Influential Individuals

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: Is that your son, Jim Dunn?

Paul M. Dunn: Yes. The program has been in effect now for twenty-five years; a very sizeable and a very good program. I am pleased to have had a part in it.

Royal Jackson / Jennifer Lee: I think you're too modest. As you look back on eighty-one years of your life, what particular individual or event had an effect on your life in changing its course?

Paul M. Dunn: I give credit to several individuals, who with advice and encouragement were vital to my career. To my forestry professor, Ed McDonald, head of the Forestry Department at Iowa State College. He was a big help to me. Another forestry professor at Iowa State College who was helpful to me was Dr. D.S. Jeffers, who, subsequently, was the Dean of Forestry at the University of Idaho. Frederick Dunlap, the Missouri State Forester from 1926 to 1931, was a great leader. I worked with him as Assistant State Forester during those same years. My associates at Utah State University, T.G. Taylor, head of the Forestry Department, and President Elmer G. Peterson, were very helpful. Dr. A.L. Strand, President of Oregon State University, was very cooperative with the OSU Forestry Program as it developed over the years. The new program, during and after the war period, was put together largely with the help of Dr. Walter McCulloch, who later became the Dean of the School of Forestry. Dean George Peavy collaborated with me while my program was getting under way. However, he was not an active participant in the program. In my forest industry experience with the St. Regis Paper Company, two men were very helpful: Mr. Roy Ferguson, who was president when I joined the company, and Mr. William R. Adams, who was president following Mr. Ferguson. And most of all my wife, Neva, was a tremendous help. She collaborated and cooperated throughout all of my forestry career, from the time we were married in January, 1926, and from my first job starting in February, 1926. That is the story of my career.