Washington State Department of Agriculture

Stop an Invasive Threat to Pacific Northwest Forests

From Three People to 300 in Eight Weeks—with a Strategy Sketched on a Napkin

An urgent phone call about a seemingly harmless moth launched a race to protect Northwest forests. The challenge: mobilize 300 people, deploy 180,000 traps, and coordinate a multi-agency response before the moths could spread.

The Call That Started It All

When Eric, a senior entomologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, called me about an impending moth invasion, I wasn't alarmed. How much damage could a moth do besides chew holes in a wool sweater?

Eric quickly set me straight.

"These are the King Kong of the moth world," he explained. Asian gypsy moths arriving aboard ships from Siberia threatened to devastate Northwest forests.

The project involved multiple federal and state agencies. Eight US Forest Service helicopters would soon spray more than 130,000 acres, but spraying wouldn't kill every moth. Eric's team had to find and destroy survivors before they reproduced.

Then came the real shock.

Eric had just three people. In less than eight weeks, he needed nearly 300.

He needed a strategy to recruit and train staff, develop procedures, and deploy thousands of sticky traps to catch the moths remaining after spraying. We agreed to meet the next morning over coffee.

ManagementPro Role

We began by sketching an Objectives Tree on a napkin. This simple map used causal logic to show the Objectives needed to connect field operations to the larger goal of protecting Northwest forests.

That simple picture clarified objectives, responsibilities, and coordination with Oregon and British Columbia.

It also distinguished what Eric's team could control from external conditions critical to success.

The Objectives Tree became the foundation for time-phased LogFrames and operational plans. Instead of rushing into disconnected activities, the team had a shared strategy for moving forward.

Results

Within eight weeks, the operation grew from three people to nearly 300, deploying 180,000 traps on schedule and monitoring each weekly.

By summer's end, the evaluation found negligible numbers of remaining moths. The program had succeeded.

Our simple visual strategy tools helped coordinate hundreds of people across agencies, meet an extraordinary deadline, and protect Northwest forests from a potentially devastating infestation.

Lessons Learned

The more urgent the situation and the less time you have, the more important it is to get the strategy right.

The napkin sketch wasn't the operational plan. It clarified the logic that made effective planning possible.

When hundreds of people must move quickly, a shared picture of what needs to happen, both how and why, can be more valuable than a hundred pages of instructions.