Gene Wengert, known for decades as The Wood Doctor who answered questions from wood professionals for the popular Wood Doctor column in FDMC magazine, died March 17 from metastatic pancreatic cancer. He was 82. 

Wengert, who in addition to the Wood Doctor column also penned the monthly Wood Explorer column that explored lumber and veneer qualities and performance, species by species, began his career in wood products in 1961. He was hired to load and unload a solar-heated lumber dryer at the US Forest Products Lab in Madison, Wisconsin. He continued working at the Lab on the weathering and drying of wood through 1976.

While there, he co-authored the USDA Handbook Drying Eastern Hardwood Lumber, a resource that continues to be used throughout the industry. He also was assigned for two years at the Rocky Mountain Forest Experiment Station in Ft. Collins, Colorado. This experience, working directly with the wood industry, culminated in his move to take a faculty position as a wood products extension specialist at Virginia Tech, where he worked for 16 years. He developed the so-called “Virginia Tech Solar Heated Lumber Dryer,” which has been built around the world.  

In an interview with Hardwood Floors magazine, Wengert said that in 1978, FDM magazine, now FDMC, approached him and asked him to write an article about a common manufacturing problem, splitting in glued-up panels. It was written in the style of symptoms, diagnosis, and cures and was titled “Rx for Splitting Headaches?” The popularity of this article resulted in the monthly article called “Ask the Wood Doctor.” 

As professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, he continued to spread his knowledge on wood. As a former professor and extension specialist at Virginia Tech, and researcher at the USDA Forest Products Lab, Wengert taught more than 30 practical wood processing classes and seminars each year for the wood products industry, including sawing, edging, grading, drying, machining, and gluing.

Brian Bond, a professor and assistant dean at Virginia Tech, first met Wengert when Bond was a graduate student in the early 1990s. Over the years, the two wood drying experts coauthored papers including a paper on solar kilns, a technology that Wengert helped develop and championed through the years. They also did workshops together. 

"Gene was very prolific at providing scientific information to the industry to help them solve problems," said Bond. "He was very effective at doing that across all the positions he had throughout his career. He wrote prolifically to convey that information to both industry as well as hobby wood workers. He wanted to make sure that people understood the basics of the scientific information behind what it was they were experiencing."

Wengert retired from the extension in 1998 and began his consulting company “The Wood Doctor's Rx LLC.” He traveled extensively both abroad and domestically.

He was a fixture on WoodWeb sharing his knowledge through his The Wood Doctor's Rx, LLC page.

Overall, he wrote eight books on wood processing, hundreds of practical articles for the industry, and trained over 5,000 sawmill and wood drying employees. In the manufacturing industry, he developed and instituted many quality procedures in wood processing that are used today. His many “industry students” commented on how he was able to take complex science and technology and translate it into practical manufacturing procedures. Wengert worked with a multitude of wood products manufacturers, from lumber to drumsticks, from cabinets to furniture, from flooring to railroad ties.  He was inducted into the Maple Flooring Manufacturers’ Association Hall of Fame due to his work with sports floors. His career took the family to wonderful college towns to live: Madison, Fort Collins, and Blacksburg, Virginia. 

Wengert was born August 31, 1942, in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Norman and Janet (Mueller) Wengert. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (BS and PhD) and Colorado State University (MS). 

While an undergraduate, he met Barbara Buehler. They were married in 1964 and raised three children, Paul, Thad, and Laura. Gene and Barb have nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. They celebrated 60 years of marriage in August 2024. In 2015, the Wengerts relocated to Bishop, Georgia, to be nearer to their children.

A teacher at heart, Wengert taught classes in subjects relating to his studies of the Bible as well as how to sharpen garden tools, and genealogy research. Gene and Barbara enjoyed RVing, starting with a pop-up camper in 1968 and continuing camping in a small Winnebago motor home. They volunteered in their church and community on many projects. They were members of the Methodist NOMADS working as volunteers at camps, children’s homes, and churches. They both were tutors at local grade schools. They enjoyed watching their grandchildren grow into responsible adults. Gene's hobbies included woodworking, bicycling (coast to coast twice and the Mississippi River four times), fishing, vegetable gardening, soccer refereeing (over 300 games), and genealogy.

Donations in his memory can be made to Athens Area Habitat for Humanity.

A celebration of his life will be held at 1 p.m. on Monday, April, 28, at Oconee Presbyterian Church, 2601 Hog Mountain Road, Watkinsville, Georgia.