The Rural Technology Initiative (RTI) was an award-winning program established in January 2000 by a federal grant as a unique partnership between the University of Washington, Washington State University, and the USDA Forest Service to accelerate the implementation of emerging technologies in support of rural forest resource-based communities. Bruce Lippke, the RTI Program Director, assembled an interdisciplinary staff of scientists and graduate students to develop and implement a suite of forestry software capabilities such as growth and yield models, econometric analytics, environmental assessments, and spatial referencing programs (GIS and GPS) to better understand the burgeoning challenges of successful forest stewardship in the Pacific Northwest. Training sessions and symposia were offered throughout Washington State to forest landowners, public and private forestry professionals, educators and other interested publics to share findings and accelerate implementation. During Bruce’s tenure more than 150 RTI publications were produced that addressed the cost and benefits associated with attempts at integration of environmental and economic considerations to meet a diversity forest management objectives.

Under Bruce’s leadership…

• RTI utilized the rapidly improving Internet to disseminate information statewide that quickly evolved into a worldwide audience.
• RTI developed software to capture video of speakers and their power point presentations, enhancing the state of the art of distant learning.
  • 520 web-based videos were produced & made available on the RTI and WSU websites
• Ten major projects and fifty supplemental projects were developed and distributed by RTI
  • 44 fact sheets, 10 working papers, and 4 legislative reports in addition to 123+ publications were distributed
  • Publications included internal reports & refereed scientific journals on a host of topics.
  • Experts, graduate student researchers, and collaborators were solicited widely for support.
  • The website ruraltech.org served 90,000 unique visitors, with 400,000 pages visited involving four million website hits/yr reaching both scientists & users.
  • Hundreds of presentations were delivered to diverse audiences each year to national and international audiences.

RTI received early recognition and awards from many groups:

• ‘The National Private Forestry Education Award’, given by The National Woodland Owners Association;
• Certificate of Achievement for Team Service and Exemplary Contributions, College of Forest Resources, UW;
• The Washington Policy Center's 2009 Environmental Innovator Award;
• The 2011 Earle R. Wilcox Memorial Award presented by the Intertribal Timber Council;
• The USDA-Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) assembled a national team of reviewers to assess the RTI program and evaluate its potential for expansion (an excerpt from their report):
  “Interviews (…many groups…) praised RTI for the quality, effectiveness, and timeliness of the products developed.  Products that addressed the impacts of state forest practice regulations were most often mentioned as having an immediate and significant benefit to landowners in the management of their properties.”

In 1996 Bruce and colleagues from 14 other research institutions formally incorporated CORRIM (www.corrim.org) as a non-profit research consortium aimed at quantifying and understanding the environmental performance of wood. Their work was based on the emerging science of life cycle assessment and built on the earlier reports sponsored by     Bruce went on to serve as President and COO until his (semi)retirement in 2009.  It was a semi-retirement as Bruce never truly retired from CORRIM. He continued to participate in all manner of interesting projects that allowed him to explore and advance on ideas that emerged from the collective work in this field while delegating day to day operations to a new generation of CORRIM scientists.  

On the 20th anniversary of CORRIM in 2016, Bruce presented on the at the Forest Products Society meeting in Portland on the history of LCA in wood products where he took on the public policy failures that come from looking too narrowly at the topic of wood and climate mitigation.  Along with colleagues Puettmann, Oneil, and Oliver, Bruce published his final paper on The Plant a Trillion Trees Campaign to Reduce Global Warming – Fleshing Out the Concept  in 2021. The Trillion Trees paper synthesized Bruce's thinking that was developed during the 25 years of effort in CORRIM and tied it to the broader goals and questions of land management, biodiversity retention, and climate mitigation.   

Through it all he managed to inspire many people across the spectrum in academia, industry, and public policy communities. He was instrumental in supporting and launching a cadre of grad students that are still active in this field to this day. His approach to building community amongst his peers and students has led to lasting friendships and collegial connections.  In short, Bruce was an all around amazing colleague, boss, and friend.  He will be dearly missed by our community, but his contributions to the science, its application, and the public policy conversations around wood as a critical component of our future will live on.