- Editor: Mary E. Reed
- Author: Mary Lu Arpaia
When you were going to school, was there any single course, or professor, who helped you more clearly define, or even played a role in changing, your goals for the future?
Two events greatly influenced where I am today.
First, after graduating from UC Berkeley (UCB) with a Botany degree I went to Sierra Leone, West Africa to visit my then boyfriend (later husband for 23 years), and ended up teaching secondary school there. I was thinking about going to graduate school in ecology. While in Sierra Leone, a professor from Rutgers (B. L. Pollack) came to give training to the agricultural Peace Corp volunteers, which I attended even though I was not a volunteer. I spoke to him about my...
- Author: Mary E. Reed
Four Postharvest Specialists from the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center traveled to Sarajevo, October 24-28, to present a week-long Postharvest Technology training. Drs. Beth Mitcham, Marita Cantwell, Mary Lu Arpaia and Michael Reid presented 39 instructional sessions over a three-and-a-half day period. Zdenec Svec from the Czech Republic also presented a talk focusing on regional marketing and trade issues. The training session was followed by a 1-1/2 day field tour visiting a number of postharvest processing facilities. The training was the result of a herculean effort led by Filip Stoyanovic, Director of a USAID Regional Competitiveness Initiative, and supported by eleven USAID projects as well as funding from the governments...