IRRI Pioneer Potpourri: Peggy Hill on her father, a co-founder of IRRI

Peggy Hill (daughter of IRRI co-founder Forrest "Frosty" Hill ( http://www.irri.org/publications/today/pdfs/Pioneer_Interviews/Forrest_Hill.pdf (Ford Foundation vice president of overseas development, who served for 14 years as chair of IRRI's Board of Trustees) on her father

I think back to my Dad's last years—he died October 20, 1988 just shy of his 88th birthday—he continued to be very much interested in what was going on at the [CGIAR; http://www.cgiar.org ] centers. Now, I hear a lot of discussion going on about the future challenges at the centers. He had three things that he saw as long-term concerns. The first was, where would they get the right kind of directors general and who were they? Initially, of course, the first several [at IRRI, for example] were Americans; most of them have been at least western trained. In some of his conversations with the staff—Asian, American, and every other nationality, there was a feeling that at least the next director general—at the time he was still part of the selection process—probably should be another westerner. But he envisioned the need for the right kind of men—or women—to head up a growing number of institutes and he was concerned about where they were going to come from.

The second thing he was concerned about was political pressure. He saw a couple of institutes being created in areas and in subject matter where he felt the return on the investment would be very low and the focus minimal because a particular geographic region had to have one. The third concern was keeping the kind of focus there was with fewer centers and directors general out in the field. As you grow bigger and become spread out more thinly, you become more bureaucratic. He had a lifetime horror of bureaucracy and what it could do to stop progress.

I think the last paragraph from the citation [penned by Kenneth L. Robinson, a Cornell L.H. Bailey Professor Emeritus of Applied Economics and Management whom Frosty hired] when, in 1966, he was made a Fellow of the American Farm Economic Association [to become the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA) in 1968], best describes my father: "Professor Hill was best known among graduate students for his colorful metaphors, his ability to anticipate questions, and even the formulated answer on or before a question was complete. He is at his best in informal discussions. Talking with Frosty Hill is as stimulating to colleagues as to graduate students because of his quick mind, enthusiasm, and sense of humor. He combines an unusual degree of keen analytical mind with the colloquial expressions, common sense, and pragmatism characteristic of the American frontier."

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