Gary Dodd didn’t have any agricultural roots to speak of. He was a single child of a father and mother, who both served in the United States Marine Corps, (his father a career Marine). Therefore, they moved around a lot. Dodd always enjoyed observing wildlife and is considered an amateur birdwatcher. When living in southern California, his biology teacher assigned a project in which each student took a plot of land and documented all aspects of the natural community over a year’s time. “When you study something carefully, you find most biological life — plants, insects, spiders — are small,” he said. “I learned to think small, and even today, I see things other people walk right by. To further my love of insects, I completed a degree in entomology at University of California, Davis that started my career in agriculture.
Read more about the 2024 Rice Consultant of the Year, Gary Dodd, in the special tribute below.