Robert J. Devlin

Robert J. Devlin completed the B.S. in Forestry in 1958. His first year of enrollment was at Penn State Mont Alto where he also played basketball and baseball, followed by three years at “main” campus. A required 6-week summer forestry experience between sophomore and junior year took him to Camp Blue Jay, located outside of Marienville in northcentral Pennsylvania, and a connection there led employment on the U.S. Forest Service district in Marienville the following summer.

Bob’s expectation to return to the Marienville District after graduation as a full-time employee was derailed by budget cuts. He subsequently accepted a position on the Klamath National Forest, and was stationed in Yreka, California, where he supervised the ongoing reforestation effort resulting from the infamous Haystack Fires of 1955.

In 1961, Bob transferred to the Salmon River District of the Klamath National Forest as Assistant District Ranger. There he was responsible for timber sales preparation and recreation management. In 1962, he was promoted to another Assistant Ranger post on the Greenhorn Ranger District of the Sequoia National Forest, in Bakersfield, California. His duties included recreation management and range management, and he assumed fire control officer duties when the individual in that role was on medical leave. In 1964, six years after graduation, Bob was promoted to a District Ranger position on the Salmon River District of the Klamath National Forest.

The Salmon River District is comprised of more than 200,000 acres and is one of the largest in California. Bob’s transfer coincided with the December 1964 floods, which drastically altered the normal work program. Bob and his team undertook major road and trail work. They also built new recreation sites since about half of the campgrounds were lost in the floods. Bob engaged in the local community, serving two terms on the local school board, during which a new grade school was built.

In 1972 Bob was transferred to the Stanislaus National Forest in Sonora, California, in the central Sierra range. His new position, although primarily in timber management, also included serving as a member of the Forest Leadership Team. Because the USFS was the largest federal agency in Sonora, he often served on various committees including United Way and the County Supervisor’s Advisory Board for natural resources issues, where he assisted private landowners with federally supported projects and also served on local grade school committees. He coached youth teams in baseball and Pop Warner football every fall.

In 1980, Bob accepted the position of Forest Supervisor of the Rogue River National Forest in Medford, Oregon. Although the Rogue River was one of the smaller forests in Oregon (750,000 acres), it played a key role in the region’s economy.  Its recreation program had a larger economic impact than did its timber management activities. Part of the Rogue River National Forest is located in California, which meant dealing with two state’s laws on the forest.    

In 1985, Bob transferred to the Umpqua National Forest in Roseburg, Oregon. Roseburg was recognized as the timber capitol of western Oregon. The Umpqua National Forest also had a large recreation management program and fire management program. During the summer, the Umpqua National Forest (1.2 million acres) had a summer-time workforce of over eight hundred employees. The Umpqua also had four Wilderness Areas, all of which were formally designated during Bob’s time there.

In 1991, Bob became Regional Timber Management Director in Portland, Oregon. His staff of more than one hundred employees were engaged in timber, range, fish, wildlife, botany, insect and disease, air management, soil and water, and ecology programs. 

Legal appeals and lawsuits against various timber sales in the region in the late 1980s delayed timber management plans and impacted lumber production during the early 1990s. A newly elected Clinton administration took office in January 1994 and worked to resolve the "Timber Wars" in the Pacific Northwest. The recently listed northern spotted owl, along with the marbled murrelet and certain anadromous fish as threatened species under the Threatened and Endangered Act impacted where and how timber could be cut. 

The reduction of harvested timber impacted most communities in the Pacific Northwest. 

Bob represented the USFS on many of the Clinton administration’s interagency teams that endeavored to augment the primary cause of economic decline. Though most his time was spent on economic problems in the western half of the region, he still had responsibility as Natural Resource Director for the eastern part of the region. 

Bob retired from the U.S. Forest Service in 2000, after 42 years of service.

Bob was recognized as a SAF Fellow in 1993 and as a 50-year SAF member in 2007 (dating back to his first membership year at Penn State). 

Bob embarked on a new career in 2000, volunteering in a local elementary school. He worked with first and second graders in their reading and math programs. This second career lasted 20 years and involved more than 250 students.
                                                                                                                                                                                 March 2024