Stroud Water Research Center Assistant Director Dave Funk is passionate about almost everything he does at the lab - and that's a lot. And he speaks with equal passion about what he does when he's not on the job - and that's a lot too.
Bugs were a boyhood hobby when he was growing up on the banks of the Red Clay Creek, bugs were his major at college and bugs remain a focus of his life at age 47. All his other interests, such as photography, audio recording, electronics and computers, grew out of his obsession with bugs.
And that's what brought Mr. Funk to the Stroud
Water Research Center 25 years ago, nine years after the lab was founded. In his last year as an entomology major at the University of Delaware he took a course in stream ecology with Robin Vannote, the founding director of the Center. Mr. Funk was so impressed with what he learned, he asked Dr. Vannote if there was a spot for him at the lab. There was, and he started work in January 1976.
His first assignment was a dream job for any aspiring 21-year-old entomologist. He was sent to Idaho for 18 months to work on the Center's River Continuum project in the Salmon River.
Dave Funk's intention from the beginning was to get some experience and then go back to school to continue his education. But he became so involved - and was having so much fun with his work - that he never found time to go back.
"Any regrets?"
"Yes and no," he said. "I always loved
the ground-level work - especially in a place like this. And I was never much of a student."
And in any case, what he was learning in the field and lab was a continuing education that was hard to beat.
Over the years his talents have involved him in just about every aspect of the Stroud
Water Research Center's operations, from studying miniscule bugs under a microscope and sampling the waters of some far-off river to troubleshooting the lab's complex computer network, fixing the telephone system and overseeing the lab reconstruction in 1995.
Center Director Bern Sweeney and Dave Funk were both weaned on Stroud water. "We both sort of cut our teeth at the Center during the '70s and then grew up together in the '80s and '90s," said Dr. Sweeney.
"Dave was a mainstay in both the field and laboratory portions of a huge National Science Foundation-Department of Energy-funded study of 30 rivers along a natural thermal gradient from northern Florida to southern Quebec Province, which I helped direct. We spent a lot of time together in the field, both in reconnaissance of new study sites and actual sampling.
"It was during that period that I realized how specially talented he was and how committed he was to the Stroud
Water Research Center's mission. He has always been a Jack-of-all-trades within the center but differs from the usual Jack in that he masters most tasks that he takes on. He has little patience for poor quality, whether it is associated with fabricating a sampler, designing a sampling scheme, identifying an aquatic bug, etc." said Dr. Sweeney.
"Do it right and get it right" would be an appropriate monogram on the back of his T-shirts, said Dr. Sweeney. "He is clearly a Ph.D. scientist disguised as a research technician. Fortunately, he chose to make a career of it here and bring his talents to bear on issues at the Stroud
Water Research Center."
Dead creek
If there's a distinction between his work and hobbies, it's that at work most of the bugs he studies are aquatic while terrestrial insects are what he photographs, tape records and documents in his spare time. Ironically, when he first developed his interest in butterflies and moths, there were no bugs or fish in the Red Clay Creek.
"The Red Clay Creek was basically dead. I grew up thinking that fish lived only in the oceans," said Mr. Funk.
Butterflies came first, then moths. By the time he got to college he was specializing in tiny lepidoptera, the zoological order which includes butterflies and moths.
Among other things, he is working on what may be the nation's - and possibly the world's - first field guide of katydids and crickets, complete with a CD of their calls and songs. His photographs of mayflies and other insects have been published in a variety of magazines, from the National Wildlife Federation's "Ranger Rick" and the Xerces Society's "Streamkeepers" and "Wings" to "Scientific American" and "Natural History."
One hobby that may not be directly related to his work is his passion for mountain biking. That's what he does during his lunch hour, when he tears through the Stroud family's surrounding woods in preparation for three-hour weekend races. When he gets back from his lunch-time training rounds, he plunges into the nearby stream "to cool off" - a practice that has raised the eyebrows of his colleagues who see him dashing into the stream even in the snowiest days of midwinter.
"Without exception?"
"Well," said Mr. Funk, "If I have to break the ice to get in, I think twice."
CONTACT:
dhfunk@stroudcenter.org
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