Jose Negron: A Field of Forests, Forestry And The Forest Service

Special Feature

Jose Negron: A Field of Forests, Forestry And The Forest Service

By Wayne Trujillo

Fort Collins has been hailed as a premier biological sciences locus since 1870 when Agricultural College of Colorado (today known as Colorado State University) opened its classrooms in the Northern Colorado settlement. 139 years later, the community has extended its reputation as an epicenter of anything related to the natural sciences, the environment and forestry.

The USDA Forest Service, in cooperation with CSU, is largely responsible for both the area's successes and reputation. Since its inception in 1935, the agency's Rocky Mountain Research Station has consistently defined agricultural and forestry science, with a staff of scientists conducting and publishing both research and analysis. Their cumulative efforts continue to influence policies and procedures on forestry maintenance and preservation beyond national borders, positioning the Rocky Mountain Research Station as an international resource of information and guidance.

Boasting a robust reputation and scientific presence, the Fort Collins scientific community, not unlike the natural sciences and society in general, lacked the contributions of what is today a major force in American society -- minority participation, particularly that of Hispanics. Today, not unlike how it enhanced the area's presence as a scientific powerhouse, the Rocky Mountain Research Station is increasing the presence of minorities, including Hispanics, among its members.

Jose Negron metaphorically serves as a masthead of the movement within the sciences to entice Hispanics to enter the profession, particularly within the Forest Service. The Ph.D is an affable man, accustomed to both the wilderness and the lab. His initial curiosity about the interview and article is soon abandoned as he explains and enters an environment most people encounter at a glance, perhaps on a brief soiree or on television.

With the arrival of stellar scientists like Negron, born and raised in Puerto Rico, the agency is also eager to expand upon his success with outreach efforts directed to the exploding Hispanic community in the U.S., estimated to represent 14.8 percent of the nation's population. While Negron is merely one of many Hispanics, his example isn't nearly as ubiquitous. Hispanics, as a group, have low high school graduation rates, and even those overcoming the odds and attending college often fail to earn a four-year diploma. The challenge for educators, leaders and employers is how to encourage Hispanic youth to persist in their educational pursuits. While the task isn't easy, role models like Negron inspire.

Considering the statistics, the immediate question is how Negron succeeded.

We backtrack a bit. Negron chanced upon his current profession in high school. A Puerto Rican native, his father's hometown is located in the island's mountainous region while his mother hails from the Dominican Republic. He took a biology class and immediately recognized what and who he would be. Pursuing his passion meant enrolling in college. That wasn't a problem for Negron. Once determined to fulfill his destiny, "It hit me!" he exclaims. "This is it... I want to be in biology the rest of my life!"

As Negron retreats into adolescent memories a visual excitement animates his words; even more so, his eyes. With arms extended, he sweeps aside a few decades, not to mention several thousand miles, as his narrative revives his Caribbean youth.

Higher education, he explains, was "affordable" in Puerto Rico. The island claims a high percentage of Hispanics who are either in or graduated from college. Negron's extracurricular sportsmanship gave him an advantage. Describing his collegiate career as an invigorating alchemy of academics and athleticism, Negron broke from the books long enough to play soccer.

Even he wasn't familiar with, much less could foresee, entomology as his life passion and professional discipline, but the basics of biology informed him of this little known but vital study. Entomology is the scientific word for the study of insects. However, most regard them as bugs, pests that they seldom notice unless bitten or bored. The seemingly inconsequential creatures (squish you like a bug immediately comes to mind) enthralled Negron. "I took an entomology class as an undergraduate... and it hit me!" he exclaims.

He discovered insects have the power to slay trees and alter ecosystems. This intimate understanding translated into real-life employment at the Forest Service. But first he earned a bachelor's degree in biology at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. After graduation, he began his Forest Service career but his education didn't end - inside and outside the classroom.

Negron left Puerto Rico to attend graduate school at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. He eventually extended his formal education, earning a Ph.D. Throughout his formal education, Negron remained faithful to what continues to be his professional specialty, entomology. Entomology is described as "the science that deals with insects in their relation to forests and forest products." That brief sentence, while hardly a detailed definition, fits Negron's job description.

After completing his doctorate, Negron scored employment as a Forest Service scientist and subsequently arrived at the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1988, the scientist never left. Negron's professional nexus is an office with a no-nonsense décor, mainly books, but the space's seriousness is relieved by personal memorabilia and photos. I was barely able to survey the surroundings before his narrative snowballs into full-fledged animation. It isn't long before he's escorting photographer and interviewer into his laboratory.

Environmental concerns occupy and structure Negron's daily existence. His professional environment isn't monolithic, limited to either an office or lab. Indeed, his daily habitats aren't limited to two rooms. Negron is frequently absent from the Rocky Mountain Research Station, foraging through areas populated by trees, wildlife and even tundra. Colorado's terrain, particularly forests, is the crux of his interests and his job. And his concerns. I realize the laboratory transforms the spool of academia and theory into substance.

A small creature is attacking trees. The apparently innocuous bark beetle poses a grave threat to forests. Negron points to a slab of bark, picking up a slice of skin peeled from a tree. Several dots line the bark's innards. With eyes squinted, I notice a trail of what appears to be black pimples, unsightly, but seemingly nothing more harmful than a teenager's bad complexion. In reality, the pimpled surface of the tree's stripped shell is a deadly consequence of the bark beetle. That particular piece came from a wooded area devastated by the insects.

Negron explains that trees provide shelter for numerous insects, enjoying a relationship that is innocent; even symbiotic. But when parasitic bark beetles, specifically the mountain pine beetle, breach the forest's surface, the tree, from root to crown, is imperiled. Particularly endangered are injured trees, recovering from forest fires and other injuries. But in significant numbers, the mountain pine beetles' deadly attacks can even kill healthy trees.

The bark beetles' threat to trees is surprising to the uninformed, including me. After burrowing through the bark to the cambium layer, the embedded insects breed and live, pinching the tree's lifeline like a blood clot in the tree's circulatory system, literally starving the trees of nutrients and water. The cambium layer is the tree's lifeline, transporting nutrients and water. Conifer trees are particularly vulnerable to bark beetles. But Negron explains that bark beetles' invasion isn't inherently pernicious. On the upside, the insects temper forest overgrowth and euthanize terminal trees.

After a quick tour of a place inhabited by insects, bark and pulp, we return to the corridors and rooms comprising the Rocky Mountain Research Station. The splintered bark resting on the lab counter is at odds with Negron's office where the only threatening insects appear within the pages of academic articles and books. Negron lives in both worlds. He explains that his duties straddle research and writing; both the field and footnotes.

Like most scientists, Negron excuses himself from fieldwork and the microscope, transformed into a prodigious writer, reporting his discoveries in numerous scholarly journals and scientific publications. His work appears in publications which organizations, including the Forest Service, rely on for management and operational procedures. Forest Ecology and Management, Scientific Journal and Environmental Entomology are several of the journals in which Negron publishes his research. He describes a particular satisfaction with the knowledge that his efforts assist colleagues. "When people use (your) work and put it into practice and management."

The subject of ethnicity appeared briefly in the conversation. Hispanics aren't exactly overtaking the scientific professions. Negron hopes that will change. For one thing, Hispanics aren't situated to enter a career that demands at least graduate school, and where doctoral degrees are preferred. He, like other Hispanic professionals, professes that education is the answer. Interesting youth in careers that require higher education typically requires a personal interest in a profession, not unlike his early fascination with biology. Rather than seek a job, the youth could pursue a hobby. Negron presents an empirical and personal advertisement for a scientific career, specifically one with the Forest Service.

"I would encourage Latino kids to give success a chance," he states. "If nothing else, they should explore science as a possibility of life - and a long and rewarding career." He then strongly suggests that they remain committed to education; that means staying in school. "Education is the only way to get ahead in this world," he stresses. "Pursue your education. Pursue your passion."

Listening to Negron explain his daily life, the impression is that his daily life is beyond fascinating. "It's beautiful to look at and interesting to study," he explains. "The numbers of scientific questions you can ask are infinite. It's a very rewarding field intellectually. At the same time, you can provide a tool for forest managers and others to understand forest ecology."

The benefits extend beyond forestry. The basic biological knowledge, he explains, assists multiple industries such as genetic engineering. The rewards are obvious for science, industry and society. Despite the relative paucity of pay compared to the private sector, Negron hails the personal rewards. "It's a very satisfying field but not a lot of money."

That's not to imply a Forest Service scientist is a pauper. He relays that his life is comfortable. He earns a good living with earnings well above the national average. But the real paycheck for Negron is a wealth of excitement and gratification received on a daily basis. "I get paid to go to the woods," he laughs. "No two days are the same."

As the conversation winds down, we exit the building. In the absence of a forest, the next best photo-op is tree guarding the building. Negron sidles up to the tree and smiles. There isn't the canned or cheesy smile ubiquitous in staged photographs. The shot is as natural as the wilderness where he works - and plays.

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