College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science

Joe Kovach – 1987 (MS)

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The School of Forest Resources is saddened to learn of the recent passing of our alumnus  Joe Kovach (1958 – 2011)

This obituary and picture was published in the Wausau Daily Herald on November 1, 2011

Joseph A. Kovach

Joseph A. Kovach, 53, Wausau, died Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011, at Aspirus Hospice House in Wausau.

He was born Jan. 19, 1958, in Livorno, Italy, to Alexander and Virginia (Beatty) Kovach. Joseph’s father was a military man and, therefore, Joseph was able to travel the world as an army child. He was a graduate of both Penn State University(undergrad) and Michigan Tech where he completed his masters.

Joseph was married and divorced. He spent much time in Ecuador. He first went there as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1981 to 1983. He enjoyed it so much he later returned to work there as a forester for Baltek Corp. for eight years. It was at this time that he met and married the mother of his two children. They later settled in Wausau. Joseph worked in the Forestry Division for the DNR for 18 years as a forest ecologist and silviculturist.

He is survived by his mother, Virginia (Beatty) Kovach, Roy, Utah; son, Jesse Kovach, Wausau; daughter, Alexis Kovach, Madison; sisters, Judith Kovach, Wausau, and Kitty Kovach, Roy, Utah; nephew, David Kovach; and other loving family and friends.

Service with visitation will be from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011, at John J. Buettgen Funeral Home, Schofield.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Society of American Foresters and the Foresters Fund.

John J. Buettgen Funeral Home is assisting the family.

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FISTA Basic Chainsaw Safety Training

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Forest Industry Safety Training Alliance (FISTA) trainer Lee Schaumann, assisted by Jim Schmierer conducted a Level 1 Basic Chainsaw Safety training at the Ford Center facility at Alberta, 9 miles south of L’Anse, MI for Michigan Tech students and staff on Saturday, 11/12/11.  Participants learned about personal protective equipment, chainsaw maintenance, hazard awareness, safe chainsaw operation, proper notching, bore cutting, and tree felling techniques.   The afternoon was spent practicing what was learned in the field in the adjacent Research Forest.  Another training is planned for Spring semester 2012.

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Jack Pine Thinning in Management Unit 22

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A 70-acre jack pine stand on the Michigan Tech Research Forest in the Baraga Plains that includes direct seeding trials from the 1970s was thinned in 2011 to approximately 300 trees per acre (roughly 12’x12′ spacing) to improve vigor, reduce ladder fuels and fuel loads, and improve quality. The yield was 20 tons per acre on average and included mostly chips with a few loads of pulpwood. Samples were taken pre-treatment to develop nutrient profiles of the stand that can be monitored over time. Several Michigan Tech FERM students and a visiting group from Purdue toured the timber harvesting operation.

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Capstone students complete Ford Forest inventory

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Rebar marking a PSP plot centre on the Ford Forest
Permanent Sample Plot monument for inventory plots on the Ford Forest

This fall, students in FW4810 “Integrated Resources Management” (a.k.a. “capstone”) completed a wall-to-wall inventory on the Alberta and Baraga Plains tracts of the Ford Research Forest. Changes to capstone to emphasize landscape-scale assessments allowed for a unique opportunity to synergize teaching and management on our working forest. The data from the inventory will form the foundation of capstone management projects during the fall semester.

Faculty members Robert Froese and Mike Falkowski designed the inventory, and a total of 356 permanently monumented field plot centres were installed by graduate student Tim Gebuhr during August. A high-precision GPS coordinate was collected for each plot center, so the data from the inventory are also available for research applications that demand high-accuracy spatial referencing, such as remote sensing based models of forest inventory. Examples of such applications are the new Forest Biomass Information System for Michigan (http://fbis.mtu.edu).

For more information, contact Dr. Robert Froese, Director of Reserch Forests, at froese@mtu.edu.

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BRC Travel Grants Annouced

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The Biotechnology Research Center has announced the recipients of its fall travel grants:

  • Graduate student Tayloria Adams (ChE): $500 toward a poster presentation at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting held in Minneapolis, in October.

  • Graduate student Aytug Gencoglu (ChE): $500 toward a podium presentation at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting held in Minneapolis, in October.

  • Graduate student Seyyed Hessam Mir Shah Ghassemi (ME-EM): $500 toward a podium presentation at the Electrochemistry 2011 meeting held Boston, in October.

  • Undergraduate student Hallie Holmes (Biomedical Engineering): $500 toward a podium presentation at the Biomedical Engineering Society annual meeting held Hartford, Conn., in October.

  • Graduate student Beini Jiang (MATH): $500 toward a poster presentation at the WORLDCOMP ’11 Meeting held in Las Vegas, in July.

  • Graduate student Robert Larson (KIP): $500 toward a poster presentation at the Experimental Biology 2011 Conference held in Washington, DC, in April.

  • Graduate student Kaela Leonard (ChE): $500 toward a podium presentation at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting held in Minneapolis, in October

  • Graduate student Saikat Mukhopadhay (Physics): $500 toward a poster presentation at the International Conference on Theoretical and Applied Physics to be held in Kolkata, India, in December.

  • Graduate student Haley Rupp (SFRES): $500 toward a poster presentation at the WoW 2011 Symposium held in Vancouver, British Columbia, in June.

  • Graduate student Alicia Sawdon (ChE): $500 toward a podium presentation at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting held in Minneapolis, in October.

  • Graduate student Christopher Schwartz (KIP): $500 toward a poster presentation at the Experimental Biology 2011 Conference held in Washington, DC, in April.

  • Graduate student Katherine Snyder (Biomedical Engineering): $500 toward a poster presentation at the ORS 2011 annual meeting held in Long Beach, Calif., in January.

  • Graduate student Chungja Yang (ChE): $250 toward a poster presentation at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting held in Minneapolis, in October.

  • Graduate student Huan Yang (KIP): $500 toward a poster presentation at the Experimental Biology 2011 conference held in Washington, DC, in April.
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