Malcolm M. Furniss papers, 1857-2016

Malcolm M. Furniss, often referred to as "Mal", was born 17 June 1926 in Branchville, New Jersey, to Clinton Chollet and Ruth Nina Watts Furniss.

He joined the Army Air Corps at Camp Beal on January 20, 1945, and he was discharged in November 1945. Furniss enrolled in the University of California in Spring 1946 and graduated in January 1950. Furniss married Irene M. Drummond and had two children.

Furniss was hired in 1950 as a temporary employee at the Berkeley Forest Insect Lab, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, USDA. The Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine was dissolved in 1953 and his employment was transferred to the Forest Service.

In 1954, he was transferred to the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station at Ogden, Utah and he worked there until 1955. By the time he was transferred to Boise, Idaho in 1955, he had acquired the units of entomology needed to be classified as an Entomologist and his position was reclassified from Forester to Entomologist. He studied budworm infestation, pine butterflies, and Douglas-Fir beetles while stationed in Boise until 1963.

In 1963, Furniss was transferred to the new Forestry Science Lab in Moscow, Idaho. He enrolled at the University of Idaho in 1963 working towards his MSc which he received in May 1966. Furniss worked as a lead research entomologist for the U.S. Forest Service until his appointment as a visiting research professor of entomology at the University of Idaho in 1982.

Furniss was an expert in the western bark beetle, an avid outdoorsman, and worked with the Forest Historical Society to preserve forest ecological history. He died in Moscow, Idaho, on November 11, 1965, at the age of 99.

Malcolm M Furniss. Short's Funeral Chapel. https://www.shortsfuneralchapel.com/obituaries/malcolm-furniss. Archived: https://perma.cc/4MZS-9GNC