Pete visited the School in June 2011. After graduation in 1969, he had a great career with the Forest Service for 40 years. Pete currently lives in Prineville, Oregon.
Richard (Rick) Judd visited all the way from San Antonio, Florida in June to “check out all the changes” at Michigan Tech and the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science.
Rick was joined by his wife Karilyn. Rick says, “My lovely wife of 45 years was the one who put me through college and is responsible for me graduating from Michigan Tech in 1969.”
Great piece on the summer/fall camps in the Fall 2009 issue of the FRES newsletter. I read it with a constant grin on my face remembering the summer of 1968 when I attended camp. I just missed the Alberta experience as it was held on campus that year.
Many of our classes were held in the old Hubbell building. And yes, we had Gene Hesterberg, Bob Sajdak, Mike Coffman, Norm Sloan, Hammer Steinhilb and others as instructors and Glenn Mroz drove the bus. You’ve come a long way, Glenn! We also had a couple of women at our camp. It took Summer Camp for one of them to realize she was claustrophobic when she went in the bush. She switched to biology the very next term .
That camp produced some of the very best times I had while at Tech. I learned more doing those “hands-on” exercises than I would have spending twice the number of hours in a classroom. The experience of the instructors was invaluable and served me well throughout my entire forestry career. I had occasion to work with people who had graduated from other forestry schools that didn’t have a camp and I can tell you that their lack of practical knowledge was very obvious. I had to actually teach a couple of them how to run a compass!!
I can still hear Vern Johnson speaking that famous phrase “C’est la vie” although he pronounced it “Sell a vee” which gave rise to the phrase coined by the students “If you can’t sell a W, sell a V”. Thanks much for including that piece in the newsletter.
Tom Stone was at the School in April conducting the Tree Farm Inspection Training. Tom is retired from the Michigan DNR and lives in Indian River, Michigan.