Ross TUMBER SAIES

Col. Williom B. Greeley Dies After Mony Yeors of Service to Unired Stqtes Forestry

Colonel William B. Greeley, dean of American forestry, outstanding lumberman, soldier and author, died at his home on Port Gamble Bay, Washington, November 30 after an illness of several months.

Colonel Greeley has been called the greatest forester of our times, and certainly his long record of leadership in this newest U.S. profession, which spans hardly more than half a century of our national life, would support claims of his fellow {oresters to this honor.

Seventy-six years old at his death, Colonel Greeley played a dominant part in the growth of forest management in this nation since 1904, when he joined the budding U.S. Forest Service.

Then came World War I. He entered the service as a major, went overseas with the 10th engineers, soon won his full colonel rank and was placed in charge of 21,000 forestry troops in France. lIe commanded more men as a colonel than any other man in the army and got out millions of feet of lumber for use of our troops at the front.

Managed West

Coast Lumbermen's Association

Back from the wars, Colonel Greeley was named in I9A chief forester of the United States, a post he held untll 1928, when the Douglas fir industry asked him to come out and take over management and direction of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association, then headquartered at Seattle. He made an outstanding record in this post, and it was during the years between 1928 and 1946, when he retired, that he helped formulate the Keep America Green program and the great Tree Farm movement.

The great forester held most top positions in the various forestry organizations. He had been president of the Society of American Foresters, and in 1946 received the Schlich award for outstanding work for his profession. He was chairman of the board of American Forest Products Industries, Inc., director and president of the American Forestry Association, and served on the War Production Board lumber and forestry section during World War IL He was vice-president of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association until his death. His honors were many and varied, among them were the D. S. M. (U.S.), Legion of Honor (France) and D. S. O. (Britain).

After his retirement in 1946 from active management of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association. he turned to writing and his first book, "Forests and Men," was a best seller in the non-fiction field. IIis "Forest Policy" book is a forester's handbook.

Surviving are his wife, Gertrude; a daughter, Mrs. J. A. Harvey, Jr., Santa Ana, California; three sons: Arthur W. Greeley, U.S. regional forester in Alaska; David Greeley, an official of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company and Henry J. Greeley, an official with the Long-Bell Lumber Company.

A contemporary of President T. R. Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, Greeley had much to do with shaping up the great forest reserves now known as the U.S. Forest Service holdings. He was a forest evangelist and his mark on our vast timber stands will endure for generations.