Art Johnson
Many thanks to Debby for her successful efforts to keep us thinking about one another. I have
enjoyed reading the things people have contributed about themselves and our classmates
(obituaries excluded). I have always been a poor correspondent, but it’s time to post something
here about the past 59 years and hopefully reconnect with some old friends.
After 13 years in the FM school system, I spent the next 49 years in colleges -- as a student at
Middlebury, Dartmouth and Cornell (PhD in Soil Science, 1975), then for 40 years as a professor
in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. I had
a career as a forest scientist, originally focusing on nutrient cycling, the influence of acid rain,
lead from gasoline, and other airborne chemicals on forest soils and forest health. I really
enjoyed teaching, and had very good luck with research grants, thanks in large part to 30 years of
support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The flexibility of the Foundation money
allowed me to diversify and start new research projects pretty much wherever I wanted to, and
grow them until they were attractive to other funding sources. As a result, I had about 20 very
bright, capable Ph.D. students, and adventure research projects in little-studied places including
the cloud forests of Puerto Rico, remote, old-growth mountain forests of southern Chile, a
variety of forests in the Amazon basin, and closer to home, the high-elevation conifer forests of
the Adirondack, Green and White Mountains. One of the highlights was the decade spent
excavating, and figuring out the metrics of wonderfully-preserved forests that covered the Arctic
islands of Canada as far back as 55 million years ago. Those forests grew to a height of 140 feet
and provide a window into an era when the earth had no ice caps and forests stretched from the
tropics to the poles. Getting to know the arctic’s present and past landscapes, its wildlife, and
experiencing its vastness has left the greatest impression.
All of it, especially the few thousand days spent outdoors with students, was far more fun (and
far more consuming) than any career I could have imagined in 1966.
Along the way, I got
married and divorced and raised twin sons who discovered common sense somewhat belatedly
but are now prospering. One lives in Australia, the other in Virginia. I also have two grandsons
in VA who are very small and don’t yet understand how Opa fits into their lives other than as a
purveyor of toys. I retired from Penn in 2015 and live on an old farm near Nottingham PA with
Suzie Richter, my true companion for the past two decades, and 4 horses. Most days now are
spent doing something with horses and/or tinkering with old cars. I am four decades into chasing
hounds and foxes on horseback, and still going 2 or 3 days a week, August through March, with
the Andrews Bridge Foxhounds. As a result of wear and tear from that sport, contributions from
mediocre genes, the liberal consumption of alcohol, and so on, I have slowed a bit and acquired
some man-made parts. Those have worked well to date, allowing me to continue fox hunting,
playing with cars, and dodging the Reaper. I am soooo thankful for the long run of very good
luck.
Best wishes to all.
Art Johnson ahj@sas.upenn.ed
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