Staffan Lindgren

Staffan Lindgren was born in Norrköping, Sweden, on July 18, 1950. At age 11 he moved with his parents to Piteå in Norrbotten, where he grew up, and he considers himself a “norrlänning”. He was interested in animals from an early age, particularly insects and spiders, encouraged (or at least not discouraged) by his parents. His father, in spite of having only a 6th grade education, possessed an endless curiosity about a broad range of topics, and the family encyclopedia was heavily used as were books and other sources of knowledge. Staffan’s father was a bit of an Anglophile, who had taught himself English by reading English books and listening to BBC radio for pronunciation.

In 1968, Staffan had the opportunity to spend a year living with a family in Michigan, USA, and this experience shaped his view of the world a lot. The US was the midst of the Vietnam war and the information available was highly biased compared to reporting in Sweden. Nevertheless, it was his experiences in the US High School system that gave Staffan the confidence to seek a university education in Canada, which eventually led to him immigrating to Canada.

In 1977, after having completed a Bachelor’s degree in biology at Uppsala University and briefly pursuing a PhD in physiology at Umeå University, In 1977, Staffan was accepted as a student in a relatively new degree program called Master of Pest Management at Simon Fraser University. To fund this he received a fellowship from The Sweden-America Foundation. By the end of 1979 he had completed the MPM degree requirements and was offered a funded PhD candidate position by Dr. John H. Borden, SFU. After some deliberation he accepted the position, and the rest is history, as they say. The research involved mass trapping of so-called ambrosia beetles (aka pinhole borers) using newly developed pheromones. Traps at that time consisted of mesh covered with sticky material. Staffan invented a “multiple funnel” trap that did not require sticky stuff, and he completed his graduate research by spring 1982. This trap was commercialized as “The Lindgren Trap” by a small spin-off company which patented the trap and used it along with the pheromones as the basis for selling an ambrosia beetle management program. In 1984, Staffan was offered an Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowship to join Phero Tech, Inc as their Research Director. This allowed Staffan to apply for landed immigrant status. In 1987, he became a Canadian citizen. By then he had met his future wife, who he married in 1985, and they moved to Prince George with their two sons. One of them still lives in Prince George, while the other lives in Redmond, Washington.

Staffan worked at Phero Tech for 10 years, when in 1994 he was offered a position as Associate Professor at the newly established University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, BC. He was promoted to full professor in 2003, and he retired at the end of 2015. During the more than 21 years at UNBC, Staffan taught Entomology, Forest Health, Invertebrate Zoology, and several other undergraduate and graduate courses. He also ran a successful research program focusing on insects, supervising 13 MSc and one PhD student.

Staffan made many trips to Sweden while his parents and brothers were still alive. In 1993 he and his family spent 6 months in Uppsala, where Staffan was visiting scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. His last visit was in 2016. He still maintains connections with his many cousins, two sister-in-laws, niece and nephews and close friends.

Staffan and his wife Laurie moved to Nanaimo at the end of 2015. Staffan still maintains connections with academia, but is mainly active in citizen science projects, and the local naturalist club, which hehelped establish in 2017. Pre-Covid, he also volunteered in the entomology section of the Royal BC Museum. He enjoys bird watching, kayaking, photography and flyfishing in his spare time.

GP