Roy Silen Oral History Interview

Roy Silen went to work on the then Blue River Experimental Forest in the year it was established – 1948 – because he had a forestry degree and a background in logging engineering and the PNW Research Station, his employer, had agreed to cut 20 million board feet from the Lookout Creek drainage. He spent months in the field before any roads entered the area, and he set out the early logging and road network. In addition to this forestry work he conducted studies and produced publications in the early 1950s that were highly influential management decisions about tree regeneration in clearcuts and efficient road systems to minimize impacts on watersheds. He helped set up experimental watersheds 1, 2, and 3. He departed the Andrews in 1954, to pursue a PhD in forest ecology and lead the tree genetics program of the PNW Station. He said he could not bring himself to go back to the forest, because he loved the land and did not want to see the effects of “management.”