McLean, Robert G., 2018

Robert (Bob) George McLean was born January 10, 1938, in Warren, Ohio. Bob attended Bowling Green State University, Ohio, earning bachelor degrees in 1961 in Education and Biology and a master’s degree in Biology in 1963. In 1966, he earned a PhD in Ecology and Zoology from Penn State University. Due to the war in Vietnam, Bob was drafted into military service (1966-1968), serving in the Medical Service Corps in the 3rd Army Medical Lab at Ft. McPherson, Georgia, where he was head of the Parasitology Branch, mostly diagnosing malaria in returning Vietnam veterans. In 1968, he became an Epidemiologic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. For the next 26 years, Bob worked as a Research Ecologist in many areas and locations within CDC, primarily with rabies and arboviral diseases. These duties involved numerous international assignments and field investigations in Central and South America, as well as Africa.

From 1996 to 1998, Bob served as the Program Manager of the Bird Research Program at the NWRC in Ft. Collins, CO, supervising work to limit problems caused by locally abundant bird populations. In 1998, Bob became Director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, WI, just in time to play a major role in identifying and addressing the threats posed by the arrival of West Nile Virus in the United States in 1999. He continued this work, as well as shifting his focus to new concerns about Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, after returning to the NWRC as the Wildlife Disease Research Program Manager in 2002. While in his position as Wildlife Disease Research Program Manager at the NWRC, he managed wildlife disease projects focused on AI viruses, pathogenic bacteria, Chronic Wasting Disease, Bovine TB in wildlife, wildlife rabies, pseudorabies, and swine TB. He also managed wildlife damage projects including wildlife hazards to aircraft, bird damage to crops, depredation of domestic livestock by wild canines, and disease risks to domestic animals and habitat damage caused by feral pigs. Bob retired from the NWRC in 2009.