John Lyons, President-elect October 1, 2022

As the President Elect, I want to put the international into the IWCS. Our organisation has struggled for relevance and to attract members. Two years of COVID have drained our resources and made us question the future. I want to fight for the survival of IWCS and see it revitalised. COVID has taught us new ways of keeping in contact and conducting business and allows for the serious possibility of a President from outside the USA. I am fit and able, tech-savvy and young enough to take an active leadership role for the four years ahead. The use of digital platforms like Zoom will continue to further the active involvement of all members of the IWCS Board of Trustees wherever they reside in the world. These will extend the between-member contacts around the world in the range of member fields of interests.
My current interests include wood collecting, technology and crafting.
As a professional scientist I am attracted to understanding the biology of plants (especially trees) and actively collect wood specimens (1400 and growing) and microscopic slides of wood tissue (2000 and growing). I am active with, and supported by, members in pursuing tree identification and wood collecting, wood anatomy and woodturning.
Since taking up membership #9737 in 2012, I have attended all seven Australasian Region meetings from New Zealand to Western Australia including organising the last pre-COVID 19 meeting in Canberra Australian Capital Territory.
My service record within the IWCS includes:
• Trustee’s Representative for the state of Victoria past and current
• Member of the IWCS Board of Trustees for the Australasian Region 2016-2019
Editor of the IWCS 2020 (current) Membership Directory with ongoing responsibility with the IWCS Executive Board
• Author of numerous articles for the Australasian Region Newsletter ‘Down Under’ and ‘World of Wood’
My professional life experience includes:
• Master of Science in Physical Chemistry at the University of Melbourne
• A 25-year career, mostly outside of Australia, in research and development in the paint industry which included international postings in England, New Zealand, Malaysia, and the USA, and as Technical Manager responsible for research and development (R&D) for house paints in 12 countries in SE Asia before returning to run R&D for Australia’s largest paint company and retiring in 2005
• Consultant technical expert in the construction industry
Further wood interests include:
• Dendrology (study of trees) and love visiting arboreta, especially the out of the way arboreta in pockets of forestry areas around Australia where the introduced Pinus species were tested for forestry yield
• A special interest in the genus Pinus and have collected cones, needles and timber of over half of the hundred or so species in the genus
• Studying the history of key foresters, botanists and dendrologists