2018 Variable Probability Shortcourse

This year was the first without John Bell running the short course at OSU. John did, however, come to say hello at the beginning and end of the course.

Here are the winners of the "best crew" for the Variable Plot and 3P field exercises. (While some thought that they were just lucky, at least one crew differed in opinion) At any rate, they were a handsome bunch.

Congratulations to the winners, and we hope all of you had an interesting time in Corvallis. We thank Jeff Penman for the photos and his help at the course.

Jim Kiser and Kim Iles

Variable Plot Winners

"3P crew, with Kim tired of being the shortest guy"

JOHN BELL RETIRES FROM THE OSU SHORT COURSE

At age 93, John Bell has decided that it is time to turn over the short course at OSU to some younger instructors. This year was the 60th anniversary of the short course. People born that year are getting ready to retire.

When John and Lu Alexander started the course in 1957, they could hardly have imagined how long it would last. Since they doubled sessions in some years, there were 67 courses at OSU, and Kim Iles and John also put on more than 20 at various places around the world, totaling more than 2,000 timber cruisers attending.

There was a great crowd at the short course in this final year. Jim Kiser will be taking over the program chairmanship at OSU, and is well qualified to do it. He has lots of experience in practical work in forest inventory, and is a great teacher. The conference office at OSU has been wonderful to work with, and will continue to do the paperwork and site operations – probably at the OSU LaSells Stewart Center while the forestry building is under construction.

We hope that the course will continue to offer the same practical advice to future timber cruisers. If you want to email John, you can do so at jfredbell@gmail.com. If you have any comments about what should be changed or retained in the short course, we would be happy to hear such comments. We will have a lot to live up to.

Kim Iles, apprentice to John

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Forestry Field Reference Book

Jim Kiser (Instructor of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management at Oregon State University) has just published a handy forestry reference book. The book is distributed by John Bell and Associates. From the preface:

"the text is meant to serve as a reference for practicing foresters and other natural resource professionals who work with field measurements as a part of their job requirements. Although primarily focused on timber and timber stand, the book also serves for typical engineering of forest forad layout with an added section on curve layout formulas and tables. The intent of this book was not to provide an inclusive set of forester's tables, but to pull together the more common tables necessary to the day to day activities..."

Contact Jessica at: forestrybooks@gmail.com to acquire a copy of your own.

Book  of Interest

Kim Iles has published his third book, “The Retread, The Reject and the Tower Statistician”. 417 pages, bonded leather cover, $45 plus shipping. The style is very similar to his second book. The same “OH” character from the second book and the chapter six memos from his first book (Sampler of Inventory Topics) is continued. It has 61 short (4-5 pages) chapters, mostly about solutions to real problems with some practical psychology and statistical theory woven into them, with suggestions about professional development.

If you are interested, you can check out the details at his website : http://www.island.net/~kiles/

In regard to the Sampler of Inventory Topics many of you have received at the OSU short course:

Any errors that have been noted in the first two editions have all been updated and are on Kim’s website. When the Relascope spreadsheet was first done (with the first edition) there was a small error with some combinations of bars for the very first books sold. Kim tried to trace down all the owners who had that on their book CD, but if you own the first printing (grey color) download the one that has been here on the John Bell website for many years, and replace the one you have - just in case.