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UC Cooperative Extension forestry specialist Gary Nakamura worked his way from the ground up during a 37-year natural resources career. He mapped soils for the US Forest Service, conducted forestry research for a timber company and, for the last 27 years, worked on public outreach with UC. He retires June 29.

Nakamura earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont.  Hoping to avoid a lifetime of lab work, he signed on for graduate school at UC Davis in soil science. He says one class in particular, Soils 105, fixed his interest in natural resources. For the class, students traveled throughout California to study the state’s diverse soils.

“Ever since, whenever I drive the highways of this country, I tend to look at road cuts to read the landscape,” Nakamura said. “It’s a great skill to have. I think every high school graduate should understand soil science.”

After completing his master’s degree, Nakamura took a position with the U.S. Forest Service conducting soil surveys in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. He later installed research plots in national forests throughout the state for a forest fertilization project.

“We were researching fertilization of forests to see if it would be worthwhile,” Nakamura said. “But most California forest soils are so fertile, fertilizer is not a limiting factor. The limiting factor is water. We learned it wasn’t worth the effort or cost to fertilize.”

The research work led to a job as research director with the forest products company Champion International Corp. While in that position, Nakamura chaired the Northern California Forest Yield Co-op and began collaborating with UC Berkeley forestry professor Lee Wenzel, who was developing a computer model for estimating forest growth. That contact led to his being hired in November 1985 as the UC Cooperative Extension area forestry specialist based in Shasta County.

Nakamura said he conducted thinning and fertilizer trials and continued with the growth modeling effort, however, he soon came to realize that the primary problems confronting forestry were not technical, but rather a lack of public understanding of forest management. Nakamura then became involved in public education.

A major educational outreach effort, now in its 19^th year, has been the Forest Institute for Teachers (FIT), a week-long summer institute co-sponsored with the Society of American Foresters to boost teachers’ interest and teaching skills in forest ecology and forest resource management practices. The program is offered free to school teachers. Those who complete the program and present the curriculum to their students receive a $200 stipend from the Institute.

Nakamura has worked closely with fellow UCCE forestry advisors Michael De Lasaux (Plumas-Sierra) and Yana Valachovic (Humboldt-Del Norte) to bring together at FIT natural resource experts and teachers from rural and urban settings to work side by side while developing a deeper understanding of forest ecosystems and human use of natural resources.

“We’ve trained about 2,000 teachers since 1993 on how to incorporate real-life natural resources issues into their California standards-based curriculum,” Nakamura said.

In the early 1990s, Nakamura also worked with timber interests, the Forest Service, environmental groups and local communities to create the Shasta Tehama Bioregional Council. The council aims to stabilize, enhance and restore the region’s biodiversity while protecting business and labor interests. The organization took on a fuels reduction project in Iron Canyon. Years of fire suppression allowed for thick undergrowth to become established, which forest experts feared would fuel a catastrophic fire if ignited. However, fuel treatment was avoided for fear of harming bald eagle nests and spotted owl habitat. Nakamura arranged a compromise that led to a pilot understory fuels reduction project that ensured that trees were removed only for fuel and fire hazard reduction, not economic gain.

Throughout his career, Nakamura served as a liaison between competing natural resources interests and injected science-based information into the debates. These efforts were recognized by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed him to the State Board of Forestry in 2007. Nakamura also received the Frances H. Raymond Award from the Board of Forestry and was named a fellow with the Society of American Foresters.

In 2007, Nakamura was appointed director of UC Cooperative Extension in Trinity and Shasta counties. As a new administrator, Nakamura said he found that interacting with county officials wasn’t difficult.

“We see board members on field trips. They are forestland owners, ranchers and attend 4-H events,” Nakamura said. “This interaction is only possible in a rural county. In urban counties, you’re probably never going to encounter county supervisors at the fair, at workshops, conferences or committee meetings.”

In retirement, Nakamura will move from Redding to a lush, forested Washington state island a short ferry ride from Seattle. Already, Nakamura has arranged to share the expertise he developed during his long career in natural resources by volunteering to serve on the Environmental Technical Advisory Committee for Bainbridge Island.

Farm advisor Larry Forero will assume the post of county director for UC Cooperative Extension in Shasta and Trinity counties.