t know, but very little had been recorded
about it. There were a lot of initial surveys made. I learned where things were, where
bird concentrations were and where they weren’t.
Jim: It was interesting times. There really hadn’t been resident biologists in Alaska
much before that time, had there?
Sig: No. There were a few – Paul Adams, Ed Chatelain. Paul Adams was on the
Yukon Delta before I was. He was doing the same thing that I went up and did. He was
banding geese.
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Jim: We were just talking about Paul when I was out there and no one could quite
remember what his status was. He was living in Marshall in the house that had been a
game agent’s house. It seemed to turn out that they just had a house and they put
somebody in it – the same sort of vague instructions you have been referring to. No one
seems to know what happened to Paul.
You had some experiences with Dr. Ray Hawk out there on the Yukon Delta?
Sig: Yes. Apparently, he had gotten permission somewhere along the line to come out
and stay at our camp. His specialty was small birds, not necessarily waterfowl but the
other type of bird life that existed out there. He notified me that he was on his way out.
One day when we came back to camp after our day’s work was done, here he was waiting
for us. He was a rather large individual, rotund type. Jack Paniyak and his partner,
Matthew Peterson, running the outboards, their comment as soon as they saw him was
“oh, my, never go fast no more!” They did like to go fast with the two engines on the
boat. I will never forget that comment. Ray was a very pleasant person, easy to get
along with, not demanding. He stayed with us a couple of weeks.
Jim: What was that story about him wanting to have an Eskimo name?
Sig: It was during one night we were sitting around the fire after work and supper. He
wanted a name so Matthew and Jack said that they would come up with a name. I forget
if they did it just immediately or if it was a day or two later, but they said, “we have a
name for him.” It was “Oh-valu-cuff-puk”(????) He was very impressed. He then asked
what that meant. When Matthew and Jack stopped laughing, they said “jack-ass.” He
was a good sport about it! Afterwards, that was his name.
Jim: It is interesting that the slough that you were camped on got named after him and
the name has stuck ever since. I gather they still use Fox Slough. It is kind of a land
mark of studies areas there along the Kashunuk.
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Sig: They had another name for him too, in a sense. It was “the big man that works on
little birds.”
Jim: You banded a good many hundreds of geese out there as I recall.
Sig: Yes, I can’t remember how many but we did band a lot of birds. Every once in
awhile, I am reminded about it because I still have the pliers that I used to open up the
bands. I filed little notches on the outside of the pliers so you could get inside the band,
spring it open, put on the leg and close it with the pliers. I still have the pliers in the
kitchen drawer. I use them all the time. That’s been almost 50 years now.
Jim: I have a not quite so old pair of pliers that I used for duck bands that were
modified with a file. In 1950, I worked for the National Park Service in McKinley Park.
I was going to school in Fairbanks.
Then, you did deer work for all those years and suddenly blasted into the North for
caribou work?
Sig: Yes, I got transferred to Anchorage then went up to Fairbanks. That is where we
did all the caribou work. We surveyed migration routes, tried to figure out which areas,
identified herd areas – all different areas that were used by which caribou. I found out
from all these studies, “don’t predict on a caribou.” It was more than just flying around
in an airplane and camping out in the tundra, etc. Those years many of us who were
working for the Fish and Wildlife Service, looking back and reminiscing call it the “little
golden years” because although we may have been a biologist or a fisheries person or an
enforcement agent, we all worked together and helped each other out. The biologists had
enforcement authority and it was a time of cooperation. I remember very little, if any,
friction between the various disciplines that were working together. We all had the same
goal in mind which was better management of the wildlife resources and the use of the
land. It was a time that, in a way, we each sort of made our own rules and things worked.
It was one of the best times of my life, not only for what I was doing but the kind of
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people that I was working with – Ray Tremblay, Jim King, Ray Woolford, George
Warner, Frank Dyson, Joe Meiner.
Jim: I remember we used to have sort of a social club. Mrs. Glacier used to make
baked bean dishes. It was our own group and we were all best friends there.
Sig: That again, was the way the entire staff up there worked. There were no strict
lines that we had to stick to in particular. You helped out where needed. This worked
out because there weren’t a lot of us to do a very big job up there. We were learning the
country and learning the way things were and learning what the people were doing, how
they were reacting to management. It was a time, for me, a tremendous education on
broadening our horizons – things that weren’t even envisioned when studying to be a
biologist.
Jim: There seemed to be a big age separation there. We ranged from the mid-twenties
to, Frank was mid-sixties, yet we could all get along together and have a good time and
get out and do a job. It was pretty neat.
Sig: Yes, the fact that we could do that and that we trusted one another to do the kind
of job that we should do. I know that many times my main job there would be collecting
information on the kinds of animals that were being taken, where they were being taken,
how many were being taken, but on the other hand, there was also enforcement. I have
some interesting memories on enforcement that kind of colored things up once in awhile.
Jim: Like what?
Sig: One day we were up on the Forty-Mile. We had a check-in station up there
during the caribou rut and I had to go down to a creek and get some water that we
needed. I started off in the little Fish and Wildlife truck to get the water and as I was
coming down the road I saw this guy stopped ahead of me. He got out of his car, grabbed
his rifle and sure enough there were 2-3 caribou about 150 yards off the road. I pulled up
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behind him, opened up the door so he could see the Fish and Wildlife emblem on the
door and just as I was getting out, bang! down went a caribou. He was standing right on
the edge of the road. There was a set distance that you had to be off the road and he was
on the road! I went up to him and said “I’m sorry, but I am going to have to confiscate
your caribou and write you up.” I asked him “didn’t you see me?” He said, “yes, but I
don’t know, I just couldn’t stop myself!” He was a middle aged fellow, very respectable
looking. It turned out that he was a conductor on the Alaska Railroad, one of those kinds
that never ever made a mistake in his life but he sure made one there. He just couldn’t
help himself.
Another time at a check-in station, a guy came in with a nice caribou and he was almost
in tears because the antlers were falling off his caribou. He wanted to know if he could
go shoot another one! Those were the kinds of things that lightened up things and kept it
interesting.
Jim: What were we looking for that time we went to Nome? We went panning in the
golden beaches of Nome. I still have a picture of you doing that.
Sig: As I remember, I didn’t have any particular reason, except you were my only
transportation. You had some business to take care of over in Nome. I do remember
flying over there. I had never been there. Jim was flying and then he decided he needed
a little shut-eye and I took over on my side. We came to a place where there was a fork
in the river – one valley went to the right and one valley went to the left and I thought we
would go to the right and about that time, Jim opened one eye and said “go left.” I went
left and sure enough, we got to Nome. How he knew where we were, I don’t know. We
had to land 18 miles out of town and pay a cab driver to take us into town. That was
probably one of the biggest taxi bills that Fish and Wildlife ever got. We were on floats
and there were no float landings in Nome and that’s why we had to call for a cab and sit
there and wait, a 36-mile roundtrip. Every time I listen to the dog races there, I think of
our trip out there.
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Jim: Then we tried our hand at gold panning there but we weren’t very good at that.
What was the matter? Maybe we weren’t very serious about it. I’m not sure we even
knew what to look for. The last few times that I have been over there, there are a few
people making money at it on those beaches. They mostly have a little water pump and a
little sluice box. I guess we didn’t have the right equipment. Those were fun trips.
--end of side 1, tape #1—
--start of side 2, tape #1—
Jim: We were just thinking about what an exciting period that last decade before
statehood was for the Fish and Wildlife Service and those of us that were working for
FWS. We got a lot of good work done and a lot of interesting experiences and when it
came time for the transfer of wildlife responsibilities to the new State, the wildlife was in
pretty good shape, wouldn’t you say?
Sig: I think that we had done a very good job. We had taken some giant steps in that
period of time. A lot of things were “first steps” and sometimes, you had to take baby
steps before you took major steps. To be in on the beginning of more formal
management was a tremendous opportunity, not only for the Fish and Wildlife Service
but for the people who were fortunate enough to be able to be in on it, starting right at the
bottom. The Fish and Wildlife Service went from just nearly management, largely law
enforcement, to some very general things going on relative to wildlife populations and
fishery populations. We began to get more and more definitive along the line and I think
that when Statehood became a reality, and we went from a Territory to a State, I think we
handed over to the State a resource of wildlife and fisheries that was in pretty good shape.
I can’t remember anything that really stands out in my mind that we needed to be
ashamed of or any particular item. Given the situation, the facilities that we had to work
with and the experience that we could marshal, I think that we did a very good job.
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Jim: During that 35-year period or whatever it was, from the time the Alaska Game
Law was passed in 1925 until Statehood in 1959, the population of Alaska really
increased about 3-4-5 fold. There were a whole lot more people. The thing that always
struck me was that those first agents, even though they had no training in wildlife, they
stopped some really devastating practices. They stopped the use of poisons to kill foxes
and everything else in sight, the use of game animals to feed dog teams, and market
hunting in the hills for the markets and restaurants in town. Sheep was a delicacy in
Fairbanks. It was kind of a natural transition from getting those kinds of things taken
care of to developing a little more sophisticated management with some biological input.
Sig: Let me tell you about one of my favorite stories. It may seem bragging but as it
might be expected, some of the things that we came up with, the changes in wildlife
management and laws were challenged by people. We had to make some management
decisions that hadn’t been available because we didn’t have the kind of data that we
could. One of the big things in Southeast Alaska was you hunted bucks only. The work
that I had done out of Petersburg in particular, indicating that winter food supplies were
critical, some places were actually over populated and there wasn’t enough food to go
around. We could control deer numbers by harvesting both bucks and does. That met
with a lot of resistance, that of harvesting female deer.
We finally sold it and we all learned to live with it. Years later, I had moved out of
Petersburg, been up to Fairbanks and down to Anchorage and back down to Juneau. I
went back to Petersburg but it was not on official business. I was visiting friends. I met
this old-timer on the street that I hadn’t seen for a long time. He greeted me and he said
“Sig, I want to tell you something, he said when you first come here and you say that we
should shoot the does, we did not like that a bit but now that we know, you were right,
you were right.” That to me was one of the best rewards I’ve had in my experiences, this
old-timer telling me that the decision was accepted that way was one of the best
experiences. He was a Norwegian. We were surrounded by a bunch of stubborn
Norwegians with some pretty good opinions on how things ought to be managed. That
was quite a challenge.
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Jim: You had to convince Earl Omar who was talking to all these old buddies.
Sig: I tried to keep him from being an adversary but he was a factor that you had to
deal with.
Jim: I remember some of those discussions in the first Game Commission meetings I
went to, whether to shoot does or not. It wasn’t something that was easy to sell but over
the years, it paid off.
Sig: I think it was very important just getting to know the various people that were up
in the Interior, particularly, aside from game management, just knowing who these
people were and what they were like. I know that I made a number of trips with the
enforcement people. They had the airplanes and they had the pilots and that was the only
way that I could get around and getting information on various things that I was
interested in up in the Arctic and sub-Arctic country.
Jim: Did you ever participate in helping Dominique Renea(??) measure his beaver
skins?
Sig: No, I never did that but I heard about it but I was never privileged to share that
responsibility. My memory was staying overnight and the meals that Mrs. Veneti(??)
would put on, dressed to the “nines” you felt that you were just in a very special, high
class restaurant.
Jim: I thought it was you that was measuring beaver skins and Dominique said “keep
track of the measurements then I won’t have to measure them and he watched for awhile
and he could see John was carefully measuring from the edge and pretty soon,
Dominique said, “never mind, I’ll measure them myself.” He measured them with a
yardstick that he always jiggled around quite a bit. He didn’t want a biologist
measurement.
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Sig: You had to learn how these people’s minds ran. You just couldn’t walk into a
village and expect answers and the kind of behavior, or whatever you found back in
Fairbanks or Juneau. I remember that first summer walking down the street of Old
Chevak and a group of men standing around in a circle there and I wondered what that
was all about. I walked by and looked over there and here was an Eskimo lying on the
ground bleeding profusely. I asked what had happened and apparently he had attempted
suicide but hadn’t done a very good job of it. They were just standing around talking as
he lay there in a pool of blood. I went over to the store and I told them about it and they
just said, “oh, that’s just the way they are.” Dave Spencer was coming in. The guy was
still alive, we picked the Eskimo up and we were able to get him onto a ship, the
Northstar, and his life was actually saved and he lived to a ripe old age. What I
understood later, someone told me about it, that learning things like that showed you how
different those people’s lives were than our lives were. Values were different and that we
could not super-impose our values on top of theirs and expect them to respect what we
had to offer or get what we hoped for. It didn’t have much to do with wildlife
management, just an example of some of the things and experiences you ran into out
there as part of the life of these people at that time. Things have changed now, I am sure.
That wouldn’t happen anymore.
Jim: You see some changes but the old ideas don’t change very fast.
Sig: Now there is a whole new generation of people out there. Education is different.
Jim: They all watch television.
Sig: I suspect that management now, I shouldn’t say “suspect,” I know that the
management of the wildlife and fisheries resources is much more sophisticated. Those
people who used to be just village people are now coming in as representatives and
senators in our State government here. Management is an entirely different picture now
than it used to be, I’m sure.
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Jim: After Fairbanks, what happened?
Sig: Well, after Fairbanks, I went back to Juneau and there I was acting supervisor of
wildlife restoration in charge of Federal Aid and wildlife work in Alaska. This was sort
of the beginning of the end. I was responsible for closing out Fish and Wildlife Federal
Aid programs and assisting the new Department
Episode 5: Jim Bowyer
No full textRuntime 57:43In Episode 5, Eli interviews Jim Bowyer, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, senior contributor at Dovetail Partners, and author of The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise. Jim is well known for life cycle assessment research, designed to assess the environmental impact of a product or action by analyzing all of the component parts and processes. Jim offers insights about wood as a natural resource, the results of an environmental quiz that he has run for decades, and a critique of one of the most prominent environmental analyses ever conducted
Paul Schmidt
No full textPaul Schmidt oral history transcript as conducted by Norman Olson. Mr. Schmidt gives his personal background and discusses his career. He talks about the personnel upheaval in Alaska around 1986, the Tiglax research vessel, public meetings, native views, reintroduction of caribou in Togiak, and reindeer removal on Hagemeister Island. He also talks about the Exxon Valdez spill, and other tragedies, such as deaths, that occurred in Alaska. Places worked include:Outdoor Recreation Planner, Back Bay, NWR Virginia; Alaska Resources Support Chief/Refuge Supervisor; Special Assistant to the USFWS Director, Washington D.C.; Chief of Migratory Bird Office, Washington D.C.; Deputy Assistant Director, Washington D.C., Washington Office with Division of Refuges1
Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Paul Schmidt
Date of Interview: October 10, 2006
Location of Interview: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Interviewer: Norman Olson
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 1978-
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: Outdoor Recreation Planner, Back Bay, NWR Virginia; Alaska Resources Support Chief/Refuge Supervisor; Special Assistant to the USFWS Director, Washington D.C.; Chief of Migratory Bird Office, Washington D.C.; Deputy Assistant Director, Washington D.C., Washington Office with Division of Refuges;
Most Important Projects: Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA)
Colleagues and Mentors: Sue Matthews, Chuck Hunt, Bob Gilmore, John G. Rogers, John P. Rogers, Dave Olsen, Glen Bond, Joe Mazzoni, John Doebel, Chuck Diters, Stephen Talbot, Janet Ady, Patti Gallaher, Dave Patterson, Bob Siemel, Clay Hardy, John Kurtz, Bob Delaney, Bill Mattice, Dan Doshier, Ed Baines, Mike Hedrick, Rick Johnston, Norm Olson, Ron Berry, John Martin, Walt Stieglitz, Jim Gritman, Bruce Batten, Rich Barcelona, Dick Smith, John Turner, Rob Shallenberger, Rick Coleman, Dan Ashe, Tom Melius, Jamie Clark, Jim Frady, Bill Mauer
Most Important Issues: Comprehensive Conservation Plan (Kenai), Modification of Migratory Bird Treaty with Canada/Mexico, Exxon Valdez
Brief Summary of Interview: Mr. Schmidt gives his personal background and discusses his career. He talks about the personnel upheaval in Alaska around 1986, the Tiglax research vessel, public meetings, native views, reintroduction of caribou in Togiak, and reindeer removal on Hagemeister Island. He also talks about the Exxon Valdez spill, and other tragedies, such as deaths, that occurred in Alaska.
Keywords: employee, birds, hunting, indigenous populations, man-made disasters, migratory birds, Native Americans, oil spill, public attitudes, tribal lands conservation, work of the Service, wildlife refuges, Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, Exxon Valdez spill, Tiglax
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National Heritage Team of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Oral History Program
Subject/USFW Retiree: Paul Schmidt, ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act)
Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Interviewed by: Norman Olson, USWS employee and volunteer at the Service's National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, WV
Place of Interview: Conducted during the Fish and Wildlife Service Retiree's Reunion at the MCM Elegante Hotel in Albuquerque, NM
Norman Olson:
Paul Schmidt is a current Fish and Wildlife Service employee and lives in the Washington D.C. area. Paul, I wonder if we can begin by having you tell us your full name, and please spell it out for us, when and where you were born and raised, when and where you went to college, the degrees your received, what your current position is with the Service, how you came to first work for the Fish and Wildlife Service, and then how you wound in up in Alaska in 1986.
Paul Schmidt:
Well thanks, Norman, it's special to be with you today and think about the things that you are asking me. My full name is Paul Rudolph Schmidt, and I was born April 24, 1956 in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. I was raised, actually, we moved around quite a bit, so there is no one particular place; I moved from Air Force base to Air Force base, starting in St. John's, Newfoundland to Panama City, Florida, to Great Falls, Montana, to Suffolk County on Long Island, New York. Eventually my father retired and I finished my high school days in Northern, Virginia, actually Arlington, Virginia, now only about a mile or so from where the Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters staff are in Arlington, Virginia.
I went to college at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia from 1974 to 1978, graduated with a bachelor of science degree in biology, and proceeded to my first position with the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1978, a couple of months after graduation. It was a time when I was trying to make a decision between working and going to graduate school. I actually had been accepted to Duke University for graduate school at that time but I got a call, a random call you might think, out of the air. A man by the name of Glen Bond, who was a refuge manager for Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, had been given my name as a result of the career entrance exam. I forgot what they called it; way back then with federal employment you take a standardized exam. I had done very well on the exam, and had put my interest down but really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. But I got a call from Glen Bond sort of out of the blue and he offered me a job at Back Bay, and I took that job on August 11th or 12th of 1978 and reported for duty at that time.
I didn't know much about the Fish and Wildlife Service frankly; I knew just little bits and pieces, and so I was going in, sort of, as a brand new fresh employee. I was hired in as an outdoor recreation planner; I really wasn't even sure what that position was all about, but I needed a job and it seemed like a good thing to do. I came to realize what a great 3
decision that was in 1978, and maybe we will explore that somewhere along the line in the interview.
But the other thing you wanted to know, how I wound up in Alaska in 1986; at that time I was in the Washington Office with the Division of Refuges and had been recruited by Joe Mazzoni, who at that time was the Deputy Assistant Regional Director for Refuges and Wildlife, and he and John Doebel collectively. John Doebel, by the way, and he, were really close colleagues, and I came to find out later that it was actually a communication between the two of them that stimulated Joe Mazzoni to pursue me, because I was working for John Doebel at the time in Washington, D.C. John thought enough of me and gave me a really good recommendation to Joe and Joe trusted John. Joe didn't know me from anyone, but Joe hired me as the Chief of Resource Support. I came to find out later that Joe was hiring me up to take a look at me in order to determine whether I would be a good selection for the refuge supervisor job. So the refuge supervisor job was also about to be opening, and he knew that because Delaney, Bob Delaney, was about to move to some other position and they wanted somebody in there, but Joe was not willing to sight unseen on John Doebel's recommendation, have me become the refuge supervisor, so he wanted to see how I might perform. It turns out in hindsight, I didn't know this at the time, but in hindsight, the three months that I spent as the chief of Resource Support Division, I guess it was, in Alaska, was a sort of a trial period for me! And then Joe proceeded three or four months later after Bob had transitioned out, to set me as a refuge supervisor position there. For the southern refuges, Bob Delaney was the refuge supervisor there, and John Kurtz was the refuge supervisor for the northern refuges; and so they split the state in half basically by that. That's how I came to Alaska and into the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Norman Olson:
Who was then the Director at Anchorage at that time?
Paul Schmidt:
At that time, Bob Gilmore was the Regional Director, it was Dave Olsen who was the Deputy, I believe, and John P. Rogers was the Assistant Regional Director for Refuges and Wildlife, Dr. John P. Rogers. Easily confused with John G. Rogers, John G. Rogers was later to become the Deputy Regional Director there. And frankly one of the kind of cute little stories is that at one point in that time period when I was in Alaska I sat between John G. Rogers and John P. Rogers in an office, and it was confusing for the secretary, needless to say, when they'd get a call for John Rogers and they weren't sure which one the person meant. But anyway, the regional director was Bob Gilmore; Bob wasn't there probably but about, I would say, six months or maybe as much as a year when I got there before he was then moved out of that position in a very tumultuous time. In fact, I can remember the day and the moment he got the word from the Director that he was to report to duty in Washington, D.C.; that was kind of a tense time.
Norman Olson:
It was a bit of a directed reassignment.
4
Paul Schmidt:
It was a bit of a directed reassignment; if you want, I can explore that, I can tell my recollections of that.
Norman Olson:
Oh absolutely. I was there but I was busy doing other things so I don't know all of the...
Paul Schmidt:
It was an ominous moment; as part of being the refuge supervisor, I guess I was part of the regional director who had meetings once a week. I believe it was Monday but I could be wrong about that, it probably was Monday morning when we'd go into the office and Bob Gilmore would run the meeting essentially and the various assistant regional directors and key supervisors would be in the meeting; well, as occasionally, Mary Smith, who was the secretary to Bob. Well, Bob was running the meeting and it just started, and I can remember Mary Smith came into the room and interrupted the meeting; and she said, "Bob, you have to take a phone call." And we had this big oval-shaped table and Bob was at the end of it, and he said, "I'm in the middle of a meeting, can we just call them back later?" Mary Smith knew the ropes of this job, she said, "No, Bob, you have to take this call, it's the director." And it was Frank Dunkle who was the director at that time, and Bob left the room, took the call. It couldn't have been five minutes later that Bob returned to the room with a different look on his face, and proceeded to say to us that effective immediately he was no longer the regional director and that the director, Frank Dunkle, had sent Jim Gritman on a plane that day and he was halfway to Anchorage as we spoke, and he was effectively the regional director at that moment, and Bob assumed another seat in the room and didn't conduct the rest of the meeting.
Norman Olson:
Wow! And it was abrupt, but I didn't quite realize it was that abrupt.
Paul Schmidt:
It was that abrupt. He said, "Jim Gritman is your regional director effective immediately." And you could have heard a pin drop obviously in that room. It was quite intimidating I would say for everybody to think that that would happen that way. But that was early on in my career in Alaska.
Norman Olson:
So you actually weren't with the resource support group that long?
Paul Schmidt:
Not very long, not very long at all; after I left that position, Gail Baker, I believe, became the Chief of Resource Support. But during that time, the staff of the Resource Support, while probably not all the names, but that was at a time when there was the Resource Support and there was the Planning Division, which you were in Norman, but in Resource Support we had various experts, technical experts, who were joined in one division that were resources to the whole region, whether it be field or regional office. We had a cultural resource archeologist, who was Chuck Diters; we had a botanist, who 5
was Steve Talbot, or Stephen Talbot. We had an education branch, I'll call it that, which was Conrad Gunther, who was sort of a branch underneath that division if you will, who had in his branch, I believe, Janet Ady, who was there at that time; I believe Sue Matthews would have been there at that time, and there were a couple of others there.
Norman Olson:
Patti Gallagher I think might have been there.
Paul Schmidt:
Patti Gallagher was there; absolutely, she was there under Conrad as well, and then we might have a couple of others; I think we had one or two wildlife biologists as well in the division, and I'm sorry I can't remember everybody's name.
Norman Olson:
Dave Patterson?
Paul Schmidt:
Dave Patterson, thank you. He is a recreation specialist who was there then.
Norman Olson:
Bob Siemel?
Paul Schmidt:
Oh, my gosh, Bob Siemel! I just adored Bob and the way he handled things. So I shouldn't have forgotten Bob, but I'm sorry it's twenty-some years ago and my memory is not so good! That whole group was incredibly warm to me; I was a brand new person, I was relatively young, I was probably 30, something like that. I came up there sight unseen to this staff and I'm sure they had quite a bit of anxiety and concern about who this young guy was from Washington, D.C. who was coming in there. But to a person, they were very open and welcoming to me, and to this day I appreciate that. They all had far more expertise in their particular field than I did. As you said and I said, I was only there for a few months but came to appreciate their expertise. It was sort of a team; it really was a team because each brought different kinds of skills and expertise to share, if you will, with the rest of the region.
Norman Olson:
We used them quite often in our planning, if we had comprehensive conservation plans they were active players and also they were good people, good resources to have.
Paul Schmidt:
Yes, because each CCP had a section on vegetation, for instance, and so you would need Steve Talbot probably to kind of help in that regard, or certainly Chuck; Chuck was like all over the place, Chuck doing the archeological work in cultural resources, which was sort of a never-ending job, I mean endless work could have been done there. They were great resources.
6
Norman Olson:
Who was the chief of resource support before you actually? Do you remember?
Paul Schmidt:
We didn't overlap, and so...
Norman Olson:
Was it, the name escapes me but he went down to King Salmon as the refuge manager?
Paul Schmidt:
That's exactly right, Ron...
Norman Olson:
Ron is right, what is the last name?
Paul Schmidt:
A big fellow and Joe Mazzoni had just elected him to be the refuge manager at King Salmon, and King Salmon (unclear) Alaska Peninsula of the Becharof Refuge when they combined those refuges; and his last name I can't recall.
Norman Olson:
We will remember it later.
Paul Schmidt:
I hope we do. I ended up being his supervisor when I became the refuge supervisor obviously, an interesting experience. I'm glad you remember that.
Norman Olson:
I don't imagine you got a chance in the three months to get out of the office very much.
Paul Schmidt:
I didn't, I didn't much at the beginning that's for sure. We arrived in March of '86, and so weather in Alaska in March is not particularly great. I thought, you know, I'm coming there kind of very green in terms of understanding Alaska environment and culture and the whole thing, but the first couple of months I think mostly, was around Anchorage. One of my first trips, and I think it might have been my first trip, was that spring when we went to the Nunivak Island to present the draft of the Comprehensive Conservation Plan.
Norman Olson:
Yes, if I remember correctly, that was in 1987; it would have been probably the beginning of 1987, because I remember there was snow when we there, so it probably was that late winter or early spring.
7
Paul Schmidt:
And I was so ill prepared for that trip I can tell you! I thought spring meant spring and spring does not mean the same thing on Nunivak Island! You can't look at the calendar and determine that spring is here, based upon Nunivak.
Norman Olson:
So once you became, was Joe actually your boss as resource support as well as when you became the refuge supervisor?
Paul Schmidt:
Yes, exactly. All of the various supervisory positions were worked through Joe; Joe, who was the deputy to John P. Rogers, and Joe supervised refuge support along with Clay Hardy in the Division of Planning, and then of course the two refuge supervisors would have been John Kurtz and Bob Delaney at that time and Realty as well. That would have been the realty chief before Sharon Janis arrived.
Norman Olson:
Mattice, Bill Mattice.
Paul Schmidt:
That's right, Bill Mattice, oh, my gosh, yes, that's right, Bill Mattice was there. And so I think he supervised probably six or eight people in total. The Refuge and Wildlife, of course, was by the far the largest part of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, with all of the huge refuge presence that was our there across the landscape, and then just the Realty program functions associated with that and all that went with that huge amount of land.
Norman Olson:
What were the refuges that you supervised as refuge supervisor?
Paul Schmidt:
Initially we split the state in half, and that came to change over time because we did combine it after a couple of years. So I became the refuge supervisor in late 1986, I believe, and then for the next couple of years. The first couple of years it was the southern refuges, so it was Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska Peninsula Becharof, Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. So it was sort of the coastal and southern refuges, and of course the Alaska Maritime stretches from southeast Alaska all the way up north to northwest Alaska, and so it's really a huge coastal presence in that refuge, and spread out for hundreds if not thousands of miles, I suppose. And Kenai, I mentioned Kenai first and Kodiak, I may not have mentioned Kodiak, but certainly it was. The issues that I dealt with in the first couple of years really were focused on all of those refuges, but particularly we had issues at Kenai Refuge, Alaska Maritime a bit as well, and the Yukon Delta all ended up taking quite a bit of time in the first couple of years because of different, but sort of, critical issues. I can remember, for instance, the development of the Tiglax, the huge investment in a brand new research vessel that we 8
were going to have. It turned out it wasn't delivered for a couple more years, but it was all in the design and how we would use this vessel and the work planning associated with this one-of-a-kind facility for the Alaskan Maritime Refuge. In the case of the Kenai Refuge, the issues were public use and how we would manage public use in the new environment that we were transitioning to, because I think the days of the 1960s and '70s in terms of how we would manage these properties was changing. Heretofore, it had been sort of a hands-off kind of a management scenario, but as we had built up a presence in the state and that staff had been hired in all of these refuges, and not just the refuge manager but now they had full-blown biologists and they had planning expertise, they had fisheries expertise, they had, of course, maintenance workers and the like. We began to really be managers of the property, and with management comes controversy, particularly, when it coincides with uses, public uses and other uses, and Kenai was certainly a focal point for that, with the growing concerns about the use of the Russian River and the fishery resource that runs through that refuge. We had huge issues between their biologists when it came to managing for mammals as well; I mean things like fur bears, moose, and caribou; how we would manage the hunting programs and the trapping programs. And so that refuge became sort of a lightning rod for issues that were sort of an indication of things to come. The conflicts always seemed to show up at Kenai first, and it was only a sort of forewarning of the kinds of conflicts that would occur at other places as we, as the service built our presence and our management goals and objectives in a way that might be not totally in sync with other people or the ruminations.
Norman Olson:
Kenai was unique too in that it was the one Alaskan refuge that was clearly most like a lower 48 refuge because it was road-accessible when you mentioned the public use, because it was the one place people could drive to in a day or an afternoon from Anchorage and fish or hunt or whatever it was.
Paul Schmidt:
Absolutely it was, if we’re going to visit Alaska or even if you were a resident of Alaska, you at some time went to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, even if you didn't know you went to the Kenai, because you might be going there just to catch a King Salmon on the Kenai River and had no idea that it was a refuge, or you might want to backpack on the refuge or get to one of the wilderness cabins that were out there, and you might know more that you were on a national wildlife refuge. But it certainly was Anchorage's playground, if you will, in terms of hunting, fishing, and just general recreation. And with that, comes all of the challenges confronting people; people management and people resource management issues, and so it was the one refuge that was most like the lower 48 as you say; I think you are right, you are dead on.
Norman Olson:
And Kenai was also unique in that it was the first Comprehensive Conservation Plan that was completed. And so when you were involved, it was at a point where we were implementing basically that new plan, not a lot of which, you know, some people, including the state appreciated.
9
Paul Schmidt:
That's exactly right, and I think that was when we finally put down on paper, and the CCPs were a chance to put down on paper, what actually was t
A Low Input, Sustainable Production System for Fresh Market Tomatoes
No full textRevised! ENY-678, a 6-page illustrated fact sheet by Jim Rich, Fred Rhoads and Steve Olson, describes a system using disease resistant plant cultivars and sod-based rotation systems to replace or augment chemical alternatives to methyl bromide. Includes references. Published by the UF Department of Entomology and Nematology, May 2008
Dr. Donald Olson Interview 09
No full textA vineyard worker tends to young vines at Torii Mor Winery in Dundee, Oregon. This image was taken during an oral history interview with Dr. Donald Olson on August 7, 2017. Olson was interviewed by Linfield College archivist Rich Schmidt. Also in attendance were Donna Jean McDaniel, Jim McDaniel, and Linfield College Archives staff Stephanie Hofmann.
Dr. Donald Olson is the owner of Torii Mor Winery in Dundee, Oregon. Utilizing grapes from a vineyard that was originally planted in 1972, Torii Mor focuses on Old World style Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay.https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/owha_willamette_ohphotos/1489/thumbnail.jp
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