HARSHAW, Wis. - Dr. David Karnosky a Michigan Technological University professor who died Oct. 24, was honored by the U.S. Forest Service.
On Friday, the USFS named a laboratory in Wisconsin after him. Karnosky had been involved with the Forest Service since 1968.
The David F. Karnosky Laboratory is located in Harshaw, Wis., just outside of Rhinelander, where Karnosky was born and raised.
Karnosky was a professor in Tech's School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science where he worked on a wide range of topics including genetic aspects of air pollution and climate change, improving forest productivity in northern regions, functional genomics of environmental responses, growth and flowering and the breeding and engineering of economically important traits in trees.
Karnosky started working for Michigan Tech in 1983 after studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he completed his undergraduate studies and then earned his doctorate.
During the summers, Karnosky would work for the U.S. Forest Service, something he continued to do off-and-on throughout his college career. While at Tech, he was able to continue his relationship with the service which, according to Karnosky's son, earned him the respect of the agency..
"To be naming a building for someone that wasn't a forest service employee is a really big deal for them," Daver Karnosky said after a ceremony Friday night attended by family and friends and. Forest Service employees." Daver said the event was really well done and included the telling of some good stories.
"It was nice to go back over his life in that way," he said.
The building, which was built with grant money and will be used to harvest trees inside of twelve different rings of the building, was named after Karnosky with a commemorative plaque placed on the building.
"The whole plaque on the building is just perfect," Daver added. "It's exactly the kind of thing he would have liked to have seen."
Michael H. Babcock can be reached at mbabcock@mininggazette.com