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Alumni, Will Tullos, James Carter and Charles Barron attended
the 2008 Xi Sigma Pi Initiation and Banquet on April 2, 2008
To read more about the XI Sigma Pi story please click on this link
http://www.latech.edu/ans/forestry/student-orgs.shtml
Aimee Robert, recipient of the LA Society of American Foresters Outstanding Student, Featured Forestry Student, and Forestry Graduate for 2004 was employed by the Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism under Office of State Parks/ Lake Claiborne State Park. She just completed the LA State Parks/Historic Sites Trail Construction and Maintenance Manual for the state of Louisiana. This manual is used for reference by all LA State Parks and Historic Sites. She was promoted to Interpretive Ranger II and received a nice bonus for writing the manual. She presented a power point presentation (about the trails manual that she wrote) to administrative office employees from the headquarters in Baton Rouge, LA along with all district park managers, park managers, district engineers, and park manager trainees. She recently accepted her "career dream" job at the LA Office of State Parks as a Naturalist Interpretive Specialist in Baton Rouge, LA.
Quote "If you reach far enough, you can accomplish anything."
Joshua P. Adams, a 2003 LA Tech Forestry graduate and a doctoral candidate in Mississippi State's College of Forest Resources is receiving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's STAR Fellowship. He is among 65 graduate students and the first from Mississippi State University to be named to the prestigious Science to Achieve Results Fellows Program. His award begins with the 2007-08 academic year and extends for the next three years. Adams' research seeks to develop a tree variety that quickly absorbs heavy metal contamination in soil and water.
Quote "You don't know more than you really know."
JUNE 2006 NEWS
Professor Ray Newbold retired June 30, 2006 after 26 years teaching in the School of Forestry at Louisiana Tech. He came to Tech from Georgia Kraft Company, a pulp and paper company, where he had worked for 13 years-- six years as a management forester and six years as a research forester. When he left industry, he was an Area Forester responsible for the supervision and leadership of 12 employees, two company woodyards, four pulpwood/chip suppliers, direct producer force and a land base of both fee simple and long term lease lands.
He began working at LA Tech School of Forestry on September 1, 1980. In his tenure in the School of Forestry, at one time or another he taught classes in Introduction to Forestry, Forest Measurements, Forest Surveying, Forest Management, Forestry Economics, Forestry Finance and Valuation, Senior Seminar, Professional Practice, Freshman Orientation, and Computers for Agriculture and Forestry. He served as the Director of the 10‑week forestry summer camp at Corney Lake until 1992, was the coordinator for the Area I FFA Forestry Contest, and coordinated forestry job placement. He filled the role of Interim Director in the School of Forestry from September 1991‑March 1992, and was Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the College of Applied and Natural Sciences from December 2002 until his retirement.
A native of Illinois, his rather unique career included earning a Ph.D. degree from Mississippi State University twenty years after he completed his Master’s degree at Southern Illinois University. His research has included projects in pine release, stand dynamics, long-term sustainability, pine plantation weight and volume equations, and carbon sequestration.
He is a member of the Society of American Foresters where he has served as a member of the Ethics Committee (1997-2001), Secretary to the Louisiana SAF (1994-1996), and Chairman of the North Louisiana Chapter (1994). In 1995 he was awarded the NoLaGp “Bull Award”, named after Professor Lloyd P. Blackwell, and was presented an Honorary State FFA Degree from the Louisiana Future Farmers of America. He is a SAF Certified Forester, member of the Louisiana Forestry Association, and the Louisiana Academy of Sciences.
In his “retirement” he plans to do forestry consulting, church mission work (with a special interest in Mexico), find more opportunities to fish and canoe, and hopefully do some travel. While an undergraduate, he worked one summer on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest (Mt. St. Helens, Washington) and would like to re-visit the West again, as well as see the northeastern United States. When all those things get done, perhaps he will build another wooden boat. He can be emailed at Rnewbold@bayou.com.
Dr. Chris Dicus
Featured Alumni for 2005-2006 On October 28, 2007 on National Public Radio Chris Dicus, Associate Professor of Fire and Fuels Management at California Polytechnic University, speaks with Liane Hansen
Dr. Chris Dicus is a native of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and is the son of Terri Campbell and the late Jesse Dicus. He graduated with honors from Hot Springs High School in 1988and then enrolled at Louisiana Tech where he graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1992 with a B.S in Forestry-Wildlife. He and his wife, MeLisa (married 1992), have three children, Nick (born 1995), Luke (born 1997), and Anna Grace (born 2000) and currently reside in Los Osos, California, where he is an Associate Professor of Wildland Fire & Fuels Management at Cal Poly State University.
At Louisiana Tech, Chris served as president of the Delta Chi fraternity and Association of Southern Forestry Clubs and was also a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Society. It was in his sophomore year, during one of Dr. Ray Newbold's field labs, that Chris made a goal of "getting a Ph.D. and studying fire in the mountains". Of interest, his wife MeLisa stated, while they were dating, that she would much rather live on the beach. When Chris was hired at Cal Poly, it was the only University in the entire nation where both desires could be met.
To realize his goals, after graduation from Louisiana Tech, Chris entered Utah State University, where he served as a Senator in the Utah State University Graduate Student Senate and earned a M.S. degree in Forestry (emphasizing fire ecology) in 1995. He earned his Ph.D. in Forestry (emphasizing silviculture) in 2000 at Louisiana State University under the direction of Dr. Thomas J. Dean. At LSU, he was a Gilbert Research Fellow, president of the Xi Sigma Pi Forestry Honor Society, and served a 1-year post-doctoral appointment affiliated with the U.S. Forest Service's Long Term Soil Productivity Project.
Chris now serves as the Coordinator for the Wildland Fire & Fuels concentration of the Forestry major at Cal Poly, where he teaches six classes on various aspects of wildland fire management. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Fire Ecology (international) and the San Luis Obispo County FireSafe Council and is also the current President of the Los Padres Chapter of the Society of American Foresters. His research focuses on fire in the wildland-urban interface, how various forestry practices affect fuels and potential fire behavior, and forest regulation. He has authored or co-authored numerous manuscripts, including the first Fire Management Laboratory Manual ever published in the United States. He also, at times, is called on by government agencies to serve as a fire behavior specialist during wildfires.
Chris's hobbies include family and church activities, hiking and backpacking, and writing and playing music (he sings and plays harmonica in his church worship band). Unfortunately, Chris has been somewhat tainted living in California, as he now loves both eating sushi and surfing the big waves he can see from his home. Further, his students at Cal Poly have remarked that he is the only person they have ever met who uses both the words "dude" and "ya'll" in the same sentence.
