Career Interest Began at Bethany

President Barack Obama has appointed Roger Beachy (’62) as the first director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). As an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NIFA will fund research and technological innovations aimed at making agriculture more productive, environmentally sustainable, and economically viable.

“I am honored to have been selected for this position by the President and am committed to sharing my knowledge and experiences to help shape research and its applications that will impact agriculture and food in the U.S. and in developing economies,” said Beachy, who most recently has served as president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Mo. “Most of us realize that plants are the source of oxygen, clean up the environment, and are food, feed, fiber and fuel. They are truly renewable. As we move toward a greener future, plants will play an incredibly important role.”

In choosing Beachy, the administration has found a respected scientist who has done both basic and applied research, has proven skills as an administrator, and understands the importance of international programs. An international leader in plant science, Beachy’s research led to the first genetically-engineered food crop—a viral resistant strand of tomato—and subsequently to the development of virus resistant varieties of other vegetables and fruits. A 1966 graduate of Goshen College with a doctorate in plant pathology from Michigan State University, Beachy has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and headed the division of plant biology at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

In a University of California San Francisco symposium in 1992, Beachy credited his “exciting” high school biology teacher, Lester Culp (F’54-87), with inspiring him on his journey to a career in biology. He said, “Culp knew how to enthuse students, not by beating us over the head with facts, but by teaching experimentation. We began with hands-on experiments as sophomores, whether they were smoke bombs or legitimate experiments, it really didn’t matter. Because it allowed us to carry out real experiments, not simply make-work experiments, but things that he truly didn't know how they would turn out all the time.”

“And with that kind of attitude, even if he’d ask you to do something obscene, like collect butterflies, you would do it because you knew that you were going to learn something new out of this. And you did. You learned the shape of the abdomen and the color of their wings, and what makes one butterfly different from another, and you begin to apply sort of reductionist observations. And from there it was history.”

He noted that Culp influenced many of his high school classmates as well, as a number of them pursued careers in science, going on to graduate schools and independent research. He says, “It is amazing what a good high school teacher can do.”

Inspired by Culp, Beachy first thought he would be a biology teacher and trained for high school education. However, he quickly discovered that wasn't for him. He said, “I knew that it took a very special kind of person to be a good teacher. And I wasn’t sure I was that kind.” On the other hand, he knew he liked laboratory work. And to paraphrase him, “The rest is history.”