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Obituary
NSA Life Member George Harpole died April 8, 2021, in Clifton, Colorado. He was a rookie smokejumper in 1949 and also jumped during the fire seasons of 1950 and 1952 to help pay his tuition to earn a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Montana. He had 11 fire jumps over those three seasons. Later he earned a Master's Degree in Forestry Economics from the University of California at Berkeley. George then spent 25 years working for the U.S. Forest Service as a Forestry Conservation Economist in Berkeley, California, and Madison, Wisconsin, followed by another 25 years as an independent consultant focusing on the creation of Stewardships in the forested areas of New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. His focus as a consultant was related to the fire mitigation removals and utilization of small diameter trees and flash fuel materials by the way of creating Stewardships that could be contracted with the Federal, State and/or private forest authorities. George formally retired at the age of 85 upon the publication of his co-authored Department of Agriculture Research Paper (General Technical Report 236) entitled "The Evolutionary History of OSB Board" published in February or 2015.
Identifier
Harpole_George-B_Missoula_1949
Publication Date
April 2021
Keywords
Smokejumping; Smokejumpers -- United States; National Smokejumper Association; Wildfire fighters; Obituaries
Disciplines
Forest Management
Recommended Citation
National Smokejumper Association, "Smokejumper Obituary: Harpole, George B. (Missoula 1949)" (2021). Smokejumper Obituaries. 201.
https://dc.ewu.edu/smokejumper_bios/201
