Combined faculties of the Colleges of Forestry and Business got a close-up look at a leading American forest products company in a September tour of Willamette Industries’ woods and mill operations. One goal of the tour, says Jim James, general manager of the company’s Oregon timber and logging operations, was to give OSU professors a glimpse of how Willamette uses sustainability concepts in its operations. “A high percentage of Willamette foresters are OSU graduates,” says James, a 1970 graduate of the College. “It’s fun to reconnect with professors, talk about real-world issues, and show them the results of their efforts.”

      The tour was the first fruit of an invitation to Dean Hal Salwasser from the College of Business faculty to share a pizza and explore potential opportunities to collaborate, says Steve Lawton, professor in the College of Business. “It immediately became clear that the business faculty needed to see firsthand the entire spectrum of forestry before we could explore collaborative efforts. So another goal of the tour was for us to learn about the entire value-added chain, from the forest floor to the retail floor.”
      About 80 OSU faculty and WI employees toured forest management operations on the company’s lands west of Dallas, Ore, and then were guided

through Willamette’s state-of-the-art Dallas sawmill.
      Over dinner, Willamette’s CEO, Duane McDougall, a 1974 graduate of the OSU College of Business, spoke of the need for OSU to develop complementary OSU business and forestry programs to meet the needs of an industry that must compete in global marketplaces and remain leaders in sustainable forestry, employee relations, community relations, and environmental performance.
       Participants discussed such ideas as joint Forestry-Business degree and certificate programs, new research cooperatives, and professional development short courses that would bring forestry and business closer together around concepts and practices of sustainability.
       “This was one step toward our goal to increase our relevance to those we serve,” says Dean Hal Salwasser, who was along on the tour. “There is no substitute for seeing firsthand how our clients use the results of our teaching, research, and service.”

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