Ralph C. Schmidt – 50th Reunion Essay

Ralph C. Schmidt

Spouse(s): Susan Babcock

Child(ren): Rebecca, Rachel, Margaret, Victoria, William

College: Trumbull

1969 being what it was—looked like the train was jumping the tracks on a high-span bridge—I joined the Peace Corps to postpone an encounter with boot camp. They sent me to Colombia, to a little rural village with no cars (really). I bonded with my Latin brothers and sisters, whom to this day we fuck with, and got interested in tropical ecology. I came back to Yale for a master’s in forest science. I worked in Puerto Rico, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Development Program, always on tropical forests. I joined a company started by John Gordon, dean emeritus of Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science (F&ES), which sustainably managed 80,000 ha of natural forest in Salta, Argentina. I still work on committees with F&ES and Yale Institute of Biospheric Studies. And I now teach a grad course on forests with Columbia’s Earth Institute.

Susan Babcock and I have been married for 32 years. I have five children. Amongst my brothers, our wives and children, we have 15 Yale degrees, and Benno’s grandchildren are about to add two more. Maybe that’s a record, but we’ve received no award—yet.