Click for larger image (39KB)

Born: 1941, Albuquerque, NM
Raised: Farm boy near Los Lunas, NM
Married: 1963, Two children
"Spirit of Place" Identity": Native, rural, pre-war by three months (The Big One), male, gringo New Mexican (For a warm and humorous sense of what that means read John Nichols' Melagro Beanfield War and/or watch the movie of the same name on video)

Statement of Professional Goals: I believe the most important question facing society is:  CAN IMPORTANT AND DESIRABLE ECOSYSTEMS BE SUSTAINED LOCALLY, REGIONALLY, AND ON EARTH FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS? Seeking effective means of addressing this question I, for the past few years, have been shifting my career emphasis from active science administration and focused field research to exploring new means of integrating of ecosystem science, management and policy at landscape and regional scales. The pahtway to this new emphasis is developing new methodologies for traditional and professional learning, communication  and collaboration. I am making this change because I feel that the science I have devoted a career to and believe in is not being used sufficiently by people who make “on-the ground” decisions about land use planning and management. Until ecosystem science is integrated into practical and useful tools for everyday decision making, our society will continue to manage its resources and the environment based on ignorance, myths and political whim. Recognizing that science is esstntial, but not sufficient alone, the required integration requires cross-boundary perspectives that effectively blend bio-physical, social and cultural, economic, and political realities.

Academic Training:

B.S., 1967, University of New Mexico, Biology

M.S., 1969, University of New Mexico, Botany and Plant Ecology

Ph.D., 1972, Colorado State University, Systems Ecology and Soils

Current Interests:

Collaborative ecosystem management; Development of computer aided group learning and decision making methodologies; Nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems; Distance learning in ecosystem science; Grassland ecology; Landscape to Global change; Land Use Planning and Community Development; andOn-line support for classroom ecological instruction
 

NREL 30th Anniversary Symposium Talk (October, 1997) (IBP to LTER to IGBP - Birth of Global Programs in System Science)

Farming, skiing, remodeling, traveling anywhere, botanizing, and handball

Positions Held:

1972-1974 Postdoctoral Fellow, Colorado State University
    Liaison Staff Member, Natural Resource Ecology
    Grassland Biome, USIBP Laboratory

1974-1978 Senior Research Ecologist Natural Resource Ecology
    Laboratory

1978-1982 Associate Professor Department of Range Science,
    Colorado State University

1981-1982 Founding Principle Investigator, Shortgrass Steppe Long-Term Ecological Research Program, National Science Foundation

1982-1984 Program Director, Ecosystem Studies Program, Division of Biotic Systems and Resources (now Environmental Biology),  National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. 20550

1982- Present, Professor Department of Range Science,
    Colorado State University

1984-1992 Director, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory,
    Colorado State University

1993 Executive Director, Sustainable Biosphere Initiative of the Ecological Society of America
    2010 Massachusetts Ave., Suite #410, Washington, D.C. 20036

1994- Returned to RES Dept., Senior Research Scientist, NREL

Business and Community Experience:

With wife, Sarah, proprietors of Quincy Creek Farm, a 65-acre, irrigated, family farm north of Fort Collins. Past-President local Parent - Teachers Organization, member numerous local and Poudre R-1 School District committees.

Currently a Member of the Larimer County Rural Land Use Center Board 1997-2000.

The RLUC Board advises the Larimer County Commissioners on disposition of rural subdivision applications. The RLUC uses a variety of incentives to encourage land owners who have made the decision to subdivide their land to manage the resulting growth by clustering building sites where appropriate, careful siting of buildings and roads, conserving crop, grazing, and forest lands, wetlands and other natural features, and perserving open lands.

Teaching and Training Experience:

Past:

RS351--Grassland Ecosystem Functioning I--Range Science Department, CSU

AG442--Forest and Range Soils--Agronomy Department, CSU

RS660--Nutrient Cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystems--Range Science Department, CSU

AG653--Simulation of Soil-Plant Systems--Agronomy Department, CSU

NR330--Natural Resource Ecology, College of Forestry, CSU

NR340--Natural Resource Measurements, College of Forestry, CSU

Current:

Ecology -- BY 220 Syllabus and Notes

Natural Resource Conservation -- NR 120 Syllabus and Notes (Reconstruction Underway)

Land Use Planning -- NR 440 Syllabus and Notes
 

Internet Training Courses

Shortcourses, Seminars and Workshops for Hire

Managing Ecosystems for Sustainability

This training course was developed to:

Provide shared language and concepts about ecosystems and Ecosystem Management in an "institution-neutral" context;

Provide common base of information for communications that is cognizant of both internal and external concepts and terminology;

Model and facilitate collaborative thinking and analysis;

Honor and bridge differences in viewpoint, personal histories, and training;

Encourage individuals and agencies to provide leadership in facilitating and collaborating in rational analysis and management of important and desirable ecosystems;

Engage training program participants in accomplishing a simple structured analysis (i.e., integrated analysis, comparative risk assessment, etc.) of an issue/problem of the groups choosing.

Federal and state agencies, many organized interest groups, local citizens and others are involved in the process of implementing “ecosystem management”.  Realistically, however, many of the people involved are not trained in an ecosystem perspective and, indeed, are not at all knowledgeable  of even the rudiments ecological understanding.  This training course has been developed to bring the fundamentals of ecosystem understanding in a collaborative setting to local interest groups, the newly formed Resource Advisory Committees of the BLM, and to anyone else who feels the need for an improved knowledge base in the structure and functioning of ecosystems and in the principles of collaboration.

The purpose of this seminar is to aquatint land owners (and their agents) who are considering subdividing their land with some of the issues, regulations, incentives, and opportunities that are available for careful owner initiated planning. Remember, subdivisions are forever. Now is the last chance to let your values direct how your land will look and be managed in the future. Afterwards, you have only one of many views.
• Goal One - Your Feelings and Needs.

 Explore and recognize the emotionally powerful decision processes that lead to the conclusion to subdivide your farm or ranch.
•  Goal Two - What Do You Want?

 Guidance in identifying your values and desires for the way your land will be managed for future generations.
•  Goal Three - Buyers Needs and Desires.

Provide guidance to land owners in "reading" their land and its valuable natural features with a new perspective of what new owners might desire and need and for which they are willing to pay.
Goal Four - Project Design
Provide guidelines for development and management alternatives for dwelling siting, architectural controls agriculture, natural resources, and the environment.
•  Goal Five - The Management Plan

Provide guidance for developing and implementing a management plan, monitoring, and adaptive management.

This seminar explores several of the critical issues involved in individual and organizational change. Borrowing from some selected literature of grief resolution, functioning within healthy and unhealthy families, drug and alcohol recovery and adult life stage transformations I have tried to organize some thoughts to explain why so many of our federal and state agencies, academic institutions and scientific and professional societies are so disfunctional.

While undergoing my own life stage transformations I have learned some computer skills (PC's) that can simplify communication, collaboration, learning and knowledge storage storage and retrieval. Because my driving philosophy is to utilize "off the shelf" software technology rather than invent new and clever solutions to already solved problems, I have organized numerous applications into an integrated and low cost (relatively) system that supports local collaborative planning and management activities. This flexible system of software and hardware components is designed for use by non-nerds (computer literate but not expert) in relatively remote locations where real nerds are not nearby to help fix problems. The basic modules are modern word processors that have unbelievable power hidden below their surfaces, spreadsheets (ditto the hidden stuff), data base managers, presentation graphics, GIS (Arc View 3.0), desktop publishing, image manipulators, Internet applications (e-mail, exploration, web pages, communications, etc.). This short course is a "hands-on" training activity that will prepare participants to develop the own systems.

Previous Professional Research and Administrative Experience: (Selected)

Chairman, Steering Committee, Scale and Global Change: Spatial and Temporal Variability in Biospheric and Geospheric Processes, SCOPE, Paris

Association of Ecosystem Research Centers: founding member, Board of Directors; President (1989)

Member, U.S. National Committee for Man and the Biosphere 1987-92. Chairman, Biosphere Reserve Coordinating Committee.

SCOPE (Scientific Committee for Problems of the Environment)  Committee, U.S. National  National Academy of Sciences

Committee on Planetary Biology and Chemical Evolution, Space Science Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences.

Long-Term Ecological Research Advisory Committee, National Science Foundation.

National Atmospheric Deposition Project, Technical Committee.

Special Science Advisor, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environmental Program).

Advisory Committee, USDI-Geological Survey, Global Change Research Program

Strategy Review Team and Reviewer, USDA-CSRS, National Agriculture Initiative, Competitive Research Grants Program.

International Program Review Team, Centro Agronomico Tropical De Investigacion Y Ensenza (CATIE), Costa Rica. Funded       through USAID. Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. July - August 1990.

Co-Chair Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture Systems - Western Regional Council, USDA-CSRS.

Special Consultant, Biosphere Reserve Committee, Man and the Biosphere, UNESCO, Paris.

Member, White House Working Group, Global Carbon Sinks. 1993.

Publications: (Selected as most influential and/or important from more than 60)

Book:

Rosswall, T., R. G. Woodmansee, and P. G. Risser (eds.). 1988. Scales and Global Change: Spatial and Temporal Variability in Biospheric and Geospheric Processes. SCOPE Report 35. John Wiley & Sons, London and New York. 355 pp.

Journals and Reviewed Chapters in Books:

Woodmansee, R. G. 1977. Analysis and critique of the grassland ecosystem model ELM, pp. 257-281. In G. S. Innis (ed.) Grassland simulation model. Springer-Verlag, Inc., New York.

Woodmansee, R. G. 1978. Additions and losses of nitrogen in grassland ecosystems. BioScience 28:448-453.

Woodmansee, R. G., J. L. Dodd, R. A. Bowman, F. E. Clark, and C. E. Dickinson. 1978. Nitrogen budget in a shortgrass prairie. Oecologia (Berl.) 34:363-376.

Woodmansee, R. G., and D. A. Duncan. 1980. Nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics and budget in annual grasslands. Ecology 61(4):893-904.

McGill, W. B., H. W. Hunt, R. G. Woodmansee, and J. O. Reuss. 1981. PHOENIX: A model of carbon and nitrogen dynamics in grasslands, pp. 171-191. In H. Van Veen and M. Frissel (eds.) Simulation of Nitrogen Behavior in Soil Plant Systems. PUDOC, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

Woodmansee, R. G., and L. Wallach. 1981. Effects of fire regimes on biochemical cycles, pp. 379-400. In H. A. Mooney, T. M. Bonnicksen, N. L. Christensen, J. E. Lotan, and W. A. Reiners (eds.) Fire regimes and ecosystem properties. USDA Forest Service, General Technical Report, PNW, Washington, D.C. Reprinted (1981), pp. 649-669. In F. E. Clark and T. Rosswall (eds.) Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycles: Processes, Ecosystem Strategies, and Management Impacts. Ecol. Bull. (Sweden).

Woodmansee, R. G., I. Vallis, and J. J. Mott. 1981. Grassland nitrogen, pp. 443-462. In F. E. Clark and T. Rosswall (eds.) Terrestrial Nitrogen Cycles: Processes, Ecosystem Strategies, and Management Impacts. Ecol. Bull. (Sweden).

Mosier, A. R., M. A. Stillwell, W. J. Parton, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1981. Nitrous oxide emissions from a native shortgrass prairie. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 45:614-619.

Woodmansee, R. G., W. J. Parton, and J. L. Dodd. 1982. North American Grasslands. In McGraw-Hill 1982 Yearbook of Science and Technology. McGraw-Hill, New York.

Bolin, B., R. Cook, P. Crutzen, H. Goldberg, P. Vitousek, and R. Woodmansee. 1983. Introduction, pp. 1-39. In B. Bolin and R. B. Cook (eds.) The Major Biogeochemical Cycles and Their Interactions. SCOPE Report 21. John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Woodmansee, R. G. 1984. Comparative nutrient cycles of natural and agricultural ecosystems: A step towards principles. In R. Lowrance, G. J. House, and B. R. Stenner (eds.). Agricultural Ecosystems: Unifying Concepts. John Wiley & Sons, New York. pp. 145-156.

Schimel, D. S., M. A. Stillwell, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1985. Biogeochemistry of C, N, and P in a soil catena of the shortgrass steppe. Ecology 66:276-282.

Senft, R. L., L. R. Rittenhouse, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1985. Factors influencing patterns of cattle grazing behavior on shortgrass steppe. J. Range Manage. 38:82-87.

Schimel, D. S., W. J. Parton, F. J. Adamsen, R. G. Woodmansee, R. L. Senft, and M. A. Stillwell. 1986. The role of cattle in the volatile loss of nitrogen from a shortgrass steppe. Biogeochemistry 2:39-52.

Woodmansee, R. G. 1988. Ecosystem processes and global change. In P. G. Risser, R. G. Woodmansee, and T. Rosswall (eds.). Scales and Global Change: Spatial and Temporal Variability in Biospheric and Geospheric Processes. SCOPE Report 35. John Wiley & Sons, London and New York. pp. 11-27.

Swanson, F. J., T. K. Kratz, N. Caine, and R. G. Woodmansee. 1988. Landform effects on ecosystem patterns and processes. BioScience 38(2):92-98.

Woodmansee, R. G. 1989. Biogeochemical cycles and ecological hierarchies. Pages 57-71 in: I. S. Zonneveld and R. T. T. Forman (eds.), Changing Landscapes: An Ecological Perspective. Springer-Verlag, New York.

Riebsame, W. E. and R. G. Woodmansee. 1993. Mapping Common Ground on Public Rangelands. In Let the People Judge: Wise Use and the Private Property Rights Movement. Island Press, New York. (In Press.)

Woodmansee, Robert. G. and William E. Riebsame. 1994. Evaluating the effects of climate changes on grasslands. Proc. (1993) International Grassland Congress. Palmerston North , NZ.

Fisher, Stuart G. and Robert G. Woodmansee.1994. Ecological recovery. In Background Papers for Ecological Risk Assessment Guidelines. USEPA. (EPA Technical Publ. ____).

Faber, B. G., D. G. Fox, D. G. DeCoursey, R. Watts, R. G. Woodmansee and W. W. Wallace. 1993. The TERRA Laboratory: An Interagency Decision Support Environment, Proc. Air and Waste Management Assoc., 93-WA-85.01., 86th Ann. Mtn., Denver, Co.

Hautalouma, Jacob E. and Robert G. Woodmansee. 1994. New roles in ecological research and policy making. Ecol. Int. Bull. 21:1-10.

Christensen, Norman L. (Chair), Ann M. Bartuska,James H. Brown, Stephen Carpenter, Carla D' Antonio, Robert Francis, Jerry F. Franklin, James A. MacMahon, Reed F. Noss, David J. Parsons, Charles H. Peterson, Monica G. Turner, and Robert G. Woodmansee. 1996. The report of the Ecological Society of America Committee on the Scientific Basis of Ecosystem Management. Ecological Applications 6:665-691.