Thomas, Williams Might Team Up At Um Outgoing Forest Service Chief, Retiring Lawmaker May Co-Teach

Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas and Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont., might team teach a course at the University of Montana after both have settled into their new roles as professors there.

Thomas and Williams have discussed teaming up for a course on politics and policy in natural resources, UM Dean of Forestry Perry Brown said Friday.

“It’s hard to say whether it will gel, but there’s a good possibility, probably not until the fall semester,” Brown said.

Thomas announced Thursday that he will retire as chief of the Forest Service next month after three years in the position, and will teach at the university in Missoula, starting in January.

He became chief of the Forest Service after a long career as a wildlife biologist for the agency. Thomas, who worked for many years in La Grande, Ore., led a scientific panel that warned in 1990 that the northern spotted owl would become extinct without major reductions in the logging of old trees.

Thomas will be paid $110,000 a year at UM, where he will hold a faculty chair endowed primarily by the Boone and Crockett Club, a national conservation organization with headquarters in Missoula.

Neither Thomas nor Brown could remember exactly when they first discussed the possibility of Thomas coming to Missoula.

Brown hailed Thomas’s “international stature and insight” as a scientist and land manager.

“He has been involved with a number of universities over the years,” Brown said.

The university announced in July that Williams would join the faculty after he retires from the U.S. House in January, completing an 18-year congressional career.

Williams will teach courses in legislative politics and will be based in the Political Science Department, but also is expected to teach in other areas, including journalism and forestry, UM President George Dennison said last summer.

The Boone and Crockett chair that Thomas will fill used to be held by another prominent Forest Service administrator, Hal Salwasser. He left the university in July 1995 to head the agency’s Missoula-based Northern Region and is among those mentioned as a possible successor to Thomas.

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said Friday that Salwasser has done an outstanding job as regional forester and deserves strong consideration for the chief’s job.