RICE, Bob 10-14-04 03__Corrected

U. S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Region Five History Project

DRAFT TWO Interview with: Bob Rice Interview by: Janet Buzzini Location: College of the Siskiyous Date: October 14, 2004 Corrections by Susana Luzier: April 4, 2005

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BUZZINI: This interview is taking place at College of the Siskiyous in Weed, California. Today’s date is October 14th, 2004. We are in a conference room at the college with Bob Rice, R-i-c-e. My name is Janet Buzzini, B-u-z-z-i-n-i, and I will be conducting the interview.

Bob, hi. How are you?

RICE: Just fine, thank you.

BUZZINI: I’d like to begin by asking where you were born, and where did you grow up?

RICE: I was born in Wisconsin, a small community in the southern part of the state and did all of my schooling and 2 years of college not far from home.

BUZZINI: Speaking of college, where did you attend school?

RICE: I started at a State College in Platteville, Wisconsin. College was interrupted with the Korean War. So I served four years in the Navy, and then came back and transferred from Wisconsin State College to the University of Minnesota.

BUZZINI: What period of time are we talking about now?

RICE: I entered the military service in 1951, and served through 1955. Entered Minnesota and graduated in 1957.

BUZZINI: What was your major in school?

RICE: While at the State College in Wisconsin, my Program was pre-forestry. After military service, my major was forest management, at the University of Minnesota. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 2 BUZZINI: So Bob, now I’d like to change subjects for a few minutes. I’d like to hear a little about your family. How many children do you have?

RICE: We have two sons and a daughter. They’re all very successful in their businesses. My daughter, Jennifer, is a schoolteacher near Orange County, CA. My middle son, Brad, works in agriculture for a vegetable company in Salinas, CA. Any my oldest son, Perry, is in Bellingham, Washington, working for Whatcom County as the G.I.S. Administrator.

BUZZINI: You must be really proud of them.

RICE: We sure are.

BUZZINI: So now I want to ask you about your wife. Where did you meet, and how long have you guys been married?

RICE: Charlotte and I have been married forty-seven years.

BUZZINI: Wow.

RICE: We met at the University of Minnesota’s Stump Jumpers Ball and she was a Queen candidate for that event. I admired her and her beauty and a year later she became my wife. We were married while still students at the University of Minnesota.

BUZZINI: That’s an awesome story. Okay. Now, shifting gears one more time. What kind of summer jobs did you hold, and the kind of positions that better qualified you for your lifelong dream with the Forest Service?

RICE: I’ll talk now about the period after I entered college. There were many summer jobs before college.

BUZZINI: Okay. Include some dates for them as you go along, too.

RICE: My first summer job was in 1956. I worked on a Blister Rust control team in northern Minnesota on the Superior National Forest. The following summer, 1957, I went to work for Timber and Western Lands, which was a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railroad in Idaho, Washington, and Montana. The Northern Pacific Railroad received odd-numbered sections of federal land as revenue for building a railroad from Minnesota to Washington. They hired college foresters to inventory timber stands on those lands. I was one of a group of twelve students that was lucky enough to get that kind of a job. The following summer, I returned to the same company and worked mostly in Easter Washington.

BUZZINI: Very interesting. So what really made you decide to pursue a career with the Forest Service? Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 3 RICE: Well, you’ll find this one interesting. When I entered pre-forestry at Wisconsin State College, my uncle owned a sawmill in Kalispell, Montana, and he was in need of a forester.

BUZZINI: [laughs] That’s one way to get in.

RICE: He encouraged me to continue in forestry, and upon graduation work for him. The year before I graduated from the University of Minnesota, in the fall of 1957, the sawmill burned down, so I began pursuing other work opportunities.

One of my college classmates had just returned from working on the Inyo National Forest in California, and let me know that they were looking for a forester on the Mono Lake District of that forest. So I applied, took the Civil Service Test, and qualified. I obtained a job on the Moad Lake Ranger District. I found out when I reported to work that this was kind of a probationary thing, and after 90 days the District Ranger recommended permanent status.

BUZZINI: Wow. So when did you sign on the dotted line?

RICE: February 10, 1958.

BUZZINI: Oh, you can remember? Awesome.

Now I understand that during your thirty-one year career, you did work on eight national forests in three different regions. That’s pretty awesome.

RICE: Well, yes, and it does require the buying and selling of a lot of houses. We moved 14 times and saved the boxes after each move.

BUZZINI: Would you give us a rundown?

RICE: On the forests and the regions? Sure.

BUZZINI: And dates and times and your positions. You can be brief, or however you want to do it.

RICE: Okay. Of course, my initial permanent assignment in the Forest Service was in California, Region Five, on the Inyo National Forest. The next assignment was on the Stanislaus National Forest, the Eldorado National Forest and the Superior National Forest, for the second time. Then I transferred to Idaho to work in the Idaho Panhandle, made up of three national forests, the Kaniksu, the Coeur d’Alene and the St. Joe. Then back to the Inyo as Forest Supervisor. My last stop was the Klamath National Forest. That’s eight Forests and the Regions were Five, Nine, One, and Five.

BUZZINI: Wow. So would you like to elaborate a little on some of those and some of your experiences, and the people you worked with, some of the highlights? Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 4

RICE: Yes. My total Forest Service career was thirty-one years. My first assignment was on the Mono Lake Ranger District of the Inyo National Forest in 1958.

My first position was called a general district assistant. I’m sure that title has been done away with, but essentially what that amounted to was being responsible for almost all District activities. The ranger station was a three-person unit, the ranger the district clerk and myself. We had three seasonal employees to help; my salary at the time was $3,675 a year.

BUZZINI: [laughs] Wow, way back when.

RICE: When you reported for work, the ranger gave you a silver Forest Service badge that said, “Forest Guard.” When you finished with your probation, you got the standard bronze badge that we’re all so familiar with.

Another remembrance, and I’ll talk a little bit about it later in the interview, was playing on the Lee Vining baseball team. There were fourteen members on the team, thirteen were Piutes, and I was the fourteenth. The interesting thing about serving on that team is that so many times in my career I’ve had to work with Native Americans. I understand their values through team play and became an accepted member of their families.

The Mono Lake Ranger District had a large number of sheep permitees, all part of a vast community of Basques from Bakersfield, California. Each spring we counted them on to the forest. About 40,000 grazed on the District and Charlotte helped a lot.

The Forest Service changed from the old solid green pickup to the new light green and gray truck. We were kind of proud when we got that new vehicle. That’s a historical thing.

The ranger station was quite isolated. And in fact, it was about two miles from town on the Tioga Pass Highway going to Yosemite Park. We had heavy snows in the winter, and the only way we could get to town was to snowshoe or plow the road. To get groceries I used the Forest Service power wagon with blade to plow our way to town. Just part of being a “General District Assistant!”

Then another fun part of the job was learning to ski at Mammoth Mountain. The ranger made sure I had that skill and was an enjoyable training opportunity.

BUZZINI: So you got to ski as part of your job, then, huh?

RICE: You bet, like every Wednesday in the winter.

BUZZINI: Wow, what an awesome job that must have been.

RICE: Actually, Wednesday afternoon was a time I looked forward to. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 5

BUZZINI: So again, all this was during the period like in the late ‘50s?

RICE: Yes. The period that I served on the Mono Lake Ranger District was a two-year period. My ranger was transferred into the recreation staff officer in the supervisor’s office in Bishop, CA.

BUZZINI: Who was that, Bob?

RICE: That was Lloyd Hayes . . . he was a great Forest Service teacher. I really enjoyed working for Lloyd and when he had need for somebody to come in and do a special program for him I got the call. The National Forest Recreation Survey was front and center, and Forests had to do a complete inventory on potential sites for recreation development, campgrounds, summer homes, ski areas, and day use areas.

I did the National Forest Recreation Survey for the Inyo National Forest. It was really a nice job and a chance to visit the whole forest. I became very acquainted with the Inyo. The Recreation survey experience really paid off when I returned to this Forest as the Supervisor. I also had an opportunity to work age dating the Bristlecone Pines.

BUZZINI: Could you briefly explain what that means? Does that mean telling how old the trees were?

RICE: Yes. A professor from Arizona by the name of Dr. Schulman spent summers on the Inyo. He discovered that the Bristlecone pine had some very old age connections. He did increment boring of a number of the Bristlecone pines in the Inyo Mountains, and determining the age of those pines. He finally discovered Methuselah, which was a little over 5,300 years old and is referred to as the oldest living thing. The borings were taken to his lab to determine age and that was done by cumulative carbon registration.

He guarded his findings carefully. There’s not many people that knew where Methuselah was . . . people would want to go out and break off a piece and take it home. So the Forest does not disclose it.

BUZZINI: Wow. 5,300 years old.

RICE: And Rocky Rockwell, who you’ll be interviewing at some point, is another person that was very familiar with the Bristlecone.

BUZZINI: Okay. So from Bishop you went to the Stanislaus?

RICE: Well, I had a good mentor in Bishop, first, that I want to talk about, and that was Gordon Clark the administrative officer. Gordon was extremely interested in finding different ways to do budgeting in the Forest Service. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 6 We only had a few accounts then, but as the revenue of the National Forests began picking up, there was a need to find better accounting ways. A need to tie the work on the ground with dollars and projected work. As Region Four and Region Five started getting more dollars, the new system became the Planned Program Budgeting System, PPBS. Gordon thought I might be a candidate to learn it and traveled with him on out of region trips. I really appreciated it, because when the system was adopted, I learned it as it was developed.

In 1960, I was transferred to the Summit Ranger District on the Stanislaus National Forest as the assistant district ranger. The ranger was Tom Beard, also a great teacher. One of his favorite programs was to get all of us young foresters trained to be district rangers. He had what they called the Potential District Ranger Handbook. Somewhere in my files I still have a copy of it.

Tom wanted to be assured that foresters on that ranger district had exposure to all of the different multiple uses that you will encounter in your career, including mining, fire and some wilderness management. Tom would record our progress as we experienced different resource activities and certify it with a checkmark.

BUZZINI: [inaudible] checklist [inaudible].

RICE: Yes, with a check in little boxes. Tom would record our progress and date it. As an example, we learned to scale logs, mark timber, and do sale administration, and many other activities in silviculture. We administered grazing allotments, did range checks, and visited with permittees and prepared grazing permits. We even did a few mineral examinations.

Tom was also a great fire guy. If the whistle blew, no matter were on the Stanislaus, he was in his pickup and on his way. Whichever forester happened to be in the office got in that truck and went with him to the fire. We achieved Red Card ratings in a short period of time.

BUZZINI: So you were well versed I guess, by the time you left there, huh?

RICE: It was the first time that I’d really been exposed to horses and the importance of having horsemanship in order to do range and wilderness management. Tom went out and bought a couple of horses, and he and I soon learned how to go through all of the motions, learning how to ride, taking care of horses and saddling them.

On one occasion I was to take some Regional Office people into the wilderness. I’d hired a packer to go with us, and on the day we were to leave the packer said he couldn’t go, gave me the five mules and said, “You learn how to pack and take those people in with you.” And I did, that was an experience! Jim Pratley still writes about the trip.

BUZZINI: That’s called the school of hard knocks, huh? Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 7 RICE: Yes. These mules weren’t tail marked as kickers, so I wasn’t concerned and this packing experience helped me be very comfortable with horses and mules through the rest of my career.

BUZZINI: So how long were you on the Summit District? What years are we talking about there, Bob?

RICE: I was transferred to the Summit District in 1961, and worked there until late in ’63.

BUZZINI: Any by then you were ready to be a real ranger?

RICE: Getting close. One of the other things that I recall was the Stanislaus Forest Supervisor Harry Grace.

BUZZINI: Oh, I remember Harry.

RICE: Harry was a stickler for Forest Service employees wearing the uniform. When we went to the supervisor’s office, we better have the complete uniform on. We really got introduced on the components and proper wearing of the Forest Service uniform from Harry.

The Summit ranger district had a lot of cattle permitees, and for me a new training opportunity. I had the sheep allotment to work with on the Inyo, and now exposed to cattle allotment, cattle permitees, and their business values, that was very important. After I retired, I became a rancher and put all of those skills to work.

BUZZINI: Would you like to take a short break at this time?

RICE: Let’s see. Yes the district ranger job will be a long conversation.

BUZZINI: All right.

[Interruption in recording.]

BUZZINI: So, Bob, now after all your training at the Summit District, you were ready for the next step, I understand.

RICE: Yes. Tom managed to complete the checkmarks on all of my Potential District Ranger Handbook, [laughter] and I was offered the district ranger job at Lake Tahoe for the Lake Valley Ranger District on the Eldorado National Forest.

The forest supervisor on the Eldorado was Doug Leisz. I’d had an opportunity to meet Doug earlier in my career on one of the fires on The Sierra National Forests. Doug and I and about ninety other people made the initial attack on a fire. We survived some Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 8 backfire, got burned over once and survived. I guess Doug felt comfortable with my decisions and a year later offered me the District Ranger job on the Lake Valley District.

BUZZINI: What year were you appointed ranger there?

RICE: 1964.

BUZZINI: You want to give us some of the highlights there?

RICE: I had many experiences there. One I wanted to share with you is it was a ranger district where you had to work out of the box. I had just come from district where you pretty much had to stay within the box. Here was a big shift in philosophies, because everything you do at Lake Tahoe is under the scrutiny of the public. The public wants to know what’s going on and they want to share in decisions. Don’t throw regulations at Us—help us find solutions; exporting effluent was one of them.

There had been several proposals to make Lake Tahoe—the Lake Tahoe Basin a national park. So getting acquainted with all of the people and being able to represent the Forest Service was something that Doug encouraged me to do. I’m glad I had a course in public speaking in college. Doug would say, “Find some new ways,” or, “You got to visualize,” or maybe, “It’s important to have a complete strategy.”

With that expert advice in the back of my mind, I pursued a number of interesting projects. One was the selection of the ranger district to be the training site for the 1960 Winter Olympics. The training site would be on National Forest land. The U.S. Olympic Committee took over an old ski area, the Echo Summit Ski Area and put in all of the track and field facilities precisely as they would at the Olympics in Mexico City. It was a high elevation training program at 7,600 feet. Writing the permit was interesting. I’ll also remember the Forest Service acquiring land on the shoreline of Lake Tahoe. Some private land was acquired a little earlier, and we were just now getting into managing it. Charging fifty cents at a pay gate to use the beach caused many of the locals to be upset. They didn’t feel people should have to pay to use public land for recreation.

I also had an opportunity to serve on the Regional Fire Team. It was one of the first regional fire teams from the Central Sierras. And we traveled in the old DC-3.

The film Lake of Oblivion was filmed at Lake Tahoe. You’ll remember Corey Stuart, the ranger in the Lassie program? Corey Stuart was dressed in our uniform for the film. At times, I had a chance to stand in for him.

BUZZINI: Wow, awesome.

RICE: Kind of an interesting experience. I even hauled Lassie around in the back of my Forest Service sedan delivery in a couple of the shots.

BUZZINI: How fun. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 9

RICE: Another real highlight was the construction of the Lake Tahoe Visitors Center, and the stream profile chamber. It was kind of interesting how that all came about. Charlie Connaughton was the regional forester when we first started exploring facilities at the Center. Bob Morris, who was the visual information specialist for the district had an opportunity to see a chamber, a very small chamber that was used for research on Sagehen Creek on the Tahoe National Forest by the California Department of Fish and Game.

And Bob got the idea that, “Boy, could we do something with a profile chamber open to the public.” So we kind of found a spot that we thought would work very well, and we convinced Forest Supervisor Doug Leisz that it would be a good interpretive initiative on the part of the Forest Service. Doug had a chance to talk to Charlie about it. He wanted to hear more; Charlie called up and said, “Bob, I’m coming up to see what you got on your mind!”

BUZZINI: Neat.

RICE: He made the trip in the early spring of 1966. I remember Charlie arriving with his Forest Service uniform and a pair of loafers. We had to walk about a quarter mile in the snow. You can imagine what Charlie’s shoes and pants looked like after the quarter mile hike. Well, apparently that visit got him interested and Charlie accepted the idea, we soon received $77,000 to build the profile chamber. We had to use young CCC workers, YCCs to help us construct that whole facility. I think if you look around different places in the United States, you’ll see some similar structures that came from that initial effort by the Forest Service. Monterey Aquarium, though much larger, is one of them.

BUZZINI: Bob, when was the stream profile chamber actually dedicated?

RICE: I’m going to have to say late 60s.

BUZZINI: Probably ‘70s, wasn’t it?

RICE: No. It had to be before ’68, so it had to be ’66,’67, somewhere in there. That was a nice dedication. We had Ed Cliff, Chief of the Forest here for that dedication and he wanted to break the ribbon by laying it over a stump and cutting it with a double-pitted axe—he missed the ribbon the first time.

Emmett Kelly loved to come to the ranger station, and he did on a number of occasions. He’d be dressed up as the clown. We had a number of Forest Service kids, all about the same age on the compound. They were in awe to see Emmett. His visits were special.

Late in the 1960s the Forest Service decided to put all three ranger districts –part of the ranger district on the Tahoe National Forest Truckee, which had the north end of the lake, and part of the ranger district from the Toiyabe National Forest, the Carson City Ranger Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 10 District, which had the East side of the Basin—and the Lake Valley District on the Eldorado National Forest located to the south. The initiative was to put these National Forest lands into one unit.

On private and public land there were fifty agencies that had use policies at Lake Tahoe. It made sense to manage the three ranger districts similar and we developed a coordinated multiple use plan.

The five counties in the basin and the two states decided that they needed some coordinated action too, especially when it comes to planning and the enforcement of ordinances. Legislation (Bi-State) was passed putting the basin into a solid unit for planning. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was responsible for private land and the Forest Service for public lands. I became a member of the Forest Service team.

In 1970, we implemented the Forest Service Regional Planning Team, and worked to develop a cooperative arrangement with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The cooperative assignment enabled me to serve on the Advisory Planning Commission, which was a commission that made decisions on development proposals for private land. Serving on that commission and some of the voting positions I had to take caused me to spend much time in court.

The Department of Agriculture was also able to have a member of the 11-person Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Board. Regional Forester, Jack Dienama, was the federal appointee to the agency and he was the only federal person serving on that board. Jointly the Agency and the Forest Service was now doing the planning for both the private and public land in the basin. A compact that many books have been written about.

BUZZINI: Is that when he was back in the Washington office, or the regional forester.

RICE: No. He was the regional forester when the agency was formed.

BUZZINI: So Jack Dienama served as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal appointee representing all federal agencies, and you were the Advisory Committee member. Then when Jack left to go back to Washington and Doug came in as the regional forester, he served in that capacity.

RICE: Yes. Probably the effort that was achieved by the Forest Service was the opportunity to initiate the land suitability, land capability way of making land use decisions. As you think back upon it, you can recognize that land suitability and land capability system was the forerunner to the GIS systems that are being used for planning today. Ours was handcrafted, and today it’s computerized.

BUZZINI: You broke the ground, yeah.

RICE: To determine where land was suitable for development and where it wasn’t. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 11 BUZZINI: In such a public arena, too.

Rice: Yes.

BUZZINI: What a place to be a ranger, Bob.

RICE: Well, at that point in time, I had left the ranger job and another person had come in to take the ranger position. But essentially, when the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Forest Service—the Planning Team completed their work, the Lake Tahoe Basin became a management unit for the Forest Service. I believe the BiState Agency still sets policies for land activities on private land.

BUZZINI: So those were some pretty memorable years, with that Olympic thing and the stream profile chamber and the regional planning agency.

RICE: Yes, and managing a ranger district. That was constantly under the public eye. And here’s a situation where if you didn’t learn about public hearings and public involvement, you were sleeping, because this is the place where the public fully exercised their right to be heard on public land management.

BUZZINI: So from there – do you want to tell us where you went next?

RICE: Well, in 1972, the Washington Office was putting in some new management organizations on different forests in the United States. The Superior National Forest was putting in an organization with a six-person forest administrative team, the forest supervisor, the deputy, and four assistant supervisors. Having completed a huge planning assignment at Lake Tahoe, I was selected to serve as the assistant supervisor for planning.

The Superior National Forest was developing a plan for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Field examination was by floatplane and canoe. A very unique planning assignment.

BUZZINI: I know it’s a very large area we’re talking about. What is the size of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area?

RICE: About 1.3 million acres.

BUZZINI: I remember hearing and reading about it, but I never made it.

RICE: Anyhow, I’ll go back to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in a minute. But I wanted to talk about some other things that I observed when leaving California and going to Minnesota. Obviously, that’s a pretty cool part of the world, but I was used to it having attended the University of Minnesota. I transferred to the Superior in February and many of the Forest Service employees were still wearing the wool, olive drab uniform shirt. This is the first time I’d seen a winter/summer uniform combo. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 12 The northern portion of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is adjacent to the Canadian Quetico/Superior Wilderness and International Boundary Waters come under an International Commision. They have an office in Washington DC. Planning and doing work in the Boundary Waters carefully observed. So I had a chance to visit, learn, and spend a lot of time with my Forestry neighbors across the border. It was a special time in my career.

Our kids got very interested in ice-skating and hockey. Minnesota is a great hockey state. Both sons were also interested in basketball, baseball, and canoeing. They often talk about their great times on the Superior.

I became acquainted with a young man by the name of Oberstar. He’ll play into the picture a little later in my interview. Jim was an administrative assistant to Congressman John Blatnick. Congressman Blatnick was Minority Leader at that time for the House of Representatives. Jim often went on trips with me into the Boundary Waters, and kind of kept him in touch with out land management planning progress. That was a good way of keeping the Congressman posted.

We got through the coldest winter I every spent during a summer in Duluth, and it got warm in a hurry because the BWCA Plan that I had spent a couple of years developing and getting approved by the Forest Service was challenged by the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group. In that challenge they brought it before the Federal Court. I can’t remember the name of the court now, Seventh or Ninth.

In any event, I ended up on the witness stand for five days talking about that plan and how it was developed. The public didn’t support the enabling legislation establishing the BWCA and wouldn’t support the Forest Service Canoe Area Plan, which fit that legislation. Their recourse was the Courts.

There were seven attorneys for five days of questioning on how we arrived at decisions. When the judge ruled, he accepted a part of the plan, and a part he didn’t. I was thankful right about then to be transferred to the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

BUZZINI: You got it done and got out of there, huh?

RICE: Yes. I did want to make one comment, and that was that one of the people I really appreciated – actually two. One was Jay Cravens, who was the Regional Forester. Jay was people oriented and enjoyed his forest visits. We enjoyed his counsel in keeping the International Commisison posted.

BUZZINI: Was he forest supervisor or regional forester?

RICE: Regional Forester. He was a great person in personnel. Jay took the time to know you well. And he would talk about the work you were doing.

BUZZINI: He had an open door, huh? Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 13

RICE: Yes. He would talk about things that weren’t “You should do this,” or “You should do that,” but he’d talk about situations and you’d pick up on it, and you’d say, “Hey, next time I get into that situation, I’m going to borrow his technique.” So I really appreciated Jay, and the time he took to mentor a lot of us, hoping for a line career.

The other was Forest Supervisor Andy Anderson. Andy had been on the Bitterroot National Forest and had transferred to become the forest supervisor of the Superior. Andy’s favorite quote, I think, is one that he picked up from Truman, and that is, “The buck stops here.” He believed—you do your job, and you get that job done to quality. And if you’ve done the job to quality, the paycheck comes. I tried to follow that pattern, and expected the people I worked with to be on that same boat! Andy was an encourager and had a great deal of respect for your abilities, and did a good job at positive feedback.

BUZZINI: Great. Got a pat on the back once in a while, right?

RICE: Once in a while.

BUZZINI: So now we’re in Idaho.

RICE: Yes, Idaho. We left the Superior and arrived in Idaho the summer of 1974. They were just putting in the same type of an organization that I had just come from on the Superior National Forest, assistant supervisors, deputy and forest supervisor. But we were combining three national forests into one. A huge people management challenge. As an example, three AOs on board and which do you choose to be the assistant forest supervisor for administrative services? Three TMOs and who do you select to be the assistant forest supervisor for resources?

The Supervisor came from the Kaniksu National Forest, and all four of the assistant supervisors would come from one of the three combined forests. So here was Rice the stranger coming to town from another Region. I remember my first coffee break in the conference room. Three huge tables and each forest staked out their table! They were even oriented, i.e., Northern Forest, North Table, and so on. It was an interesting place to be and have an opportunity to get the personnel from these three forests working together.

The Idaho Panhandle’s forest supervisor was Ralph Keiser. Ralph at one time worked on a newspaper before coming to work for the Forest Service. Ralph was a great communicator. My experiences were heavy in the public involvement and working with people, but here was a chance to work with someone who really knew the politics.

When you try to pull three national forests and bring them together—and there had to be about eleven ranger districts requiring combinations—you’re going to have feedback in those communities like you can’t believe. By golly, The Forest Supervisor handled it very nicely, and I got my Ph.D. in politics. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 14 BUZZINI: Well, I’m sure you did more than observe, though.

RICE: Yes. I had a little hand in helping out, but he had the strategies pretty well put together, and I was his implementing partner.

I remember, on a forest as big as the Panhandle—the size of it—we did a lot of work by helicopter. We were just initiating helicopter logging. The Region wanted to see it. I picked up the staff director for Timber Management in Missoula via helicopter and took him on a trip to the Red Ives Ranger District on the southern part of the Idaho Panhandle. We were out looking at some of the areas that had environmental considerations and could possibly go into a helicopter logging system.

I had the earphones on with the pilot, and the staff director from Timber Management leaned over and said, “Bob, got any elk in this country?” And I said, “Yes. We’ll search for some as we head on down the river.” So we started heading down the river and five minutes later there were three elk drinking out of the St. Joe River. I said to the pilot, “Circle that a couple of times and let’s take a look at those elk..” So he circled the copter and just as he almost completed the pass he reached over and pointed at gauges. “Bob, look at the panel.” The light had gone on and it said, “metal in the motor.” He said on earphones “I’m losing power. How far do I have to go to land this thing? I can’t land it here, and I don’t want to put it in the water.” So I said, “Well, we’re not very far from the ranger station. Let’s try to land it on the lawn.” He was successful in getting us down, but boy, it was a bump when we hit that lawn because he had to autogyro us in.

BUZZINI: I was thinking you were going to tell us you ran into a herd of elk or something.

RICE: [laughter] No. We made it but I won’t forget that not-so-soft landing.

BUZZINI: Wow.

RICE: While on the Panhandle we had a Native American uprising. It was a tribe in the Bonners Ferry area. They believed that a part of their reservation ought to include the ranger station facilities, some of the campgrounds, and parts of the forest.

So the regional forester and the forest supervisor put together a team of four people to go up and try to coordinate and resolve this hostility. The Supreme Court judge for the state of Idaho, the forest supervisor, the district ranger, and myself were the team. The district ranger, who was very acquainted with this tribe, would attend the meetings, and then come back to the station we would visit on his daily negotiations.

Finally we got to the point one day where there was just no give and they said, “Okay, we’re going to demonstrate tomorrow. We’re going to demonstrate by placing a toll station on the highway, and everybody that comes by has to give us twenty-five cents to travel it. The toll station lasted about three hours, travelers ignored the collector, and finally everything was dismantled. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 15

While on that assignment, I got a phone call from Larry Whitfield, the deputy regional forester in Region One. Larry’s message, “I have two forest supervisor jobs available to you. It’s your choice. Which one do you want?”

BUZZINI: Oh, my God. You were getting a reputation, weren’t you?

RICE: I don’t know, but it was nice after two weeks of negotiating.

BUZZINI: Getting the job done.

RICE: On the weekend, my family and I went into the deep decision circle!

BUZZINI: Wow. Okay, Bob, so now you get another call for yet another step in your Forest Service career as forest supervisor. So which job did you choose?

RICE: We chose the Inyo. It was kind of interesting. We had a family vote, Region 5 or Region Nine. The family vote was three to two for the Inyo.

BUZZINI: [laughs] What did you want?

RICE: I had to break the tie.

BUZZINI: So you started on the Inyo in 1976 was it?

RICE: Yes. Fifteen years since my earlier assignment as a general district assistant. It was like going home. I recall the annual Mule Days Parade, and the fact that the Forest Service was a great part of that. Originators said the Mule Days event was to get the different pack stations throughout these eastern Sierras ready to take people into the back country when the season arrived. So if they had to get ready to be in the parade, they certainly would be ready at their pack station to take people into the High Sierra wilderness.

Harold Porterfield—a supervisor office employee . . .

BUZZINI: Oh, I remember him.

RICE: Harold was the trail crew foreman for the Inyo National Forest. Harold was absolutely Mr. Mule Days and made sure that forest supervisors were an important part of that event.

BUZZINI: So were you in the parade?

RICE: Yes, in the parade. In fact, the Grand Marshall was usually an agency manager. I think Doug Leisz was a Marshall, the Sequoia Kings Park Superintendent and even Smokey The Bear had that honor. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 16

People visiting and living in the Eastern Sierras are very receptive towards agencies. We had an agency organization called the Inyo Associates. Membership consisted of forest supervisors, BLM Directors, Park Superintendents, the Manager of the Department of Water and Power, City of Los Angeles, Fish and Game, CalTrans, and County Administrators. Through the associate organization we identified management problems and found ways of working together to solve them. About every three years we have a reunion; the last one was in 2004 in Idaho..

BUZZINI: Well, you were used to doing that by now, huh?

RICE: Yes, I was used to it. I had a lot of good mentors. The other thing that had changed so much since my first assignment was the size of Mammoth Mountain. It had grown from two chairlifts and T-bar to about eighteen chairlifts. There were two new ski lodges and Mammoth Lakes had grown from a village to a corporated city.

One of the largest permitees in the Forest Service was Mammoth Mountain owned by Dave McCoy. He had a great deal of respect for the Forest Service, and really worked with us. Great snow and skier use growing by leaps and bounds. Dave always wanted forest personnel to have an opportunity to be on the hill skiing so we’d know all the different problems that were going on. I’m glad he was my ski instructor in 1953 and now skiing with Dave was a forest supervisor priority!!

Dave said one day, “I’d like to raise the number of skiers, at one time to 25,000.”

BUZZINI: From what?

RICE: At that particular point I think it was like 14,000 or 15,000. I said, “Well Dave, if you go ahead and raise that number to 25,000, you’re going to have people standing in line. We’ll need time to evaluate the impacts.”

And Dave says, “Well, what do you think?” And I said, “I think if you want to go up to 25,000 and figuring that each chairlift serves about 750 per hour, we’ve got a major development plan in front of us. The Mammoth Mono Plan now in its early reviews would have to be re-energized to see how 10,000 more skiers would be accommodated.

BUZZINI: [inaudible] I remember that.

RICE: Many hearings later we found an incremental way to tie skier use increase with facility development. As each new lift was completed, an increase in daily ski tickets sold would be permitted till lifts and 25,000 matched up.

Dave saw the value of that solution and bought into it. Dave owned (with Bank of America) Sierra Pacific Airlines, a commercial airline that flew from Bishop to Mammoth to Fresno and to Los Angeles to pick up skiers. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 17 Well at some point, the airline started to get into a little bit of financial trouble and Dave was expending the ski area. In dealing with the Bank of America, he said “Well, I’ve got a lot of facilities up here on public land. How about loaning me some money on my chairlifts?” To keep the airline afloat, the Bank called a meeting in Bishop and I was the responding invitee!!

After listening for some time to worths, values, and loan possibilities, the Bank Manager and Dave looked at me for a response—my intuition said the Forest Service will not permit putting the ski area in hock for the “airline.” We didn’t. But boy, oh boy, that would have been a precedent and an interesting time for all Forest Supervisors if that gate were opened.

One of the other interesting parts of being on the Inyo as the supervisor was the Annual Governors Pack Trip. Each year the California Department of Fish and Game would have a pack trip into the High Sierra wilderness. They called it the Governors pack trip. It was limited to twenty-five people, and invites would be given to State Agency heads, assemblymen and state senators. Sometimes, congressman would be invited and now and then state lobbyists.

It was an annual trip, and the Inyo National Forest would select the location. Different pack stations would get the packing honor. It lasted four or five days and we really learned about the workings of state government.

BUZZINI: Talk about the issues.

RICE: Yes. A few Bighorn Sheep, some antelopes and elk found new homes on a handshake basis because of these discussions.

I think Harold Porterfield use to say that wilderness was the sixth branch of the multiple- use tree; a belief because a great percentage of that forest was in wilderness, and it’s only access was either horse or hiking.

Annually, the Bank of America would have a golf tournament, and they would have it in Inyo County. They would invite all of us who played golf to pay the necessary fee and be a part of the tournament. To minimize difficulties with the golf course, they always held it on a Monday. So this one particular Monday in 1981, I was on the course at 8 a.m. getting ready to play in the tournament. The telephone rang in the clubhouse, and it was Zane Smith, the regional forester, my boss!

BUZZINI: [laughs]

RICE: He says, “Ah, you’re out on the golf course pretty early on Monday.” I said, “Yes, I’m an invitee in a Bank of America Golf Tournament,” Much went through my mind and after what seemed to be a long silence, he offered me the Klamath Forest Supervisor position and asked that I respond to the offer by Friday. With much appreciation on my part the conversation ended. I had very little concentration for golf Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 18 and could hardly wait to round up the family and explain the next (our 13th change of houses) assignment. Midyear 1981 we moved to the Klamath.

But there is still more to share on the Inyo assignment.

The Tournament of Roses people had come to Mule Days and saw that we had two beautiful strings of pack mules and some horses, and invited us to participate in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena on January 1st. We made two parades; one trip was to commemorate the 75th birthday of the Forest Service. It was quite an honor. In most cases, people that want to be in the Tournament of Roses Parade have to make an application and be selected. In our case it was an invite.

BUZZINI: Were you personally on the float?

RICE: It was not a float. It was two strings of mules with horseback outriders. We had to do some spit and polishing to get ready. They get their winter coats in the fall.

So we transported all of the horses and mules to Pasadena a week ahead of the parade and worked with the animals to get them accustomed to their next trail ride down Colorado Boulevard. The chairman of the Roses Parade, horse unit, came out to see us at our camp at the Los County Fairgrounds.

I joined him for a car trip to the parade route, though I’d seen it on TV. I did not realize the extent of it. It’s seven miles long. The volunteers, a part of the parade committee, were painting this big huge rose with the green petals and a white strip around on the pavement so that TV cameras pick up the emblem as the parade participants traveled by.

I saw that big huge white circle with the red rose and the green leaves in it, and said, “I will never to able to get the horses and the mules across that.” And the head of the Tournament of Roses horse group said, “We’ll come out and paint one on the pavement at the Los Angeles County Fairground for you, and you can practice on it.” He did the next day and we were able to get the animals experienced in crossing the Rose!

Anyhow, that was the way of recognizing the Forest Service for its Seventy-fifth birthday. It was a wonderful experience. There were times in that parade when I became a little jumpy, always looking ahead to see what hurdle or surprise was coming next. Just before the time we got to that big red circle of Roses was the cheering of people. You do not realize how high on both sides of the road those bleachers are, there’s absolutely no place to go.

BUZZINI: Were you worried about the animals being spooked?

RICE: No. I figured they’d get a little ancy. I was more concerned with the float in front of us and the marching band behind us. The float in front of us was one of those loop-de-loop floats. Uhh! Everything coming out the back of that float was diesel fumes Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 19 and it came right at us. So I kept holding our group back to keep the animals calm, then the band would strike up a number behind us and our riding pace would quicken.

Fortunately we had developed some different routines to perform with the horses and the mules, and get into circular drills. This slowed the band down and let the float in front of us get ahead. Once the band started seeing how much room we needed to perform, they stayed back. The last two miles were much better than the first five!

When we finished the parade, the chairman of the horse entries said, “This is the first time pack mules have been in the Rose parade, and we would like the shoes off of the mules. They went into the Wrigley Museum and became a part of the Tournament of Roses Parade display.

BUZZINI: How awesome, and on the 75th Anniversary, huh?

RICE: Yes. So there’s our connection to this book and the 100th Anniversary!

BUZZINI: Yes. And you were part of that, and you’re part of this, too?

RICE: Yes. We were invited back again three years later.

BUZZINI: Did you go back down?

RICE: Yes. I don’t know if the Forest has done it since. But the first time we had all of the canvases on the packsaddles covered with a Rose. We had “Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Forest Service.” And on the second trip; we recognized the cities of Inyo and Mono County, and put the names of the two counties and the cities on each of the pack canvasses. A different wrinkle, but we had some imaginative people on that forest and they came up with a few neat ideas!

Interesting enough, on the second trip, our parade tournament leader misdirected us on the freeway route to get to the parade location and coincidentally we were in a freeway off ramp line with a bunch of semis saying Budweiser Beer. The police car was called to take us to the assembly area. Quite a camera opportunity to be with the Clydesdales!

BUZZINI: The Clydesdales?

RICE: The Clydesdales and the Forest Service mules blocking a freeway off ramp. You might say “Big Bucks and Little Bucks” —we had some good visits with the Clydesdales handlers.

BUZZINI: Neat.

RICE: It was something special and I wanted to mention it.

BUZZINI: Great. So now the regional forester gave you the call to go to the Klamath. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 20

RICE: Yes. Transferred in August of 1981. I was amazed during my first trip around the forest because of its size and diversity. An image that a lot of people simply aren’t aware of unless they’ve been on that forest. The rainfall on the west side of the Klamath is over thirty-five inches, and the rainfall on the east side is eleven inches. So you can imagine all of the vegetation patterns that this forest has.

To get acquainted and to learn more, I spent my first couple of weeks traveling with the different staff to get my bearings and to visit the districts. It paid off, because after you’ve been on the forest for a year or so reference points are not roads, but creeks, meadows, and peaks. Those are the kinds of references that you constantly get, so if you’re an employee on the Klamath, you’ve got to get your bearings early. I was fortunate to have some people help me make those connections.

BUZZINI: Well, then they got to meet the new kid on the block, too.

RICE: Oh, boy. Going from the forest that had no timber sales to a forest that was the largest in the region in timber sales was quite a change. It takes a while to get re- acquainted with silviculture.

About a year later I remember getting a call from the chairman of the board of supervisors saying, “Come on over to our Board meeting and acquaint us with the use of herbicides.” I started to get the feeling at that Board session that the use of herbicides for brush control on national forests was soon going in a different direction.

I also began to understand the Klamath’s membership in the “golden triangle.” The three northern forests were called the golden triangle because $2,000 a bud and increasing of our climate for growing marijuana.

I recall one year when we finally got everybody together, the Fish and Game, the Forest Service, the highway patrol, CDF, and the county sheriff’s department—we took on the “pot growers” and we were able to remove over 100,000 plants from the Klamath.

BUZZINI: That’s amazing.

RICE: There are many marijuana stories, and book volumes could be written on this illegal forest crop.

BUZZINI: They’re ongoing. Every year they seem to get bigger and bigger.

RICE: Yes. We had camouflages, we had hanging trees, we had fertilized drip systems, you name it and we could tell you about it.

In 1986 the chief’s office decided that the National Capitol Christmas tree should come from the West and here was an opportunity Klamath employees didn’t want to pass up. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 21 BUZZINI: I remember that.

We made a presentation in San Francisco and the regional forester and his staff awarded the Klamath Forest the chance to provide the tree. We made quite an event out of it. We had competition to determine who was going to cut the tree at the fair. We had competition in selecting the tree. In fact, we had the National Capitol landscape architect, who made two visits to the Klamath National Forest to assist us in selecting the tree that would go back to Washington, DC. All funds for this event were gifts.

We ended up selecting a fifty-five-foot Shasta Red Fir because it represented Mt. Shasta, a prominent location in California, and would be symbolic of Northern California.

The Shasta Red Fir was transported out of Yreka on the Yreka Western Railroad in a chip car, in its passage to the East Coast, traveled over seven different railroads. The markers on the car were identified by railroad people at certain locations and word came back to us daily. The location of the railcar, Southern Pacific Railroad gave its passage top priority.

When the tree train got to Washington DC, they couldn’t get the railroad car through one of the train bridges in Baltimore [laughter]. Chip cars are high, and not very many of them go back to the East Coast. So they had to completely reroute the tree train to get to Compton yards where it would be unloaded and transported by semi to the Nation’s Capitol.

The interesting story about all of this is that the National Capitol architect said, “Do you suppose your committee could come up with some ornaments?” One of the committee members was the superintendent of schools in Siskiyou County. He contacted all of the schools in the state of California, and they made ornaments, and either sent them to us or sent them back to the capitol. They had enough ornaments in Washington to last for two or three future tree decorations.

BUZZINI: What year did we grace the nations’ capitol with this tree?

RICE: 1986

BUZZINI: Were you able to see it?

RICE: Yes. With so many people involved in this event we extended an opportunity for them to fly as a group to D.C. and attend the lighting ceremony.

BUZZINI: Wow. What an honor.

RICE: Fifty-two people from Siskiyou County, not counting the Forest Service people flew back to DC for a five-day holiday. The Secretary of Agriculture made arrangements for us with a bus and toured us all over Washington DC. A lot of people in that group had never been to DC. We also had twenty-five other smaller trees sent back that were Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 22 placed in strategic sight seeing points. It was n honor to be a part of DCs Christmas from the Klamath.

BUZZINI: Wow, great.

RICE: The ceremony was great.

BUZZINI: Did you get to see Mr. President?

RICE: No, never saw him. This is “the peoples tree and is placed at the capitol. It was lighted by the majority leader of the House of Representatives. The White House tree is at the other end of the mall and is a big presidential event.

BUZZINI: I just assumed the president would be there.

RICE: Didn’t see him!

In the Spring of 1987, we had a banquet to recognize all the tree volunteers. Chief Max Peterson came west to the banquet and made some nice presentations. We talk and think about this event a lot.

But let’s see, in 1987, things changed. The lightning strikes that occurred on August 30th started fires that would soon change the vegetation mosaic of the Klamath.

BUZZINI: That’s my birthday.

RICE: Mine too. We had 640 lightning strikes on the Klamath, and it started as near as we could count, twenty-seven major fires. We were eighty-three days working on those fires. Our peak fire suppression force was 17,000. We had seven incident command teams on the forest from all forest service regions. When the fires were suppressed there was 252,000 acres within the burned perimeter.

Over 500 million board feet of timber had to be salvaged. And it’s an urgent need because of potential decay. The Klamath personnel were able to accomplish that in just under three years. It was quite an effort and accomplishment.

The other forests that were heavily involved in this siege of ’87 were the Siskiyou National Forest in Region Six, Stanislaus, and the Shasta Trinity in Region 5. The Secretary of Agriculture gave us a nice award, for not only the suppression of the fire, but the salvaging operation. And I remember about then it was time to go retire. In December of 1989 I did!

BUZZINI: What a way to go, huh?

RICE: Yes. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 23 BUZZINI: At the ripe old age of what, Bob?

RICE: Ripe old age of fifty-seven.

BUZZINI: Fifty-seven, time to go.

RICE: Time to go. That’s what I said on the airplane coming home from a regional office assignment. “It doesn’t get any better. It’s time to retire.”

BUZZINI: Well, Christmas tree suppliers to the superior service award, it doesn’t get any better.

RICE: No.

BUZZINI: Well, you’ve told us some of your most outstanding Forest Service memories. But I’d like to know: What are you most proud of with regard to your role as a Forest Service employee?

RICE: That’s a hard one. I think I’d respond by saying its collective maybe having the freedom to initiate some special events, like doing the Boundary Waters, or the Christmas tree or the Rose Parade. The accomplishments from the siege of ’87 you can recall those kinds of events as unusual but they bonded to the people of the forest. They brought community people together. Public support made our job easier and that’s what I am most proud of.

BUZZINI: It sounds like each time you left one forest, you kind of regretted moving on. But in listening to you talk, each time it got a little bit bigger and better for you, didn’t it?

RICE: Yes, it sure did.

BUZZINI: So, Bob, in December of 1989, you ended your thirty-one year career with the Forest Service to pursue other interests. So why don’t we begin by asking about some of the travel and things you and your wife have done together since you retired?

RICE: Okay. Each year we choose an RV travel opportunity. We explore the Oregon coast, we explore the inland empire, go back and visit a few friends that we worked with, and back to the Midwest. I decided that I wanted to, at some point in my retirement, visit four or five of the major sporting events that occur in the United States. I’ve done the Super Bowl. Last year I went back to the Indie 500. I’m still planning to do the Kentucky Derby and the Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association rodeo. Those are four on my list. I have family members that also enjoy them so a few go with me to events they are interested in. We are planning the Kentucky Derby now.

BUZZINI: Awesome. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 24 RICE: We usually spend about two months in the Coachella area, which is near Indio. My wife is a great tennis player, so it gives her an opportunity to go to the Indian Wells APT Tennis Tournament, which is the professional tennis tournament that occurs every year in March. It’s also an opportunity for our daughter and son-in-law to come over and spend some time with us because we don’t enjoy taking the RV into Los Angeles. They meet us somewhere in an RV park and camp out.

In addition, Charlotte has traveled two times to France. She’s a home economic major, and has gone with four or five other friends that have similar interests in French cooking. About every two years they spend a couple of weeks in France, a vacation she really enjoys.

BUZZINI: So you’re married to a gourmet cook, are you?

RICE: You bet. I could demonstrate that very easily, but I work hard at the fitness center not to. We’ve also both been very engaged in activities in the county. One of the reasons we’re meeting where we are today is that I’m a trustee at College of the Siskiyous. It’s an elected position, and I’ve completed twelve years in that job and I’m going for four more.

I also have served as a member of the accreditation team, which is a team of college professors and administrators that visit different community colleges on the West Coast to clear them for accreditation. All of the colleges have to be accredited to insure they’re performing the standards that they must perform in order for their students to get degrees and advance into four-year schools. I’ve served on maybe four or five accreditation teams in a period of about eight years.

The other activity that I’m engaged in – and then I’ll talk a little bit about Charlotte – is that I belong to the foundation that generated building the new hospital in Yreka. It’s a really beautiful hospital. I served on the Foundation in formative years to get it built.

I now currently sit on the College Foundation, which is a very active group, and members from all over Siskiyou County are a part We’re very successful, and we’ll soon be going into what we call financial campaigns to generate money to build new buildings. We especially want to put in a whole new complete fire science program, which is really needed. There’s only six community colleges in California that offer that program. We also want to have a Rural Health Science Program, with labs and instructional areas.

The other Foundation that I belong to is the Siskiyou Klamath Interpretive Foundation. This is a Foundation that identifies and receives grants to help build and outfit the Information and Interpretive Center at the Collier Safety Roadside Rest Area, an entry point to California from the northwest. That rest area receives over two million visitors a year. Our new Center has been open for almost two years, and are receiving over 10,000 visitors per month to get information about California and Oregon. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 25 Some of our exhibits will interpret Anadromous Fisheries. It’s the only locations where Interstate Five has a stopping point on the Klamath River, and salmon and steelhead come up each year and spawn, from the ocean. It’s quite a sight. We have fifteen partners working on that project. The Forest Service is one of the fifteen, and the nine cities and the county, Fish and Wildlife, Fish and Game, CDF – the College is also part of that partnership. That’s a fun, fun project, and I really enjoy being a part of it!

I’ll also share that as a member of the Board of Trustees, there are statewide organizations to belong to in the California Community Colleges System. One is the California Athletic Commission. I served on the Commission for two years, and helped develop policies to make sure that athletes responded to the student side as well as the sport side. It was an interesting assignment!

Now to Charlotte. She has engaged herself in a project that has probably taken her more time than she thought. She became involved in the Siskiyous Hospice Program, in Yreka. They have a thrift store as one of their fund earning projects.

She volunteered to work in that store, and realized there was an awful lot of clothing being discarded, and periodically, about the only place to dispose of it was to a person who came by and picked it up and took it to Mexico to see if people down there could use.

Well, she and a bunch of her friends are very good in weaving and sewing and she decided a better way to use the material was to recycle it and fabricate cloth gifts for sale. It was so popular that they finally were able to get their little store, 50 feet by 100 feet. Their sales income helps support the local Hospice House.

The Heartisans, all volunteers, work on different projects, most at home. Some material they cut it into one-inch wide strips; it goes into weaving and goes for crocheting, some material is recycled for clothes, some made into pillows—you name it, they can craft it.

They are pretty successful. And the reason that she couldn’t attend today’s interview was because thirteen ladies from Medford came down to see what she’s doing. They think they want to do the same thing for Hospice in Medford.

BUZZINI: I think she ought to go to Redding next. [laughter]

RICE: Well, she did receive quite an honor for starting Heartisans, was the McConnell Lady of the Year—or Citizen of the Year—from the McConnell Foundation in Redding.

Audrey Flower, Executive Director of Madrone Hospice, 255 Collier Circle, Yreka,California, 96097 wrote a letter on behalf of the Board of Directors of Madrone Hospice supporting Charlotte Quinn Rice and Yvonne Steinbring to the University of Minnesota College of Human Ecology Legacy Society. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 26 “Hospice Heartisans,” mission was to create and market one-of-a-kind home décor items from recycled clothing and make a positive difference for the community in many ways. The following ways included they decided upon were:

• Reduce the amount of unsalable clothing donated to Hospice Thrift Shop previously deposited in the local landfill; • Create awareness in the community around recycling beyond cans, bottles, and paper. • Create additional income for important programs in the community. • Develop the concept of “value added” and recycling to a high degree. • Expand the number of volunteers and created new networking and support opportunities in wider areas of the community.

In addition they have made a difference in the community and added recycling concepts shared with hospice programs throughout our region of Northern California as a model impacting other communities. This project has created enthusiasm with volunteers not only creating artistic items but in the sale of items for profit.

BUZZINI: That’s an awesome honor.

RICE: Pretty nice. So think that kind of covers our pre, during and post forest service career.

BUZZINI: You seem to be as busy or busier than when you were a Forest service employee.

RICE: No, not busier. But I think involved in projects I enjoy.

BUZZINI: That means something to you.

RICE: Yes.

BUZZINI: And that you can show, you know, results.

RICE: Yes. You get to see results. I don’t want to be involved if I can’t visualize a result.

BUZZINI: I was going to ask you, you’ve been retired fifteen years now, and do you feel that advances in technology and communications would affect the way your job would be carried out now?

RICE: I’m glad you asked the question, the answer is yes.

BUZZINI: Good. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 27 RICE: I really appreciate that fact that if I were in the organization and a forest officer in a decision making capacity, I would love to have available data through internet. We were just barely doing some of that when I retired.

BUZZINI: [inaudible] general. [laughs]

RICE: It should make the Forest Supervisor’s and the ranger’s job more efficient, and have a better base for decisions

BUZZINI: To draw from.

RICE: If we have advanced data and can make speedier decisions more time should be available to work with and serve people. If we’re going to become more efficient with our knowledge base, we can spend more time with the public that we work with. I don’t see forest employees involved in community projects and it concerns me. We seem to have lost our public support base.

BUZZINI: Instead of being stuck with the paperwork and the computers.

RICE: Right, right. If the public has positive feelings about what we’re doing, it makes the job so much easier, and makes federal employees a part of the community.

My concern now is shifting direction! Shifting to a direction of centralization, which distances us from the communities that support the Forest Service, making us a part of their everyday life.

BUZZINI: Cutting people.

RICE: We’re consolidating ranger districts, and we’re putting a lot of stress on those rangers, because they have such a greater area to try to keep in contact with the people that they serve. So maybe somewhere along the line somebody will rejuvenate the notion of decentralization and give Forest Officers more time with their public partners. I also want to mention expansion of specialized agencies that do not have the multiple resource charter, like National Forest personnel.

Forests have a lot of resources to manage and personnel are obligated to know about those resources, be able to integrate them, and do multiple resource management. So I make my spiel spelled incorrectly about the need to get back to “coordinated resource management and decentralization.”

BUZZINI: Well, hopefully, it won’t go on deaf ears.

RICE: It’s a try. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 28 BUZZINI: Well, Bob, is there anything else you would like to add before we conclude our interview? You’ve given us a wealth of information about your family and your career and your life.

RICE: I think I’ve recalled many career highlights.

BUZZINI: You think you’ve covered everything?

RICE: No. The rest I’ll reserve for the 150-Year Book and Celebration!

BUZZINI: Then I want to thank you so much for your time and for sharing a part of yourself with us. Thank you very much.

RICE: What would you say – what was the term I used right at the beginning? “This is your life,” huh?

BUZZINI: Yeah. This is your life, Bob Rice. Thank you so much.