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Forests director will exit After troubles with Bush team, Williams will teach at SOU By PAUL FATTIG Jack Williams, supervisor of the Rogue River and Siskiyou national forests, is leaving his post to teach at Southern Oregon University in Ashland. Williams, 49, accepted a two-year Intergovernmental Personnel Act appointment to teach and do research at SOU's AuCoin Institute for Ecological, Economic and Civic Studies. A fishery scientist, Williams begins his new job on Feb. 25. However, under the act, he will remain a Forest Service employee while serving as a senior fellow at SOU. "I'm really looking forward to the teaching and research," Williams said. "It will be a very stimulating environment. "The opportunity to work with Les (AuCoin) and the university is something I really wanted to do, both personally and professionally," he added. Williams acknowledged that his relationship with the Bush administration has been rocky at times. He was appointed supervisor late in May 2000, near the tail end of the Clinton administration. "It's clear that my philosophy on land management doesn't always jibe well with the current administration," Williams said. "It has also become clear to me that it would probably be better to look for something else. It was made clear to me that was a good idea. "Rather than fight it or make a big deal out of it, it seemed to me that life would be best to find an option. Fortuitously, there were some great opportunities for me." He declined to elaborate on the source of the friction. But Steve Marsden, executive director of the Siskiyou Regional Education Project, an Illinois Valley-based environmental group, said Williams had ruffled feathers in the nation's capitol because of his environmental concerns. "This is happening at the Washington level," Marsden said. "They want to replace responsible land managers with hacks who will toe the political line." Dave Hill, executive vice president of the Southern Oregon Timber Industries Association, has a different viewpoint. "We did not see a lot of interest in timber management activity from him, but we felt we could go in and talk to him any time to explain our concerns," Hill said. "I'm sure the Bush administration does have a slightly different perspective on land management than Jack does." Williams observed that management shifts do occur when there are changes in administration. "There is always a shift going on," he said. "The pendulum swings back and forth. "The Forest Service is trying to adapt to change. That's sometimes difficult for a big organization that has a lot of tradition." Bringing Williams to the campus is a coup for both the institute and SOU, said Les AuCoin, a political science professor and the institute's namesake. "We are absolutely elated," said AuCoin, a former Oregon congressman known for specializing in regional environmental issues. "Jack is a highly respected fisheries biologist with an encyclopedia of experience in public lands and wildlands management. "He will bring to the institute and the university a quality that will reap huge dividends for the campus," he added, calling Williams "a premier scientist." Reflecting on his nearly two years in top management in the Forest Service, Williams was quick to credit the work being done by the roughly 400 employees of the two forests. "The parts of the job that were attractive to me were trying to find ways to manage the land in a way that would improve the health of the land," he said. "I wanted to accomplish both an ecological as well as an economic goal." He said forest employees have been attaining those goals, listing as an example the Mill Creek project in the Prospect Ranger District. The plan calls for harvesting nearly 40 million board feet of timber on almost 5,000 acres over the next decade. "Projects like this improve water quality, don't build any roads, don't go into roadless areas, focus on creating wildlife habitat," he said. "But they also provide some commercial product." When he begins his new job, Williams intends to focus on such projects as integrating research and management, developing scientifically sound approaches to restoration efforts and conflict resolution in natural resource management. "There is a huge amount of conflict," he said. "We want to do whatever we can do to help people understand those on the other side of the fence. We need to move toward a common resolution." Williams has a doctorate degree in fishery science from Oregon State University in 1980. He also has a master's degree in biology from the University of Nevada and a bachelor's degree in wildlife biology from Arizona State University. Before becoming the supervisor on the two local forests, Williams was a deputy forest supervisor of the Boise National Forest in Idaho. He also has nearly two decades' experience working for U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He and his wife, Cindy, have two sons. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.