IRRI Pioneer Interview: No Bull—feeling better for having worked at IRRI

Obviously, one's career is a continuum. When you are a different age, your expectations in your career are different. As my career developed, I moved into more and more senior positions. Having said that, when I joined CIP, we were just a few staff members and we were essentially setting up the institute. That was a tremendous experience. And, when I went to Central America at age 27, I became a program leader working backwards and forward between all these countries and doing lots of different things. I actually learned how to grow potatoes successfully. I trained as a taxonomist and ended up doing anthropology, agronomy, postharvest storage, you name it. So, that in itself was very challenging and fruitful. And I never managed a germplasm collection before I came to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org ). So, that was a bit of a learning curve for me. IRRI had an enormous reputation that you kind of got sucked into. So, I can't say this was better than that. They [the experiences] gave me satisfaction in different ways.
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What I can say is that I think that my time overseas in both CG centers was a better experience overall than my experience in the university. I loved working with the students. Having good students, who are keen to learn and do things, is really very satisfying. But from an early age I wanted to go abroad and I knew I wanted to work in agriculture.

I partly come from an agriculture farming background. My brother has been able to trace the Jackson ancestors back 18 or 19 generations to 1480 and to a very quintessential surname on one branch of the family—Bull. When you think of the quintessential Englishman, John Bull [illustration left], my great grandfather 17 times removed was William Bull, born in 1480 in a part of England not far from where I currently have a house and they were farming families. But that's the closest to farming that I ever got. My father was a photographer and my mother trained in the United States as an orthopedic nurse. But they had traveled when they were young. And so, I and my two brothers and sister have all traveled. We've not stayed put in one part of England. We just moved all over and have taken those opportunities.

So, I think that it was good that I went back to England for that period of my career. It was even better that I decided to give it up, even though I had a tenured position. It is better that I gave it up and came to IRRI. I will leave IRRI feeling that I made a contribution, feeling that I've left some things better than I found them, and having made some great friends in the process. I feel better for having worked at IRRI and I hope IRRI also appreciates the contributions that I've made.

See complete interview at http://archive.irri.org/publications/today/Jackson.asp

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Education

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• Bull
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