Co-written by Carol Dinges and Sarah Brown
John Wilkinson, Class of 1959, will be inducted to the Bud and Dorothy Page LHS Hall of Fame this month for his achievements in the profession of forestry with a focus on advocacy of sustainable working forests.
Growing up near Lacomb, Wilkinson had easy access to the outdoor pleasures of hunting, fishing and other distractions, and grew up with a father who worked as a logger and heavy equipment mechanic. While going through school, he took summer jobs with the Linn County Fire Patrol and setting chokers for Willamette Industries’ Snow Peak Logging Camp, and worked weekends washing trucks at Wimer Logging Co.
After graduating from high school, Wilkinson earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Oregon State, followed by an MBA with honors from Stanford University.
Given his childhood experiences and college decisions, it may come as little surprise that Wilkinson ended up finding a successful career in forestry where his contributions to the work ultimately led him to being inducted into the Forestry Leadership Hall of Fame at the World Forestry Center.
He began his career in forestry management for Weyerhaeuser and for the next 30 years would be assigned to positions of increasing responsibility throughout Washington and Oregon, as well as a time spent overseeing the company’s Asian operations in Indonesia.
The focus of his work was on the company’s new high-yield forestry strategies that would provide continuing timber resources while maintaining an ecological balance. Wilkinson said he always advocated in support of working forests – carefully managed forestland that provided a renewable supply of wood – that benefited the landowners to the greatest extent possible while also protecting natural resources.
“The sustainability of those has always been a principle that has been important to me as I am working the externals of the industry,” he said. “I was always an advocate of the forest, particularly the private forest, (that it) ought to be managed in ways that it’s, yes sustainable, but (also) highly productive…It’s important that we have forests that are not only sustainable, but are productive.”
By 1980, Wilkinson was managing all of Weyerhaeuser’s southwest Washington operations, which included paper mills, lumber mills, logging and timber management.
That was the year Mount St. Helens erupted, effectively devastating 229 square miles of forests, roads, railroads and rivers, and placing a huge task on Wilkinson’s shoulders. Weyerhaeuser
was the largest impacted landowner of the disaster with ownership of more than 65,000 acres of old growth and property.
He immediately began addressing safety concerns, setting up lines of communication between more than 35 county, state and federal agencies, and prioritizing actions that needed to be taken. As the emergency subsided, he then led Weyerhaeuser’s recovery efforts, salvaging more than 23,000 acres of timber during the next three years, restoring key watersheds and reforesting the land.
Wilkinson continued his response to the volcanic eruption by managing environmental research at the site, helping lead the creation of the Mount St. Helens Volcanic Monument and testifying before congressional hearings in Washington, D.C., about the need to balance volcanic preservation and private forestland.
“I was one that was speaking for ‘Yes, let’s make a monument, but let’s not make it larger than is prudent because if you take our land and put it in the national monument, then it’s no longer going to be managed in a productive or sustainable way,’” he explained.
During his career before retiring in 2005, he was director of the World Forestry Center, served on the boards of the Oregon Forest Industries Council and Washington Forest Protection Association, and addressed various federal committees and both houses of Congress on the importance of forest sustainability.
Wilkinson said he has good memories growing up during high school, where he led as senior class president and played football. In fact, he played football alongside Gary Yates, father to Bo Yates who is also being inducted into the Hall of Fame this year.
Wilkinson was a pulling guard in the sport, often involved in plays as a running and full back to lay blocks and make openings.
“(Gary Yates) once told me, ‘If the play called where I’m going to your position, I know that you’ll be gone by the time I get there because you’ll have made the first block and gone on to try to make another one.’ So he knew he had to be there quickly because I was gonna be gone.”
As class president, Wilkinson interacted frequently with Bud Page, who was principal of the school at the time.
“He was a very active person,” Wilkinson said. “He wasn’t just sitting around in his office. He was often out and about in the school, so I learned (from him) something about the value of being an active, involved leader.”