Biographical Information about Thomas Quigley

Thomas M. Quigley was named Station Director for the Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station in November 2002 and reported for duty on January 12, 2003. The PNW Research Station is one of eight research units in the Forest Service. The Station employs approximately 550 employees and is organized into seven research programs conducted at 10 laboratories and research centers in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, as well as experimental forests in the three states.

Quigley’s federal career began with a 4-year stint as a meteorologist for the Air Force. He joined the Rio Grande National Forest in 1976 as a hydrologist and range conservationist. He later transferred to research in 1977 as a range conservationist based at the Forestry and Range Sciences Laboratory in La Grande, Oregon. Quigley went on to hold a variety of leadership positions including manager of the Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute and science integration team leader for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project. In 1996, Quigley was appointed Program Manager for the Managing Disturbance Regimes Program at the Station. He left that position to become Assistant Director for Research at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in 2001, a position he held before his current appointment as PNW Research Station Director. As Station Director, Quigley shares national leadership responsibilities for wildland fire and fuels research and development efforts.

Quigley is a third-generation Forest Service employee whose entire career, except for a short stint in the military, has been in the Forest Service. He began in the PNW Research Station in 1977 and returned as the Station Director 26 years later. Quigley holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in watershed and range science from Utah State University and a doctorate in range science, with an emphasis in economics, from Colorado State University.