Faculty Records (University Of Maine). Professor Campana (Richard J.) Papers

Richard J. Campana was born in Everett, Massachusetts on December 5th, 1918. He received a BSF in forestry from the University of Idaho in 1943. Campana then served as a surgical technician in the U.S. Army, and earned a Bronze Star award during WWII after briefly being held as a prisoner of war (1943-1946). He entered Yale University and received an MS in Forestry in 1974. Campana served as an instructor at the Pennsylvania State Forestry School in Mont Alto (1947), and as an Assistant Professor of Botany for two years at North Carolina State University (1947-1949). Campana received his Ph.D. in Forest Pathology in 1952 after returning to Yale University. In 1949, Campana worked as an Assistant Plant pathologist for the USDA, and then as an Assistant Associate of Plant Pathology at the University of Illinois. Soon after, Campana began his professional study and observation of Dutch Elm Disease (DED).

In 1958, Campana came to the University of Maine as the head of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. He held this position for 10 years, while simultaneously continuing his research for the prevention of Dutch Elm Disease. In 1984, Campana was awarded the University Presidential Achievement Award. In 1985, he retired as a professor emeritus and was inducted into the Idaho Alumni College of Fame and was elected a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society. Campana was also honored by the University of Maine for successfully saving an elm tree with Dutch Elm Disease on campus besides Hitchner Hall. Today the tree is named Campana Elm. Campana died aged 87, on April 1, 2005.