Interview with Susan LeVan

EJ: Hi there, I'm Ellen Jacks. It is Thursday, September 18. I'm here with Sue LeVan at the, um, we are doing an interview with the UW-Oral History Program on the Forest Products Lab's centennial celebration for 2010. So Ms. LeVan, what, if anything, in your early years prepared you to work with or for the Forest Products Lab?

SL: I burned my crib down when I was about two years old (Laughs). I'll have to explain that, um, when I started working for the Forest Products Laboratory, I worked in fire research. And so that's always the joke that I indicate is that, you know, my mother always knew that I was going to be kind of a pyromaniac because of a, of burning my crib down when I was two.

EJ: Is there a story behind burning your crib down?

SL: Well we were, my family was, my dad was in the military and so we were in England and we lived in a big old rectory three hundred year-old house, which was divided in to two and I was in like a powder room or a closet. And my mom 00:01:00had previously had the electrician undo the electrical outlets, but unknown, unbeknownst to her, an electrician came in and re-hooked it up and I would take my blanket and stick it in the socket. And so, I stuck my blanket into the socket and started my wooden crib smoldering. And when my mother came in, because she smelled smoke, I said I didn't do it! I didn't do it! And so, my mother always accuses me of all that wood smoke at the beginning started my career off in fire research at the Forest Products Laboratory.

EJ: Well, that's a great story. So you said you moved around a lot growing up?

SL: Yes, I was an army brat so I lived in a lot of different locations: England, Great Lakes, several places in California, we lived in Georgia, and places that 00:02:00I don't remember because I was too little.

EJ: Sure. So, did you graduate from a particular high school? Were you able to stay long enough anywhere?

SL: I graduated high school in Virginia and went to the University of Virginia and got an Engineering degree. And then I came here to the University of Wisconsin and got a Bachelor's of Science in Chemical Engineering and then I got my Masters here in Chemical Engineering. So it was that Chemical Engineering background that helped me in fire research because you do a lot of what we call mass and heat transport.

EJ: What years were those degrees?

SL: Let's see, I have an undergraduate from UW in 1980 and a graduated at UW in Chemical Engineering in 1992.

EJ: Okay. And so had you, obviously the chemical engineering, like you said, that helped prepare you for your work here, but, had you heard of the Forest Products Lab before you started working here?

SL: Living in Madison, I had heard of the Forest Products Laboratory and I was very much at that time interested in renewable energy. And being a chemical engineer, I preferred working in a renewable energy field than the petroleum industry, which is usually the path most chemical engineers took. So, I was really interested in wood as a renewable energy source. So I was delighted when I was able to come work for the Forest Products Laboratory. And even though I started off in fire research, I circled around and now I spend a lot of my time on wood energy.

EJ: Okay.

SL: As a bio power or bio fuel.

EJ: Great. So what were your first impressions, you know, in those first few 00:04:00days when you started working here? Did you have any?

SL: I was in awe. Being the new kid on the block and I didn't know very much about wood. I came from an engineering background, but I really didn't have any wood and a lot of the scientists here had a wood background. So, I had a lot of learning to do because wood is such a diverse material. So, but it was interesting and it was fun and the scientists here were very, very helpful and they were more than delighted to sit down and I'd say okay, well explain this to me. And they would do that.

EJ: So what were some of the first projects that you worked on?

SL: One of the first projects that I worked on was smoldering combustion. At this time, there were a lot of, basically [ignition of] furniture from 00:05:00cigarettes. And so I developed, I worked on a project modeling that phenomena so, basically, developing mathematical formulas for smoldering combustion. Then once you can model it, then you can predict it. So that was my first project. I wasn't a smoker, but I'd have to take these cigarettes and stick it into insulation material. So it was kind of funny, you know, lighting a cigarette (coughs and laughs), you know and sticking it into these little boxes that were filled with cellulosic insulation and then I would measure with thermal couples at what point the smoldering boundary would reach it. So, it was fun. It was kind of interesting.

EJ: I bet. So was that kind of a typical day, if there is such a thing, where you know your first is you light a cigarette and try to make furniture burn?

SL: (Laughs). That was kind of the beginning, but later on, we got in to some, 00:06:00what we call room burns where we actually had a room where we would put material on the walls and we would have like a waste basket and we would simulate flashover conditions in a room fire. And so these, those experiments they were, they were fun. They were, I mean, not many people get to play with fire, but I got to play with fire. But we would do these flashover experiments and several times we actually had the fire department here to observe because these were controlled fire conditions. And one time, we actually had to do a test on (a) Saturday because we were using polystyrene insulation and it caused great black smoke and stopped traffic up over on the University because that's where the smoke lab, the fire lab was right backed up to University Avenue. So that was kind of interesting. We got some complaints from the neighbors because its very 00:07:00black smoke.

EJ: Oh, I'm sure it's not fun to breathe.

SL: But, we took all the necessary precautions: we had ventilation hoods, we had respirators, if we needed them; we had the fire department there to watch. So those days when we did those fire experiments was very, very fun. But most of my career, I spent working on fire retardant chemicals for wood. And those times you start a typical research project you start with literature review and then we were looking for fire retardants that could be used out of doors, and then we were looking at fire retardants that could be used out of doors that could have a combined preservative in them, we looked at impacts of smoldering, fire retardants on smoldering combustion, and so I spent a lot of my time looking at fire retardant chemicals for wood.

EJ: Okay. And I forgot to ask this earlier, when did you start working here? What year?

SL: I started working here in 1980, December of 1980.

EJ: Okay, so right after you got your undergraduate degree here.

SL: Yes.

EJ: Okay. And did you take time off when you went back to get your graduate degree?

SL: I was working, but they gave me some time to finish my graduate degree. So, probably sometimes I wouldn't work if I had exams, but they were very flexible because they encouraged people to get advanced degrees.

EJ: Great. So do still, do you work with the University at all now? Do you do any joint project?

SL: Not necessarily. Now, I used to be in research and now I'm in a unit called State and Private Forestry and so we do technical, technology transfer. So I 00:09:00work with a lot of companies and businesses and the forest products industry. So I spend a lot of time on the road travelling and helping companies, that they may have a technical problem, they may have a financial problem. We also have a grant, we run a grants program. So I provide a lot of technical and financial assistance and I love it. Its working with, we work with tribes, we work with non-profits, we work with communities, we work with, usually some very small businesses, and it's very rewarding.

EJ: Great. That leads us into another question I was going to ask soon, and so you frequently do travel away from the office with work?

SL: Yes I do.

EJ: What kind of places to you go?

SL: Very remote.

EJ: Okay.

SL: Probably the most remote place that I've been is some places in New Mexico 00:10:00where it would take you four hours to get where you needed to go. I've travelled in blizzards and snow storms and usually, it's in locations where there is forest land, national forest lands, and people that are using, they might have, be a small sawmill, it might be somebody who's interested in putting in a wood pellet plant, it might be somebody who's operating a wood pellet plant. I've gone to various tribal lands that have forest product mills. So, usually very remote locations.

EJ: Okay. Pretty much continental U.S.?

SL: Yes, continental U.S.

EJ: Okay, so you haven't done any international travel or up to Alaska?

SL: I've done some international and I have worked in Alaska. We did, we did, I've been to Alaska about six times where again, it was a situation where the 00:11:00pulp mills were shutting down because the Forest Service was cancelling their fifty year contracts and so they were looking at what they could do with their material. You know here we have, we've got this material, we don't have a pulp mill anymore, what can we use, what can we make, what kind of products can we create with this material? And so, we did several technical assistance visits there, we visited communities and a lot of what it is is look, here's your material, here's your resource you can make product A, B, C, D, E, F, you know, and we'll tell you how to help you do that. So shifting from a pulp-based industry to more of a solid wood products industry. So, Alaska's fairly remote. In fact, there have been some places near Denali, which are probably about four 00:12:00hours from the nearest gas station.

EJ: That must have been fun.

SL: Yeah that was beautiful country. Good salmon, good halibut (laughs).

EJ: Was the food some of your strongest memories?

SL: (Laughs) Sometimes, yes. Particularly in Alaska. You don't get seafood like that.

EJ: Not here in the central. So what, other than the fish in Alaska, what were some of your strongest memories? Do you have any particular really strong memories about some of your travels, things you really liked, or good stories?

SL: Oh yes, we have good stories. I can remember a time, and we were doing a project with the Department of Energy (DOE) where we were citing some bio-max units. And a bio-max unit is a small scale combined heat and power unit. So, it's a small scale gasification unit and it produces a, what we call a producer 00:13:00gas which you can then clean up and put into an engine and so you can create electricity and a byproduct is heat. So we were doing this project with DOE where we were going to site some of these, so we had to do these site visits to see which sites would be useful. So we had these site visits located in New Mexico and every night we were in a different place because I think we had eight sites that we had to visit. And we ended up making a figure eight over all of New Mexico. Landed in Albuquerque at about 6 PM and then we had to drive to a little place called Santa Clare, which is about four hours driving, but my suitcase didn't make it. And then next time my suitcase came in would have been 11 o'clock. And because I was in a different location, remote location, I had to wait for my suitcase. Somebody else was travelling with me, so there was 00:14:00somebody there with me, but the suitcase came in by about 11:30 and by the time we got in the car and were heading to the next destination, it's dark, you know, its night, and there was a point in time where we thought we were going to run out of gas and we had to stop at about 2:00 AM in the morning at this little one pump gas station and wake the guy up so we could get some gas. Then we got to our hotel where we had reservations at about, oh about 3:30 in the morning, had to wake the guy up to let us in, and when (we) got to the room, my bill was already under the door, because it was confirmed reservations. And then at about 6:30 in the morning, I woke up to this sound, I thought it was the telephone, and I kept going hello, hello and it wasn't there. Finally, discovered it was the fire alarm and we had to leave our rooms and so that was a night that we did 00:15:00not get much sleep. And we had our first meeting at about 7:30 in the morning and that was, I look back now and you know, laugh; it was an interesting time, but (laughs).

EJ: I bet. So, was that, you talked about several projects that you worked on, smoldering combustion, room burn, then fire retardant chemicals, and now you're doing the State and Private Forestry. Is there any one project or a number them that gives you the most satisfaction?

SL: Well, I think one of the things that gives me the most satisfaction is working with these small mills. Mostly these are, I mean they are very small businesses--they are lucky if they have ten to twelve employees. They are 00:16:00usually in an area that's remote and they might have been in the forest products industry a long and because the timber is changing in size, they need to modify their sawmills or their procedures and it is very gratifying to work with them. They are so thankful of any help, they are so used to somebody, you know, if they call a consultant, they don't have enough money to pay a consultant. And so many cases, the work the we do, we are providing consulting services, which is what the U.S. Department of Agriculture was set up for, to these small businesses and farmers free of charge. And that's very gratifying to see some of the things that have come out of it. I started work with this one company and it was basically the town was dying; I mean it was drying up because the big mills had left and so they were losing their schools, they were losing their health 00:17:00facilities and they knew that they needed to create employment in this town. And so that they knew that there was thinning work, this was in California, they knew that there was thinning work that they could do. In other words, to reduce the fire hazard, you have to cut out the small trees so that you don't get ladder fuels that get in to the crown of the trees. And so we worked with them, probably been working with them since about 1992 and today, they probably started with two employees, now they're up to about thirty-five employees and they make specialty products for Whole Foods, they use thinning material, they're very green and very environmentally friendly technology and that's been a real success to watch how that has progressed. They make some beautiful flooring and some furniture, some high-end products, but the most important 00:18:00thing was when the schools were able to hire back the teachers so that the town could then have their teachers and their doctors start coming back. So, yeah, it's a little town in Hayfork, California.

EJ: Hayfork?

SL: Hayfork, California

EJ: That's great. So then conversely, was there a particular job or project that, let's say, spawned a lot of challenges or most challenges or concerns?

SL: (Pause) There, when a company doesn't survive, when we provide a lot of assistance and they go under anyway, not because of the work your provided or their products that they're producing, sometimes its just because they are not 00:19:00in the right place at the right time; they may have, there may be some business problems associated with the running of the company--because we just provide technical, we don't do the business side of it. And in many cases a lot of these businesses, these, they need good business skills: accounting, bookkeeping, cash flow management. And it's really disheartening when you know their hearts are in the right place, but they don't really have the right skills and that's kind of frustrating because you spend a lot of time and emotionally, energy, invested in these groups.

EJ: Yeah. Okay, and so when you do one of these consulting jobs, does the state pay for them, and you said you provide these small companies free of charge, essentially, so how are the funded? Are the funded through the Department of Agriculture?

SL: Well I'm funded through the Department of the, through the Forest Service. But there is a Forest Service benefit because when you do forest management--because a lot of these communities are situated right next to a national forest--and so to do forest management, you have to have outlets for the material. Because a forest in many ways is sometimes like a garden, you have to do thinning, you might have insects and disease in there that you might remove those trees, you might have wind damage like from catastrophic, like from Katrina, where you have catastrophic damage and you have to remove those materials, particularly in the arid west because you don't want this dead dry material to accumulate because it contributes to a fire hazard. So do that, to remove that material, you need somebody to take it because you just don't want to leave it standing, you want to remove it for forest health reasons. And so 00:21:00you need somebody that will take that material and utilize it because that's the most cost effective way. So a lot of these communities, they may be the only place in town that will take some of this thinning material. And so it benefits the Forest Service by providing this kind of technical and financial assistance to allow these businesses to be able to utilize the material. Because I can give you a good example, the Forest Service does some thinning operations and if they just pile and burn that material, it might cost them fifty dollars a pile and also contribute to global climate conditions, but if you can take that material and then you can say, somebody's willing, in the community, to take it and chip it and grind it and maybe put it into, make wood pellets that can then be burned 00:22:00in a controlled in environment with very little emissions, that's a benefit to the environment, but that's also beneficial to the Forest Service because now you don't have a pile that could eventually contribute to a catastrophic fire. So that's kind of the symbiotic relationship between the Forest Service and these small wood products companies. So that's why there's a benefit to the Forest Service with the work that I do.

EJ: So do you feel, how do you feel about working for an agency that's part of the Forest Service?

SL: I love it.

EJ: You love it?

SL: I love it. Most people in the Forest Service are extremely environmentalists, they wanted to work in the woods because they love trees and they love being outdoors. And so there's a real commitment in the Forest Service to protecting forest lands. And that always fit with my philosophy of wanting to 00:23:00use a renewable resource and loving the forest and I like to do a lot of hiking and things like that.

EJ: Okay. So did you always have a positive impression of the Forest Service, even before you started working for the Lab?

SL: Oh yeah. I remember, you are probably too young for this, but the days of Lassie and Lassie's father worked for the Forest Service (laughs). I always had a positive image of the Forest Service and then I did a lot of camping in Forest Service campgrounds and I loved the Forest Service, so it was, I felt it was quite an honor to start working for the Forest Service.

EJ: Okay, so it's probably safe to say that your impressions haven't changed over time, they've kind of stayed as a good impression of the Forest Service?

SL: Yeah. When I started working at the Forest Products Laboratory, I became totally focused on forest products, but I did do some, spent some time in the 00:24:00Washington office and that was a very good experience because it was like taking the blinders off: all of a sudden I became aware of the issues that the Forest Service was facing, so that's when my work switched from primarily focusing on fire research to focusing on how utilization could help manage forest lands.

EJ: Around what year was that?

SL: That was about in 1992, because I was writing my thesis when I was in DC.

EJ: Okay, so that's when you switched over into more of the state and private?

SL: Yeah.

EJ: And have you seen a change in how the Forest Service has been perceived while you've been working here, I mean not necessarily your impressions, but how it's been perceived by your colleagues, or by the public?

SL: The Forest Service or the Forest Products Lab?

EJ: The Forest Service.

SL: The Forest Service. The Forest Service has been perceived as, I have seen a change. Probably in the '80s, there was some bad perceptions about the Forest Service and what they were doing. But since that time, the attitude is changing. I've, environmental groups are now understanding a little bit better why active management is better than no management, when you're concerned with such conditions as water, water quality, wildlife. And so there has been a change. It's not totally, some of the bad things that the Forest Service has done in the 00:26:00past, such as clear cutting, they still haunt the Forest Service even though they do not do clear cutting anymore, but people remember that. It's the case of you do something bad and ninety people remember it, you do something good and maybe sixteen people remember it. You know?

EJ: Mmm hmm, we all know how that goes. So how do you think that perception has affected the Laboratory? Do you think it has?

SL: I think it affected the Laboratory negatively in the '80s and some into the '90s because people, particularly in the agency, felt that utilization was not the way that the Forest Service was going. Than utilization was the old Forest Service where it was cutting, you know, cutting big trees and making products out of it. But the switch has occurred when the agency started realizing that 00:27:00utilization was a critical component of forest management. That if you want to have forest management and you want to pay and you don't want the tax payer to sponsor, to foot the whole bill, by doing the forest management that you need to have done, and then having somebody take that material¬--and basically these are the by-products of forest restoration management, somebody taking that material and utilizing it helps reduce you cost. So that awareness probably came about in, well I know when it came about, starting in 1992 when I was in Washington DC, I was at a meeting and somebody said, Uh, utilization? What does that have anything to do with ecosystem management? And now, woody biomass 00:28:00utilization is one of the major initiatives of the Forest Service because utilization helps us to do the fire, the hazardous fuels reduction, that needs to take place so that we can reduce the cost that tax payers pay to fight fires and the negative environmental consequences when we have all of these wildfires. So it's been in a little over ten, fifteen years, I've seen a complete turn in the agency from thinking that utilization was bad to knowing that utilization is a component of active forest management.

EJ: Okay, so the change has, the perception of the Forest Service, you say fifteen to twenty years ago negatively affected the Lab, but now you are seeing since the change within the Forest Service into understanding more about the need for utilization, the positive sides of utilization, you think that then is affecting the Lab in a more positive manner now?

SL: Yes it's affecting the Lab in a more positive way. It's, because we, a lot people, we get calls from the forest, I put up this timber sale and nobody's buying it, and because they're small trees. You know it's like nobody knows what to do with it. So that's when we had to set in and had to show people what they could do with small diameter and woody biomass and provide some ideas about what they could do. Because they were so geared into the mentality of, well, I can't do anything unless it's a sixteen inch diameter tree and that's not necessarily true; you just have to use new technologies to use those smaller trees. So that was a definite change and we had to go, we did at one time, we did a lot of these regional visits and I think we visited every region. At the request of the regional forester, we would go around and we would talk to these communities and we'd say, okay, this is what you can do, this what you have, this is how you have to do it and this is how you have to use it, so it was probably about five 00:30:00years, six years, of kind of educating that there was an alternative. You just didn't need, you didn't have to have big saw logs. You could use the byproducts of forest restoration management and create businesses.

EJ: Okay. And how often now do you go on those outreach--?

SL: Yeah, I call them technical assistance visits.

EJ: Thank you.

SL: And oh, we probably do one, we're probably doing a technical assistance visit with the people in my unit, probably about, at least once or twice a month. It may not be me; it may be somebody else in my unit, but we probably do average about two a week--I mean two a month.

EJ: Okay, well about two a month. About how many people are in you unit?

SL: I have five permanent employees, one volunteer, and one contract person.

EJ: Okay. And overall, do you feel like you've always gotten along with everyone? How has the dynamic been at the Lab in general?

SL: Oh yeah, this is, the Forest Products Laboratory is in many ways, is like a family. You know you tend to know everybody, everybody's friendly, we have a lot of social events together, we probably have less social events than when I first started and that was probably because we are the same age and we had young kids and we'd have picnics. And now as you get older your lives tend to go separate ways, but its always been very much of a family mentality.

EJ: And are there any particular colleagues or FPL, Forest Products Lab, 00:32:00liaisons about whom you hold real strong memories or good stories?

SL: Well there was one, Tom Hamilton, he was one of our directors and we were in Washington, DC together and we use to pull practical jokes on each other and that was the fun part of it. Most of the memories I have are the fun part, you know, the fun-time memories.

EJ: Good, good

SL: There was, oh we, I remember one time we were doing one of these regional visits and after hours, you know, we were at a bar and it was, we were in Coeur d'Alene (ID) and we were, you could get tastes of various beers, it was like a 00:33:00microbrewery. And so I was complaining, oh one beer is all alike, you can't tell the difference. And they said no, I bet you can, I bet you can. So what we did was we blindfolded each other and then we gave them beers and said okay, which one is this one, which one is this one, which one is that one. And so, one of the colleagues, we blindfolded him and there was wheat beer. None of us liked the wheat beer, because it's kind of weak, and we took water and we put the water instead of the wheat beer. And he says, Ughh, this is really weak. We just had a lot of fun. That was Tom Hamilton, and Ted Wagner, and Rusty Dram and myself. We had a lot of fun and a lot of memories from some of those regional trips that we did, the after hours, worked hard, played hard was kind of our motto.

EJ: That's a good motto. I like that one. Yeah, that's what I've heard from pretty much everybody, you know, everyone just got along, all good social events may be diminishing, but you know, also everyone seems to enjoy the practical jokes.

SL: (Laughs) Yes!

EJ: I think that's wonderful. How many other female scientists are there?

SL: Let's see, female scientists, well there's one, well there's quite a few female scientists, one, there's probably between five and ten, I mean actual scientists. No, there's more, there's more than that. I couldn't tell you, but I was the first female project leader, I was the first female assistant director 00:35:00and when I started I was one of about four female engineers, so I've done some trailblazing along the way.

EJ: Did you find that was difficult to kind of break through to become an assistant director? Did you feel that you had to overcome any other, I don't know, being a woman, did you feel like you had overcome anything more than some of the men that maybe got promoted?

SL: Yeah. I was, when I graduated with my first engineering degree I was the only woman in the engineering class and yeah, you had to work harder. You had to, you couldn't, I mean because you were in the spotlight, you had to perform at a higher level. And I think that was experienced. But then, part of my nature is, my kids call me a workaholic, and so that did me here, I could as hard as I 00:36:00wanted; I could work my normal pace (Laughs). And so that did me well. I wasn't that I, it was just kind of natural. Of course my mother called me a workaholic too, when I was growing up, but. So, it, that workaholic helped me, I think.

EJ: When did you become assistant director?

SL: I became assistant director, I think it was in 1992 after I came back from my Washington office experience.

EJ: Okay. And was that, was that part of the State and Private Forestry?

SL: No, that was part of research. That was, I was the assistant director for Wood Products Research. And then, that was in, in 1998, I was doing the technical assistance, I was doing more and more and more of that and that is was 00:37:00I really liked, was doing the outreach. So, I switched over to State and Private Forestry.

EJ: Okay, around 1998?

SL: Yea, about 1998.

EJ: So you've been kind of in the same division for about ten years now?

SL: Yes.

EJ: And are you, did you say you are the project leader of that division?

SL: We call it program manager, but yeah.

EJ: Program manager? Okay. People have used different terms.

SL: Yeah, program manager is, that's the title of the position, but it's equivalent to a project leader.

EJ; Okay, okay. And, let me think, I don't think I need to talk to about retirement yet, huh? (both laugh).

SL: Well, my husband is retired and there are some days when I envy him.

EJ: Yeah? Do you have any plans to retire soon then, or just with the workaholic 00:38:00nature are you just--?

SL: I will probably retire, you know, my, in three, four, five years, something like that. No it's not three, it's really four, four or five years. I' m thinking about retirement, but you know, as the closer is gets, I always push it out of here. But I want to make sure that when I do retire, I have things to do.

EJ: Yeah, would you stay on as a consultant or a contract worker after you retire?

SL: I've thought about that. I've thought about doing, because I do manage a grants program, I've thought about being a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). When we do have these disasters, FEMA likes to hire previous federal employees, particularly that have that grants, to go down and help communities. And that's kind of, you can do it when you want, you can say no, but you are on their list and I've thought about doing that.

EJ: Okay.

SL: I've thought about teaching math at a community college or local high school 00:39:00being a math tutor. Math always came easy to me, well being a physics major, probably you too, and but, some girls just struggle with it. My daughter struggled with math. And it's like a language and I think in many cases you have to approach them that it's a language and because they go well I don't understand why and it's just like, it's like rules, it's like cooking, you know, so much of this, so much of this, so much of this, it's kind of just, you just follow the rule book. And so I think that girls need to be taught math differently than boys.

EJ: Yeah, I've tutored a lot of girls in math myself, I understand (both laugh).

SL: Well is X plus B? Why do they call it X? Why isn't it Y? Well it could be Y, 00:40:00you know.

EJ: Change the letters. That's what I always said, what letters do you prefer?

SL: Yep, so but they just don't' understand why.

EJ: I always found it was nice and satisfying, though, when you got through to them.

SL: Oh yeah, yeah.

EJ: Yeah. So, do you feel like you've left your mark on the Lab, or the Forest Service and beyond with the work that you've done?

SL: I think so. You know, that's, if I can say anything when I die, is I made a difference.

EJ: What do you feel most proud of, then?

SL: The work that I do with communities.

EJ: One other thing that I was wondering if you talk a little more about, is your work with getting grants, what does that entail?

SL: Oh, well I manage a grant program. So basically, I'm given a certain pot of money and then I have to run a competitive program to award these grants. And so each year, we probably get about one hundred applications. Then we go through one screening and then we ask maybe about fifty percent of them to submit a longer application and then we look at things like impact on the national forest system, dollars saved to the national forest system, impact on air and water quality, technical feasibility, financial where with all of the business to manage a grant, because they have to be very accountable to manage these dollars, and then the qualifications. Those are kind of the criteria that we use to evaluate the grants. And it's a competitive process, people are ranked and scored and the top ones get grant money. And then they have to provide 00:42:00information. I have to track how many green tons of material are removed from nation forest system lands and dollar cost saving to the Forest Service. I then have to compile and then I have to send that in a report to the chief. So there's a lot of bookkeeping work that goes on after the grants. Right now we have about eighty-six grantees that were monitoring.

EJ: What kind of projects do the grants usually get awarded for?

SL: Oh, some really interesting projects. There was one project that we did in New Mexico and basically, this project in New Mexico was the workman's compensation was so high in New Mexico that that becomes, you know, prohibitive costs. So we gave a grant to a non-profit in New Mexico, the Forest Guild, to institute a workers safety training, because these are wood workers who are 00:43:00operating chain saws, trees fall, and if you can give then some safety training courses, you can reduce their risk. And so, we were able to, with this grant program, now the people in New Mexico ran that, but we gave them the money, but they were able to reduce their dollars from about a hundred dollars per, you know from about seventy-four dollars per one hundred dollar of cost to about thirty-four dollars per hundred. So that was a significant savings and that had a lot of impact and the program was so successful that the New Mexico state legislature decided that they were going to continue this workers safety training courses and certification courses. And so that one was a very successful project.

EJ: So it started off as this grant project then wound up being funded by the state of New Mexico because it was so successful?

SL: Right, right.

EJ: That's wonderful.

SL: And then another good project was, it was down in Alabama and it's 00:44:00(Cofiring?) with coal. And if you add certain percentage, use just a small percentage of wood, to coal fired plants, one you can reduce the NOx's (Nitrogen Oxide?), the SOx's (Sulfur Oxide?), and in some cases the mercury. But the material handling systems can get complicated because woodchips are not, you know, pulverized coal. And so there was some testing that was done in Alabama to Cofire with [wood], and the [Alabama Power Company]. And so they are able to run ten percent wood with their coal and reduce their emissions significantly, reduce their cost too, but it also becomes an outlet for a lot of the material that's blown down in the hurricanes, so you can grind it up and you can Cofire 00:45:00with coal and that basically offsets, now you are offsetting some of your fossil fuels. So that's another successful project.

SL: Some smaller projects, for example, was a couple that does some forest management down in, again New Mexico and they bought a, basically a Feller Buncher to be able to remove these small trees. So instead of hand felling, they are doing mechanized felling now. So that increased their capability of doing these projects. And they had markets for it because they produced shavings for animal bedding so they could use the product, but they needed to be able, they didn't have any loggers down there, so they had to develop their own logging company. And so that was a good project. And then another project was in oh, 00:46:00Arizona has been a very good success story. Do you remember the Rodeo-Chediski Fire a couple of years ago?

EJ: yeah.

SL: Huge areas of Arizona were burned, a lot on the Fort Apache, White Mountain Timber Company. But when we first started working in the White Mountains, there wasn't any industry base, any infrastructure, and over, we probably worked with them for about ten years, but over the ten years, we've been able to provide technical assistance and financial assistance so now that this material that they are doing to hazardous fuel reduction, they're making poles and posts for architectural railings and log buildings, they're making decking material, they've got a treating facility now that they can take it and treat it with a borax kind of solution for out door use. They've got a pellet mill now, they put 00:47:00in a small log sawmill and a molding plant has got a resaw in there to become more efficient and so they're making molding and millwork. And so that is, that is a very successful project, because when we started, there was hardly any infrastructure and now there's a lot more capability to use and produce this material and put people to work, you know, provide jobs.

EJ: That sounds like some good projects. So I'm reaching the end of our questions here, so do you have any other stories or memories of comments about the Lab or anything that you would like to record for posterity?

SL: Well, when I came to the Lab, I was celebrating, we were celebrating our 00:48:00seventy-fifth anniversary and so now we are coming up on our one hundredth anniversary and it's been a pleasure to see the changes and a real honor to work here. And I just hope that the Forest Products Laboratory will continue because our forest resources always changed, we have never, we never solve all the problems because the resource changes. And when the resource changes, you have to adapt and modify processes that you used to use into new processes. And I think that wood being a renewable material is going to be with us and I think that it can provide some of our energy requirements for the future.

EJ: Okay, alright. Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

SL: Alright, it was fun. Reminiscing! (Laughs)

EJ: Yeah, I enjoyed it.