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Robert F. Powers

Emeritus Scientist , USDA-FS PSW Research Station

ROBERT F. POWERS is Emeritus Scientist with the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the USDA Forest Service. His January 2008 retirement as Senior Scientist capped more than 40 years of forest science experience culminating as Program Manager for the Station’s research program “Ecology and Management of Western Forests Dominated by a Mediterranean Climate” located in Redding, California. During that appointment he oversaw the integrated activities of two dozen employees and 7 scientists tackling fields of silviculture, fire and soil science, microbiology, entomology, and climate change research.

Bob’s particular research concerns the fundamental factors affecting forest productivity and how they are influenced by management practices, and he specializes in long-term experiments that get to the underpinnings of sustainable forest productivity. He has authored or coauthored more than 150 scientific and professional publications in that field. He conceived, co founded, and leads the international LTSP program, the world’s largest coordinated effort at determining how disturbances associated with forest harvest affect fundamental forest productivity, and he co-directs the Sierra-Cascade Intensive Forest Management Research Cooperative whose mission is to forge a strong link between research and management of young stands.

Besides his personal research, Bob has over 20 years of editorial experience with international forestry journals and currently is on the editorial staff of the journal Forest Ecology and Management. He has received national awards for silvicultural research and for land stewardship. In 1994 he was elected Fellow in the Soil Science Society of America, the first Forest Service employee to achieve that distinction. He delivered the Sergei A. Wilde Distinguished Lecture at the 2007 annual meeting of the Soil Science Society of America, the first Forest Service employee so honored. Bob is Affiliate Full Professor in Oregon State’s Department of Forest Resources and has contributed to the educational development of several graduate students at Oregon State and elsewhere.

He and his wife Ann make their home in northern California where a trout stream flows with endless promise just beyond their garden gate.