Three long-time faculty members retire from CNRE: Joe Loferski, Audrey Zink-Sharp, and Mike Aust

Three long-serving professors with a combined 111 years in the classroom recently retired from the College of Natural Resources and Environment. They began teaching before email and campus-wide internet access, when students attended class in person, took paper tests, and parking was free.

While much has changed, each said students’ curiosity and drive remained constant.

The Department of Sustainable Biomaterials’ wood science program bid farewell to Joe Loferski and Audrey Zink-Sharp, with 45 and 32 years of service. Mike Aust, who often taught under a canopy of trees, retired from the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation after 35 years.

Joe Loferski

Loferski came to Virginia Tech in 1980. He earned his doctorate degree while teaching in the Department of Wood Science and Forest Products.

He focused on wood building design and engineering, developing software for structural design of wood pallets that’s still used in industry. Academia has changed dramatically with the advent of technology and specialized computer systems.

“Today, products such as oriented strandboard, wood trusses, cross laminated wood, engineered flooring, and others have changed the way we build,” he said.

Loferski said the relationships made during his career were a high point.

“I have enjoyed the interactions with so many students and colleagues. I hope I made a difference in the lives of the students I taught over the years,” he said.

Audrey Zink-Sharp

Zink-Sharp agrees that helping students build successful and meaningful careers has been her primary focus and the most fulfilling part of her career.

“I have found teaching and mentoring students to be the most rewarding component of my career,” she said. “Helping students learn materials science, processing, and manufacturing — and launch successful careers — has been my primary focus and the most meaningful part of my career. I taught anatomy courses for many years but never lost my enthusiasm, enjoyment, or dedication for helping students create solutions to complex problems that trace back to the remarkable engineering found in plant and wood cells.”

A popular professor, Zink-Sharp taught and researched the specialty areas of wood quality and quantitative wood anatomy of tree stem wood; impact of ecological disturbance on wood properties; interactions between wood materials and adhesives at the microscopic level; and digital microscopic image analysis of engineering properties of wood and forest products.

She joined the newly minted College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources, which housed the Department of Wood Science and Forest Products. Names have changed since 1992, but the job was the same from her first day to her last: provide an outstanding education to the students of Virginia Tech.