Ralph Tiner Oral History Transcript

Ralph enjoyed being outdoors in his childhood and pursued an academic study of biology. He went to University of Connecticut and received a degree in zoology and a master’s degree in marine biology. He then began working for South Carolina Marine Resources, and also spent the rest of his career working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the National Wetlands Inventory Program as the Regional Wetland Coordinator in the Northeast Region. He was responsible for mapping wetlands in 13 Northeastern states from Maine through Virginia.  He created LLWW descriptors to be used in NWI databases to help predict functions of wetlands across the United States. He served as a USFWS representative on the Federal Interagency Committee for Wetland Delineation and initiated studies and wrote reports to raise awareness for wetland losses and their functions.