Mike Albrecht began his tree improvement career in 1976 at Weyerhaeuser's Rochester Seed Orchard, and then moved to their Centralia Research Center in Washington. In 1978, he moved to International Paper, where he was on the 'ground floor' of their Western Region Research Center in Lebanon, OR. As Mike puts it, "I was called a research technician, and did all kinds of work installing, measuring, and maintaining various field studies." Eventually, he was promoted to seed orchard manager. In 1996, Mike began working for Roseburg Forest Products (RFP) when they bought International Paper timberlands in Oregon. Over the years, Mike's work for RFP included tree breeding, seed orchard management, seedling testing, and operating their greenhouse. During this time, Mike worked closely with the PNWTIRC, helping enormously with our early flowering studies, investigations of miniaturized seed orchards, and tissue collections for our research on Douglas-fir genomics. Mike concludes, "And here I am 40-odd years later." And, we say, congratulations on that—and enjoy your retirement!