00:00:00LB: Today is Thursday, February 21 and this is Lauren Benditt of the University
of Wisconsin Oral History Program, and I will be interviewing Andy Baker for the
second time about his experiences at the Forest Products Lab.
AB: I thought of a few things and I wrote them down. So--
LB: Okay, well, we can just go in order of what you have.
AB: Okay sure. Do you know how, why or, or how the FPL got here?
LB: Oh no.
AB: No, 1910, University of Wisconsin made the best offer to the USDA. And the
best offer was a building, with heat and electricity. Do you know where the
building was?
LB: No.
AB: Do you know where mechanical engineering is?
LB: Yes.
AB: It's the one closest to the railroad track.
LB: Okay.
AB: It used to be, I forget now, for minerals and about 20 years ago the
00:01:00University was giving the Laboratory 1500 dollars a year from 1910 until about
20 years ago. And then the Lab decided that they should give that back to the
university so it goes to the, the Forestry Department now, for one of the
students there maybe. So, [pause] when I came here there was four 450 people at
the Laboratory. And the big buildings of the north weren't there yet.
LB: And what year was that?
AB: Nineteen fifty-six, 450 people in less space than we have now. And during
00:02:00World War II there was 800 people here. Not all on site, some places they rented
buildings. And now I think there's 200 or less. And another thing we, talking
about ethanol fuel, in 1916 at the Dane County Fair the Laboratory had a tractor
out there running on alcohol made from wood.
LB: What year was that?
AB: 1916.
LB: Wow.
AB: Well I think that it's, it's important that the, they write something about
the cooperation between the Lab and the university, And I was in the wood
chemistry division and in that division there was usually a couple or more
students who were getting a masters degree or a doctorate degree in chemistry or
chemical engineering. And we would have some project that we wanted to do and
something that would maybe take maybe two or three years, and so we'd contact
chemical engineering or chemistry and tie in with a professor. And they would
00:03:00have laboratory space here to do their work, and the professor would be the one
who would take care of the student, but when they were over here we did that on
a daily basis. And I know I had two Chem. E students getting PhDs and three
mechanical engineers and two dairy science students and one Ag. engineering. And
they would, except for mechanical engineering, they would work over here. And in
mechanical engineering we had the equipment over there and so I would see them,
well some of them, every day and some of them once a week. And that worked out
00:04:00pretty good.
LB: Did they work on projects for the Lab?
AB: Yes, and something that we wanted done and it always worked out pretty good.
Students liked it here I think and they had some space, they had an office and a
desk and a lab space. And they had the library here, lots of things you wouldn't
get at the university. And you'd have somebody around all the time that you
could talk to. [Pause] My best office when I was here, down where the pulp and
paper building is now on the north side, in the middle '30s, in the depression
00:05:00era, the Laboratory started (to develop), ways to build low cost housing. And
they built two buildings there, houses, and one of them was a two-story house
that had three bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom and a downstairs with normal
things. But one of the offices upstairs had a French door that was from floor to
almost ceiling. And on one side was a big window, and I had my office there. And
in the summertime of course there was no air conditioning in those days and you
could open that door and the window and you had a nice breeze, it was really a
nice place.
LB: Yeah.
AB: And we were out of the way from everybody else. And it was quiet, and it was
00:06:00the best space I had. I had one like this upstairs on third floor. [Pause] Well
the house was built here and President Roosevelt's wife came and visited and she
looked through the houses and that was quite a thing for the Laboratory to have,
have the President's wife come here. [Pause] And those buildings are, when we
built a new buildings out there they had dismantle the two story house, but the
one story house was moved, to over where the parking lot is now. And it was for
00:07:00daycare, I think, University and hospital people to bring their children there,
and it was a nice space.
AB: And while I was here I had quite a bit of travel to various countries and
usually it was, I would get my way paid for (by various agencies and technical
meeting programs) to go to a meeting. Well we worked for the USAID and IEA is
International Energy Association, and the state of Michigan. And I traveled to
00:08:00Australia and New Guinea, Philippines, Japan, England, France, Germany and the
Scandinavians: Norway, Sweden and Finland, and Brazil. So those were quite nice
trips all the time, usually take an extra week and spend--my wife would travel
with me.
LB: All for meetings?
AB: Yes. I think the Laboratory only paid for one trip and that was for a, a
busin--see there's international forest products association, I forget the name
00:09:00of it now, but they had their 100th anniversary and that was in Germany and in
France. [Pause] And I think that's all I have down here. Yes it is. Any questions?
LB: You know I think that you answered all of our questions last time around.
AB: FPL and the university and the students is quite important. And quite a few
00:10:00of those students went into the wood industry. Either chemical engineers or
chemistry, and of course there's other groups here that worked directly with
wood. Those (students) had chance to get into the forest products industry too.
LB: Do you keep in touch with any of them?
AB: Not now. No. No when I left here, I didn't want to do things like that. Fact
I haven't used a computer since then, my wife does but if I want anything done I
have her do it. So well that was real quick and that's about what I had in mind.
