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A Certified Wildlife Biologist, he taught graduate level wildlife resource management courses for years. His list of publications on wildlife and related resource topics exceeds 200, including two "principles" wildlife textbooks and a techniques manual. Failing (as he perceives it) to get into practice most of his excellent students' ideas and discoveries (and those of others), he has prepared the following materials.
As a native Virginian, he worked in Virginia for over 35 years. He came to understand "wildlands" and rural areas as almost "all of the outdoors" but thinks that everyone knows what he means - the farms, forest, fields, "and templed hills." He sees no reason to draw a line at any city or town boundary for therein are parks, ponds and urban forests. He worked with the state wildlife department (then "The Commission of Game and Inland Fisheries") for 4 years as a biologist out of Covington, Virginia, primarily on National Forests. He taught and did research at Virginia Tech for 30 years. With TVA support he created the woodland resource management system of TVA, once used on 300 farms a year. With staff and students, he created the first wildlife information base (BOVA) and a GIS of the State with a thesis in 1969 (before the activity of computer mapping was called GIS). As landowner, chairman of a local planning commission, consultant to the National Wildlife Refuge System, aid to the State Cooperation Commission (powerline impacts), a consultant for Wintergreen and several realtors, he now has a unique and alternative perspective on land and its management. He wrote the first plan for wildlife other-than-game for Virginia. Thirty years ago he was attracted back to Virginia Tech and he has worked there until his retirement in 1998.
In the mid-1970's he worked diligently on a project with the Penn Virginia Resources Company, Duffield, Virginia, to develop ideas for the future of that ownership when the coal was gone. He had a long-running column in the Coalfield Progress. His work with C.B. Slemp initiated the Powell River Project, well-known in the region. Dismissed from that project as it took a different turn from its founding, he has maintained interest in the region and has continued to develop concepts and projects that might one day serve the people there. At Tech he taught wildlife management, systems ecology, integrated pest management, and an environmental course. Recently, after retirement, he offered a distance-learning graduate course at the Northern Virginia Graduate Center. He developed the Haysi environmental analysis for the Corps of Engineers and did many impact studies for mines in Buchanan County. These have been fundamental to his understanding of the area, appreciation of the people and the land, and a sincere regard and concern for the future wellbeing of this part of the state.
He's heard "What's in it for you?" several times about his ideas and about Rural System and sensed that others wanted to know too. Having lived and worked in an environment in which free advice was seen as "worth about that much" he only wants real progress, and the pleasure of seeing some ideas used. Evidence, that will be the payoff; he's already been well-paid by the State University.
He said, "I am now convinced that a superior demonstration of modern comprehensive rural resource management is badly needed and is now possible. I do not want to do research; I want to use research to demonstrate the results of literally millions of dollars of un-used findings. I propose to bring all the power of a concept and the computer that I can to realistic and relevant use on the area for its people ..… now and for the long term … the very long term. This will include much of that power already achieved by investments of resource agencies. I propose systems, subject to the law, that achieve such objectives, subject to reasonable issues of cost, propriety, and community acceptance.
"The 'bottom line' of this Rural System work is that the lands of the next world should be soundly functioning, at least financially 'break-even' over the long-term (but more than that with a new paradigm of responsible management), and rich with benefits from restored, enhanced, preserved, and managed resources. We can create such systems, but they are more complex than once thought. The work will be challenging and worth the effort."
He once said, "The people of Virginia (and nation) through their taxes have invested a great deal in me over the years. "I have taught and "professed" as was my job. Now I have more to contribute and they have paid me well to do so. I hope they listen now before it is too late for them...or me."
See his book Rural System? Just Dreaming …
A For-Profit Conglomerate for
Meaningful Jobs
Healthful Communities
and Improved Natural Resource Management ©
His full curriculum vitae is available.
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Robert H. Giles, Jr.
July 23, 2005