USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station Westside Silviculture Options Team Seattle, WA and Olympia, WA

Two team members, Steve Reutebuch and Bob McGaughey are located in Seattle, WA on the University of Washington campus. They participate in the Cooperative for Forest-Systems Engineering (FORSYS), a partnership between the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station and the University of Washington, College of Forest Resources. The cooperative exists to address difficult problems in forestry through engineering research, development, and technology transfer. Forest Service researchers, University faculty, and students form the cooperative staff and participate in synergistic endeavors to discover, develop, adapt, and disseminate knowledge and technologies in forest-systems engineering.

The mission of the FORSYS Cooperative is to conduct forest-systems engineering research that will help solve difficult forest harvesting and management problems; and to promote the wise application of forest-systems engineering solutions to forestry problems. Specific objectives of the FORSYS Cooperative are:

• Contribute to the base knowledge needed for engineering solutions to harvesting and other forest operations problems on sensitive sites
• Provide effective methods for collecting and using data about forest-systems in the forest management decision making process
• Vigorously pursue technology transfer of forest-systems engineering research results