For his entire 17-year career at WSU, Hanley's office has been on the campus of the University of Washington in the College of Forest Resources. He also holds a courtesy appointment on the UW faculty. The end-users of the knowledge that Hanley develops and packages for outreach through county extension faculty, tours, demonstrations, workshops and publications are some 40,000 Washington residents who own a piece of forest land. Collectively, their holdings exceed 3 million acres and constitute a fifth of the state's forest ecosystem. Timber management for income, wildlife habitat enhancement, and recreation are three common objectives.
Forest ecosystems play a key role in protecting the environment.
They provide us all with clean water and air and they are just nice places to be. We simply interpret the rules and regulations that are facing these people. The idea of placing a WSU faculty member at the UW came about when Hanley's predecessor retired. His predecessor had been stationed at the WSU Puyallup Research and Extension Center. Extension administrators hoped that moving the position to the UW would enable Cooperative Extension to tap the expertise of the faculty of the state's chief forestry school for outreach educational activities.