Tributes

Professor Donald Raymond Buhler of Corvallis passed away September 10th, 2014. He was 88 years old. He was born in 1925 in San Francisco, Cal. to Elsa Marie and Aloysius Dooley Buhler. He attended school in San Francisco, CA, Ritzville, WA and in Portland, OR. where he graduated from Franklin High School in June 1944. In 1944 after a summer working at Willamette Iron and Steel Company constructing aircraft carriers, he joined the U.S. Navy. He was trained as an electronics technician and subsequently served on an attack troop transport that saw action in the Pacific including the invasion of Okinawa and the occupation of Japan. He was discharged from the Navy on April 17, 1946. In September 1946 Don entered Vanport College to major in Electrical Engineering but he enjoyed a required chemistry course so much that he switched to Chemistry as his major. He continued in Vanport College until the flood on May 31, 1948 that temporarily shut down that college. In September 1948 he entered Oregon State College where he majored in Chemistry, receiving a B.S. degree in that discipline in June 1950. While going to college Don belonged to the U.S. Naval Reserve and he spent several summers on active duty at the U.S. Naval Reserve Armory in Portland at Swan Island. In August 14, 1950, during the Korean War, Don was called back to active duty in the U.S. Navy and served for 13 months stationed in the Aleutian Islands on Adak and Kodiak Islands. He was again discharged from the Navy on October 6, 1951. Don resumed his education at Oregon State College in the fall of 1951, receiving a M.S. degree in Organic Chemistry in June 1953 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in June 1956. After postdoctoral training at the Oregon Health Sciences University, and a research position with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Willard, WA, he joined the Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo, MI as a researcher in August 1959. He returned to the Pacific Northwest in December 1964 to become the Pesticide Project Leader at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Western Fish Nutrition Laboratory in Willard, WA and in March 1966, Don became a Senior Research Scientist in the Biology Division at Battelle-Northwest in Richland, WA. In December 1967 he joined Oregon State University’s newly formed Environmental Health Sciences Center and the Department of Agricultural Chemistry as an Associate Professor. In 1974 he became a Professor and served as the first Chairman of OSU’s graduate Toxicology Program from 1983 to 1994. When the Department of Agricultural Chemistry became the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology in 1998, Don continued to serve as a Professor until his retirement in 2004 On December 22, 1952, Don married Margaret Gertrude Thomas. Together they had three sons and one daughter. He remarried on December 18, 1976 to Jun-Lan Wang. He is survived by his loving wife Jun-Lan Wang Buhler; his sons Donald E. Buhler of Aloha, OR; Thomas H. Buhler of Springfield, OR; and Gary A. Buhler of Corvallis, OR; and daughter Susan E. Trudell of Fort Wayne, IN. He is also survived by his grandchildren Sarah J. Buhler of Corvallis, OR; Timothy R. Buhler of Olympia, WA; and Steven E. Buhler of Aloha, OR. A Funeral Service will be held at 9:00am, Thursday, Sept 18 at McHenry Funeral Home in Corvallis. The casket will be open one hour prior to the service. A graveside service with military honors by the Oregon Navy and Army Honor Guard, follows at 12:30pm at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland.

Tributes

Donald Raymond Buhler PhD

October 11, 1925 - September 10, 2014