UW plant geneticist Reinhard Stettler, biographer of the cottonwood tree, dies

With his questing curiosity, Reinhard Stettler got to know cottonwoods. And aspens. And poplars. From their genetic makeup, to his experiments that sparked a hybrid poplar boom in Washington and Oregon, where the trees are still visible in plantations growing all over the Northwest.

Stettler died Dec. 9, just short of his 95th birthday, because of complications from dementia.

As a new faculty member at the University of Washington, Stettler was expected to dig into a career that would further the economic importance of one of the state’s signature conifers, Douglas fir, perhaps. That did not happen.

Instead, Stettler, always a free thinker and iconoclast, when he was hired at the university’s College of Forest Resources (now the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences) in 1963, chose the genus Populus – cottonwoods, poplars and aspens – for his study because in those trees he could probe their genetics, recalled his son, Dan. With short intervals between generations, easy cloning and rapid growth, Stettler had found his perfect subject for experimentation with hybridization.

Among his many accomplishments was the discovery that hybrids of the Pacific Northwest native black cottonwood and eastern cottonwood grew incredibly fast – nearly 10 feet a year. A commercial darling for the pulp and biofuel industry was born, and along with it, a new forest products industry in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. The U.S. Department of Energy took notice and awarded a large grant to Stettler and his team that would for the next 20 years fund a collaborative network of researchers across the world, including physiologists, pathologists, chemists, molecular biologists and ecologists.

All typical for a scientist who excelled at collaboration, and was deeply respected for his work, said Tom Hinckley, faculty emeritus at the University of Washington, and a colleague of Stettler’s. “He was respected because of the integrity of his writing and application of the scientific method. His interpretation of results was always cautious and conservative,” Hinckley said. “He was a good thinker.

“He would also see the unusual thing that varied from the norm, and ask why.”

Born Dec. 27, 1929, in Steckborn, Switzerland, Stettler left Switzerland in 1955 with his wife, Monique Gerwig, first for British Columbia where they pursued graduate work at the University of British Columbia, then in 1959 moved to Berkeley, where Stettler earned his Ph.D. in plant genetics from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the faculty of the UW in May 1963.

There, he earned a reputation as an engaging and caring professor, taking the time with students individually to teach them the skills of observation and interpretation. “His fieldwork courses were legendary for being great adventures and for turning skeptics into tree lovers and nonscientists into scientists,” said his close friend, Penelope West. In recognition of his excellence, Stettler won the UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990, a campuswide competition.

Stettler also played the accordion, spoke four languages, sketched, wrote poetry, and was a fine cook of Swiss regional specialties and curry, too, Dan Stettler said. But he was an even better grandfather, making up plays and games and taking his grandson on hikes and walks. “My son gained a deep appreciation for the natural world through my dad. With time, I did too,” Dan Stettler said.

Reinhard Stettler maintained a strong relationship with his family in Switzerland, and kept his rich network of international connections alive lifelong, whether with family or colleagues in his profession.

Not content to only communicate with other scientists, Stettler also wrote a book for general readers, “Cottonwood and the River of Time” (UW Press, 2009), extolling the virtues and remarkable resilience of the tree he so deeply knew and loved. And he shared his knowledge of the tree with Seattle Times readers in a story so popular it was published twice.

His enthusiasm was infectious, said Nick Wheeler, whom Stettler let sit in with his lab every week, talking through scientific papers. Wheeler, now retired, went on to a long career as a research scientist in forest genetics, first for Weyerhaeuser, and then as a private consultant. “He was very generous with his time, technically I was never his student, but he was very much a factor in my development and why I went into the field,” Wheeler said.

A lifelong student and lover of nature, Stettler once wrote in a letter that he “lived in a grand arc of nature and saw the beauty in the continual flow of generations. The leaves that fall in autumn are both an end and a promise. Life in its many forms continues. What comfort to return your molecules to the earth for what is yet to come!”

Stettler is survived by his older brother Emanuel, of Kirchdorf, Switzerland; his son, Daniel, of Seattle; and other family including his grandson, Nico, of Philadelphia. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Forest Biology Lecture Fund that he established at the University of Washington School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

Celebrations of his life are being planned in Seattle in the spring, and in early summer in Kandersteg, Switzerland.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Friends of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences Fund to support a Reinhard Stettler Annual Excellence in Biology Lecture. Checks may be sent to: University of Washington; Attn: Gift Services; Box: 359505; Seattle WA 98195-9505. Donors should include a note in the memo line: in memory of Reinhard Stettler.