University of California: In Memoriam, 1986
Fred Eugene Dickinson, Forestry: Berkeley
| 1912-1986 | |
| Professor of Forestry (Wood Science), Emeritus | |
| Director of the Forest Products Laboratory, Emeritus |
Born in Buena Vista, Minnesota, Fred Dickinson earned the B.S. degree in forestry from the University of Minnesota in 1938 and, following graduation, worked with the Civilian Conservation Corps and the U.S. Forest Service in Minnesota. Upon earning the M.S. degree in Forest Products from Michigan State University in 1941, he spent a year as director of the Forestry Department of Lassen Junior College in California. From 1942 through most of 1945, he taught in the Technical Service Training Division of the U.S. Forest Service Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin. Following World War II, he became an assistant professor and later associate professor of forest products at Yale University and completed the Ph.D. degree in forest products economics there in 1951. In 1952 he joined the faculty of the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan as associate professor and chairman of their Department of Wood Technology. In 1955 he was appointed professor of forestry in the School of Forestry at Berkeley and became the first director of the U.C. Forest Products Laboratory located at the Richmond Field Station. During his 25-year tenure as director, he built the Forest Products Laboratory into a renowned research institution that could boast of being among the very best in the world. Until his retirement in 1980, he was active in forest-products research organization as well, administering the undergraduate wood-science and technology program, serving as graduate student advisor and teaching wood-utilization courses.
His professional specialty was in the area of wood machining and the mechanical processing of wood. To further research in this field he established cooperation among the Forest Products Laboratory at Richmond, the Department of Mechanical Engineering on the Berkeley campus, and a group of forest-products industry supporters. In 1963, he organized the first international Wood Machining Seminar which was attended by wood-machining
As a member of both forestry and wood-products organizations, Dickinson always tried to serve as a mediator between forestry and the forest-products industry. He was an active member of several wood-products organizations, being a charter member of the Forest Products Research Society (President 1963-64), and a member of the Society of American Foresters (elected Fellow in 1969), Society of Wood Science and Technology, and the International Academy of Wood Science (President 1969-75). He was also an active participant in the affairs of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations. From 1964 to 1966 he was a member of the Committee on Forestry Research of the Agricultural Board of the National Academy of Science-National Research Council and in 1964-65 was a member of Governor Brown's Committee on Conflagration.
Among the special honors Dickinson received was the University of Minnesota Regents Outstanding Achievement Award and the Heinrich Christian Burckhardt Medal from the Faculty of Forestry at the Georg-August University of Göttingen, Germany.
His resonant voice and reassuring smile made him a welcome addition to any and all meetings and social gatherings. His easy-going manner and quiet determination made him well liked by his associates. A dinner held in his honor during the annual meeting of the Forest Products Research Society in San Francisco in 1979 drew a large and enthusiastic, turn-away crowd of colleagues and friends. Widowed shortly before he retired and seriously handicapped by multiple sclerosis, he nevertheless faced life cheerfully and independently until the end.
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb767nb3z6&brand=oac4
Title: 1986, University of California: In Memoriam
By: University of California (System) Academic Senate, Author
Date: 1986
Contributing Institution: University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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University of California Regents
Academic Senate-Berkeley Division, University of California, 320 Stephens Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-5842