Issue 5

Snapshot from the Field

Grace and Steele Partnership Yields Results

Research engineer Johnny Grace focuses on roads and water quality. He knows his work at the SRS Forest Operations Research unit would not be possible without Preston Steele, Jr., the engineering technician with whom he works most often. Grace and Steele take a lot of research road trips from their base in Auburn, AL. “Preston has traveled throughout our region, assisting me in collecting data on roads, soil, and water over the past 10 years,” Grace says. This effort is in addition to the support Steele provides to other scientists; he often travels more than 4 months out of the year. Grace adds, “The value of support staff in research is a point that is seldom made.”

Grace began working for the Forest Operations unit in 1991 through the Forest Service’s cooperative program with Auburn University. An agricultural engineering student, Grace supported harvesting and biological land engineering interaction, forest operation, and productivity and utilization studies. Grace continued working in the Forest Operations unit as an undergraduate and while earning his master’s degree at Auburn. SRS hired him in 1996 as a research engineer.

While Grace worked on his Ph.D. at North Carolina State University in Raleigh from 1981 to 1982, Steele kept their projects going and performed field work for the Auburn unit. With skill and dedication, Steele managed data collection, monitored processes, set schedules, and trained students to collect data. Every month or so, Grace traveled to Auburn, where Steele would have everything ready for a trip to the field. When Grace returned to Auburn, he completed his dissertation while researching the interactions of roads and water quality. (...continued...)