George Sprugel, interviewed March 11, 1985, discusses the Institute of Ecology, including its origins, its approaches to research, its relationship with colleges and universities, its structural and funding challenges, and its demise.
Dr. Sprugel was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 26, 1919, before his family to Williams, a small farming community in central Iowa, where young George first learned to appreciate nature. He matriculated at Waldorf Junior College in Forest City Iowa, obtaining the A.A. degree in 1939, before entering Iowa State University at Ames the next year, where he was called to active duty in the U.S. Navy. After his return from the war, he returned to Iowa State University, where he obtained Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degrees in zoology and entomology between 1946 and 1950. He was then called to active duty in the Navy again for the Korean War, in which he was appointed as the Acting Head of the Biology Branch of the Office of Naval Research in Washington, with the rank of Captain. Sprugel then served in many positions in a number of important advisory capacities, such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Commerce, American Institute of Biological Sciences, National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Academy of Sciences.
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