Dr. Lindo J. Bartelli was born in 1917 and graduated from Iron Mountain High School in 1935. He went on to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture from Michigan State College in 1940. He served three years with Army Intelligence during World War II then went on to further his education with a Master of Science from Michigan State University in 1952 and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Illinois in 1958. He began his career in Houghton, Michigan with the Farm Security Administration, and then worked as a Soil Scientist with the Soil Conservation Service fn Michigan. He then moved to Illinois where he was State Soil Scientist and was subsequently appointed as the Director of the Soil Survey Program in the southern United States. He also served as the National Director of the Soil Survey Interpretation in Wasington, DC. He retired in 1976, but then joined the faculty of Michigan Technological University as a Professor in forest soils and later became Dean of the School of Forestry and Wood Products. He passed away in 1995.