PA C I F I C
Quarterly
N O R T H W E S T
Forest Inventory
& Analysis
Issue 7 / Summer 2006
Inside:
A Message From
the Program Manager................ 1
PNW-FIA in the Field:
2006 Field Season............................ 2
What’s New in California,
Oregon, and Washington................ 2
What’s New in Alaska..................... 2
Field Crews and Safety.................... 2
Trucks, Boats, Helicopters,
Bears, and Poison Oak.................... 3
Employee Profiles.......................3
Noteworthy Dates....................4
Forest Inventory and Analysis
Pacific Northwest Research Station
P.O. Box 3890
Portland, OR 97208-3890
http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fia/
A Message From the Program Manager
With field season in full swing, we decided to share with you some tidbits
of information on our talented, energetic, and enthusiastic field crew and their
operations. The transition from a roving band of crews working in one part of
one state to a more permanent staff located in all areas of all states every year
has been a major undertaking over the last 5 years. The diversity of issues that
the crews deal with such as access to millions of acres of forest with no roads,
nontree species identification, specific National Forest System issues, safety, and
others is pretty impressive. More impressive are the creative solutions that they
have come up with, including using helicopters in Alaska, hiring botanists for
understory vegetation identification, developing a change management process
to deal with competing demands for more information with the same funding,
creating a safety culture and providing incentives, and always looking for more
efficient ways to get the job done.
In addition to field data collection successes, we have reached another milestone in Pacific Northwest Forest Inventory and Analysis (PNW-FIA) history-we have successfully delivered our 2005 data to the national FIA Web site for
Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington. Although this is no small feat, we
are getting better at the processing, editing, and compilation phase and are getting extremely close (a matter of days) to meeting our 6-month target for turning the data around. MANY THANKS to our state and NFS partners in assisting
in the data review process.
Finally, we will continue to concentrate on the safety of our staff, both the
field crew and the office staff. Over the last year and a half we have learned a lot
about safety and our processes. We have virtually eliminated backing accidents
by ensuring that passengers act as spotters when the vehicles are being backed
up. Our proposal for the Forest Service Technology Development Center to
help us with the fight against poison oak was accepted for their work plan in
2007. We have trained all crews in “Wildland Walking Techniques” with a
great video from the Technology Development Center and hope to significantly
reduce our slips, trips, and falls this year.
—Sue Willits, PNW-FIA Program Manager
P A C I F I C
N O R T H W E S T
Forest Inventory & Analysis Quarterly
Issue 7 / Summer 2006
PNW-FIA in the Field: 2006 Field Season
What’s New in Alaska
PNW-FIA began the 2006 field season in February for the Federated States of
Micronesia (FSM); in April for California, Oregon, and Washington; and in June for
coastal Alaska.
The Alaska inventory continues to
expand. With the prospects for starting
interior Alaska in 2007, a new interior
coordinator, Steve Trimble, has been
added to the team as well as additional
permanent seasonal crew leaders. For
the 2006 field season, the data collection
efforts will be in the coastal unit. Field
plots will be collected from Ketchikan
to Kodiak along 800 miles of coast. The
success in gaining access to establish
FIA plots in Region 10 national forests’
wildernesses in 2005 was overturned for the 2006 field season. Future ac-
cess will depend on the outcome of an environmental impact statement
(EIS) that is being prepared at this
time. To fill the void from the loss of
the wilderness plots, the Alaska crews
have honed their vegetation and lichen
skills and will attempt to complete most
of the Phase 3 (forest health) plots this
field season.
Number of Plots per State by Crew Type, 2006
Micronesia1
FIA crews (72)
Contractor crews
TOTAL
California
Oregeon
Washington
Coastal Alaska
90
822
563
384
320
0
574
76
60
0
90
1,396
639
444
320
FSM crews were a combination of Pacific Islanders and FIA staff
1 Plots are evenly dispersed throughout California, Oregon, Washington, and
coastal Alaska, with 1 plot per 6,000 acres. Each season, every 10th plot is visited, so
that all plots are measured over 10 years. In FSM, plots are distributed at triple intensity--1 plot per 2,000 acres--with all plots measured over 2 years (2005 and 2006)
as a periodic (vs. annual) inventory. Field seasons differ from state to state--Feb-
ruary to April (FSM), April to November (California, Oregon, Washington), and
June to August (coastal Alaska).
A number of changes have occurred this year: satellite duty stations for California, Oregon, and Washington crews; an interior Alaska coordinator hired; and
increased emphasis on safety.
Field Crews and Safety
2006 FIA plots in California, Oregon, and Washington
(locations not exact) (left). 2006 FIA plots in coastal
Alaska (locations not exact) (above).
What’s New in California, Oregon, Washington:
Imagine living in a series of Motel 6’s for 8 months of the year. This nomadic lifestyle was a reality for the FIA field crews prior to 2006. Every few weeks, field crews
had to relocate as they finished work in one area of the state and started another. We
are now transitioning to a series of satellite duty stations dispersed across the three
states that will be “home base” for individual crew leaders. There are seven stations
in California, five in Oregon, and three in Washington.
(continued on page 3)
PNW-FIA has made employee safety a
program priority beginning in 2005. An
active safety committee was convened
and meets each month. Emphasis has
been placed on safety awareness, training,
and equipment as well as accident prevention, analysis, and reporting. Crews
are required to use hard hats; and cork
boots and trekking poles are available
if needed. Safety surveys are routinely
conducted with the field crew to figure
out the contributing factors to accidents
(long work days, poor light, bad weather,
etc.). The goal is to significantly reduce
accidents or near-misses.
2
P A C I F I C
N O R T H W E S T
Forest Inventory & Analysis Quarterly
Photo by C. Hubbard
Trucks, Boats, Helicopters, Bears, and Poison Oak
After a 3-week training
session in the Bend area, each
California, Oregon, and Washington crew travels and works
independently, using maps,
aerial photos, and GPS units
to locate plots. Alaska crews
participated in a similar training session in Anchorage but
operate a little differently than
Helicopter provides transportation for Alaska
the “lower-48 crews.” Because
crews from the Maritime Maid to plots.
of the lack of roads and the remoteness of the coastal area, they all live aboard the vessel Maritime Maid,
and access plots daily via the helicopter on the back deck of the Maid.
Working conditions can be uncomfortable, with crews out in all weather (cold, heat, rain, snow) in rugged, steep, or brushy terrain, often braving hazards such as poison oak and insects. The work itself can be arduous, requiring significant amounts of on-trail and off-trail hiking,
sometimes carrying a 60+ lb pack. Alaska crews are given extensive
training in survival skills, firearm use for bear protection, and helicopter
underwater egress training (HUET). Obviously, FIA crews must be in
excellent physical condition!
Issue 7 / Summer 2006
Employee Profiles
In each issue of our newsletter we profile some of
our employees and their roles and responsibilities
in the PNW-FIA program.
Meet Bob Rhoads
Bob Rhoads is the Team Leader of the California,
Oregon, Washington, and Pacific Islands Data Collection Team, operating out of the Portland Forestry Sciences Laboratory. He oversees the four
state inventories, including personnel, budgeting,
and coordination with other FIA units. Bob attended the College of Environmental Science and
Forestry at Syracuse, New York, where he received
a master’s degree, and soon after rejoined an FIA
field crew with the Rocky Mountain Research Station, where he had been working since 1982. He
continued working on field crews until 1995 when
he moved to the PNW Station and became a state
coordinator. He’s been in his current position since
2001. Although his responsibilities don’t allow him
to spend as much time in the field as he once did,
he finds a lot of satisfaction in managing the inventories and hiring good people. When not at work,
he enjoys hiking and skiing.
Meet Ray Koleser
(continued from page 2)
The permanence of this system allows for more than just a sense of stability and greater crew retention. It also translates into higher quality plot
data, because crews who operate in the same area year after year will have
better knowledge of local forest conditions, plants, insects, and diseases.
They will also become more familiar with road systems and local terrain,
increasing safety and efficiency. This familiarity can also improve crew accountability for ownership updates, owner contacts, and plot completion,
not to mention that plot setups and reviews can be completed by people
with experience in that geographic area (rather than doing it in Portland
over the winter). The new satellite duty station arrangement gives crew
leaders, some of whom have been with the PNW-FIA program as long as
16 years, a broader outlook on their workload, and more responsibility
and control over crew operations. Each crew leader supervises a two- or
three-person crew in collecting the field data. The crew leader oversees all
the day-to-day operations of the crew, including logistics, travel schedules,
contacting landowners for access permission, interpretation of the field
procedures manual, data accuracy, equipment, and safety.
Ray Koleser is the team leader of the Alaska Data
Collection Team, operating out of the Anchorage
Forestry Sciences Laboratory. He oversees the
field data collection for the Alaska inventories,
spending summers with the crews, collecting data,
and overseeing the aviation and contractual portions of the operations. Winters are spent working on budgets, personnel, aviation, contracting,
and national procedures. Ray is originally from the
east coast where he grew up in New York City.
He received a bachelor’s degree in Forestry from
the University of Maine, Orono, before heading to
Alaska where he initially worked for the Juneau
Forestry Sciences Lab in 1980. He moved to the
FIA unit in Anchorage in 1983 as part of the field
crew. He really doesn’t know what happened, but
now he’s running the field operations (since 2001).
Ray likes the challenge of making the inventory
work in the difficult Alaska conditions. When he’s
not at work, you can usually find him kayaking or
backcountry skiing.
3
United States
Department of Agriculture
Published by the
Pacific Northwest Research Station
P.O. Box 3890
Portland, OR 97208-3890
Sally Campbell, Managing Editor
scampbell01@fs.fed.us
(503) 808-2034
Pilar Reichlein, Layout
preichlein@fs.fed.us
(503) 808-2114
Rachel White, Writer
rachelwhite@fs.fed.us
(503) 808-2082
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits
discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis
of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where
applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status,
religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political
beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual’s
income is derived from any public assistance program.
(Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons
with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print,
audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s Target Center
at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD).To file a complaint
of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil
Rights, 1400 and Independence Avenue, SW, Washington,
D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202)
720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider
and employer.
PACIFIC NORTHWEST
October 16–20, 2006:
National FIA Science Symposium, Monterey, CA.
For more information, see: http://www.fia.fs.fed.us/symposium/
Please visit our Web page at:
http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fia/
Quarterly
October 3–5, 2006:
Inventory short course, Portland, OR.
Sponsored by the Western Forestry & Conservation Assoc.
For more information, see: http://www.westernforestry.org/largeinventory/
largeinventory.htm
News for Pacific Northwest Research Station,
Forest Inventory and Analysis Clients, Employees,
and Retirees
Forest Inventory
& Analysis
August 28–30, 2006:
Nearest Neighbors Workshop, Minneapolis, MN.
For more information, see http://knn.gis.umn.edu/meeting/
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Pacific Northwest Research Station
Portland Forestry Sciences Laboratory
620 SW Main, Suite 400
P.O. Box 3890
Portland, OR 97208-3890
Noteworthy Dates
Forest
Service