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William McKillop
In Memoriam

William McKillop

Professor of Forest Economics, Emeritus

UC Berkeley
1933-2020

William McKillop, born on June 3, 1933, in Scotland, earned a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Aberdeen in 1957. He then moved to Canada and, while working for the Canadian Forest Service as a forest economist and forest inventory researcher, he earned an M.S. in Forestry from the University of New Brunswick in 1959. Moving to the United States, he earned an M.S. in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics in 1965 from UC Berkeley, a year after he joined the faculty of Berkeley’s School of Forestry and Conservation as an Acting Assistant Professor. He served on the faculty for the next thirty years, retiring in 1994 from the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) under the University’s Very Early Retirement Incentive Program.

Transitioning to Professor of the Graduate School status, McKillop was quickly recalled to serve as the College of Natural Resources’ Associate Dean for Research and as a Research Forest Economist at the Forest Products Laboratory at Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station.

McKillop was a pioneer in the application of sophisticated econometric analysis to forest products markets and international trade, and made significant contributions in the area of forest taxation, valuation, regional economic analysis, non-industrial landowner decision-making, and environmental regulation.

During his career at Berkeley, McKillop served the institution in administrative roles at both the departmental and college level. In the Academic Senate, he served on a variety of committees including the Divisional Council. He was also active professionally in the Society of American Foresters, particularly with respect to the Society’s policy positions in California.

McKillop was an excellent mentor to many graduate students pursuing Master of Forestry degrees or PhDs in Wildland Resource Science who went on to distinguished careers in academia, government service, and industry.

He was an effective teacher, both at the undergraduate level on forest economics and forest management, and at the graduate level on economic analysis and environmental regulation. In the early years of his career at Berkeley, he was also called upon to help as well with teaching forest inventory, drawing upon his early professional area of expertise, and to assist with field instruction at Berkeley’s “Forestry Camp” summer program on the Plumas National Forest.

McKillop was recognized internationally for his expertise in forest economics, serving as a consultant to the State of California on timber supply and environmental regulation issues, to the U.S. Forest Service on issues such as below-cost timber sales and forest products markets, to the Government of Finland on their forest economics research programs, and as an expert witness on a range of legal issues. He was regularly invited to speak before California legislative and regulatory bodies on forestry issues, and at many universities in the U.S. and internationally on forest economics, and held visiting appointments at both Oxford University and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

McKillop was an oenophile of the first order, and could be counted on to arrange tastings intended to educate his forestry colleagues in the mysteries of the grape. Unfortunately, most of us had much less sophisticated palates, and enthusiastically embraced the technique of opening bottles, demonstrated by the late Professor Paul Zinke, by pounding their heel on the trunks of trees with thick bark. The wine may have been bruised as a result, but no foresters were hurt in the ensuing pandemonium. McKillop took it all in stride.

Despite spending most of his life in North America, McKillop never forgot his native Scotland. When the Department of Forestry and Resource Management engaged in logging sports competitions, this pride in his heritage compelled him to demonstrate the “correct” way to toss the caber before the rest of us attempted to do so.

McKillop passed away on February 23, 2020. He is survived by his four daughters: Lesley McKillop, Robin McKillop, Aileen Wilson, and Valerie Morris. Lesley McKillop lives in Sacramento and is an elementary school teacher. Robin lives in Marin with her family and works at the Marin Municipal Water District, managing water conservation programs. Robin and her husband, John Herr, both received graduate degrees from ESPM in 1996 and 2004, respectively, and their elder daughter has followed in their footsteps to attend the Rausser College of Natural Resources. Aileen worked as a Ranger Naturalist with the East Bay Municipal Utility District for twenty years before retiring. Valerie is an elementary school teacher.

J. Keith Gilless
2021