42 minute read
Faculty Focus
Focus
Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Professor of geological sciences
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Alex Manda is seeking the source of saltwater intrusion in eastern North Carolina farmland.
A hydrogeologist and associate professor of geological sciences at East Carolina University, Manda wanted to know how hurricanes may have impacted farmers in the region . They were reporting increased salt in the soil that led to patches where crops wouldn’t grow . So two years ago, with the assistance of a $45,000 National Science Foundation RAPID grant, Manda and his students took field samples to identify the source of the salinity .
After his grant ended, Manda continued evaluating the saltwater intrusion with Stephen Moysey, geological sciences professor and director of the ECU Water Resources Center . To better understand the dynamics of the intrusion, they are mapping the extent of saltwater beneath a field in Hyde County .
“Saltwater intrusion is commonly mapped and monitored using a collection of wells outfitted with groundwater monitoring instrumentation like water level and salinity sensors . While this data is critical for saltwater intrusion studies, well measurements represent point data and can fail to capture the full complexity in subsurface salinity conditions,” Manda said .
To compensate, Manda and his team used electrical and electromagnetic tools to detect and delineate saltwater-intruded regions . These tools are “sensitive to changes in subsurface conductivity, often caused by changes in groundwater salinity,” he said .
Saltwater intrusion has been linked to sea level rise caused by climate change, but scientists aren’t sure how the salt winds up in fields . There are a few hypotheses, including wind pushing salt water from the area’s canals and ditches into farmland or storm surge events dumping salty water on agricultural land .
As a Fulbright scholar, in 2019 Manda spent eight months in his native Zambia studying the potential contamination of groundwater in the suburbs around the capital of Lusaka and was there again earlier this year . – Lacey Gray
Stanley R. Riggs, Harriot College Distinguished Professor and emeritus professor of geological sciences, has been awarded the Francis P . Shepard Medal for Marine Geology by the Society for Sedimentary Geology . The medal recognizes excellence in marine geology . Nominees have a sustained record of outstanding research contributions to marine geology or to other significant aspects of the field, such as geophysics, geobiology and geochemistry .
George Wang, professor and chair of the Department of Construction Management, has been named the first Gregory Poole Equipment Company Distinguished Professor at ECU . This is the first year Poole has bestowed the honor .
Ron Mitchelson, who navigated ECU through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, received the Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year Award for 2020 . Angela Lamson, professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science, received the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy’s Outstanding Contribution to Marriage and Family Therapy Award for 2020 . Lamson is program director for the ECU medical family therapy doctoral program and the marriage and family therapy master’s program .
Dr. Ogugua Ndili Obi, a
pulmonologist, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine at the Brody School of Medicine, was one of 26 recipients in 2020 to receive the Dogwood Award from N .C . Attorney General Josh Stein . The award recognizes North Carolinians who are dedicated to keeping people safe, healthy and happy in their communities .
Dr. Chelley Alexander,
chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine, has been elected president of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine . She was elected during the group’s 2021 national meeting in February and previously served as treasurer and program chair for the ADFM board of directors . She will serve on the executive council in 2021 and then as past president for a year .
STORY BY JULES NORWOOD
etween the Wright and Graham buildings, protected by a ring of holly bushes, stands an overlooked landmark older than any building on East Carolina University’s campus. “Any picture that I’ve seen of the university dating all the way back to the turn of the century, that tree was in it,” says John Gill, grounds director. “We have a hedge around it to protect it, so you really don’t get how big it is until you actually walk in there and stand next to it.” The loblolly pine, a personal favorite of Gill’s, is a highlight of the ECU Tree Trail, a mile-anda-half circular route through campus featuring 45 species of trees.
The trees are identified with sequentially numbered plaques, and botanical information is provided in a printed brochure or through an interactive app.
These resources are the culmination of years of effort by a diverse group of faculty, staff, students and alumni, Gill says. Key figures include biology professors Claudia Jolls and Carol Goodwillie, former ECU arborist Gene Stano, sustainability manager Chad Carwein, and alumnus Mike Bunting, among others. Graduate student Ashley Dow was instrumental in developing the interactive aspect of the trail, Gill says.
Bunting, an alumnus from Greensboro who passed away in August 2020, was known for attending every home football game for more than 50 years. He established a number of scholarships at ECU and wanted to do something on campus that would combine his love of ECU and of plants and landscaping.
With Bunting’s support and a visit to Elon University’s tree trail for inspiration, the team began to inventory trees, record GPS locations, and put together the descriptions, brochure and app.
The trail begins with an American holly in front of the Leo W. Jenkins Fine Arts Center and passes a majestic southern magnolia on its way toward Wright Plaza and the foot of College Hill, then leads back through the mall and the Student Memorial Garden. From flowering landscaping trees such as crape myrtle and cherry to stately shade trees such as oaks and elms, the trees add color and interest to the campus throughout the year with springtime blooms and brilliant fall foliage.
“I really think of the tree trail as just a giant outdoor classroom,” says Carwein. “(The app) will pull the location of your phone and tell you what tree you’re standing next to. And then when you click on it, it tells you about the species, whether it’s evergreen or deciduous, whether it’s native or not, and more.”
Above left, Chad Carwein, left, and John Gill talk about the second tree on the ECU Tree Trail, a white oak. Above, this loblolly pine stands in Wright Plaza. One of the oldest trees on campus, it appears in some of the earliest photos and drawings of ECU.
ECU Tree Trail Guide
An educational guide to trees on the campus of East Carolina University®
ECU Tree Trail Guide
Above, an artist’s rendering from the early 1900s appears to have included the loblolly pine. The inset aerial photo of ECU’s campus shows the loblolly pine near Wright Auditorium, already a large tree in 1948. (ECU archives) FOR MORE INFO
To use the ECU Tree Trail web app, visit arcg .is/DaS11 .
Whether it’s a professor holding class outside, college students exploring their environment or grade schoolers visiting ECU’s campus, the trail offers an opportunity to learn and experience the outdoors while getting a little exercise, he says. Carwein suggests allowing an hour to walk the full trail and take a moment to learn about each tree, but with the app it’s easy to just pick out one or a few trees and learn a little bit more about them.
Initiatives like the tree trail and the arboretum in front of Jenkins, along with a concerted effort to care for existing trees and to replace any trees lost to disease, age or construction, have helped earn ECU the Tree Campus USA designation for five years running. Carwein says a key part of the designation is student service-learning, and students have played an important role in studying and cataloging the trees on campus.
“We’re also talking about putting a second arboretum around Lake Laupus on the Health Sciences Campus,” he says.
In addition, a group of students in the Honors College has launched a crowdfunding effort called the Edible Landscape Initiative to establish an orchard so that students can have firsthand experiences in growing a sustainable food source for themselves and others.
Established on 43 acres as East Carolina Teachers Training School in 1907, ECU’s campus has since grown to almost 1,600 acres. Through those years the university has fostered a commitment to environmental stewardship by protecting and preserving the valuable natural resources on campus.
Gill says he’s especially committed to reestablishing the tree canopy over Fifth Street.
“I remember coming in for my interview, and it was just so beautiful with the tree canopy over top of it, and it’s something you don’t see a whole lot of,” he says.
Many of the trees that formed the canopy grew between the sidewalk and the street — not the best place for a tree as it grows larger — and some have been lost. The grounds crew has planted a number of trees to replace them, but behind the hedge instead of next to the street.
“Eventually those trees will get big enough and fill in that canopy again,” Gill says.
The loblolly pine near Wright, along with the oak and pecan trees on the mall and many others, are as much a part of ECU as the fountain and the cupola. They’ve stood over campus as it has changed through the years as thousands of Pirates have passed from class to class, and now there’s a way to mark their place in history.
ECU’S WEST RESEARCH CAMPUS PROVIDES EXCEPTIONAL RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES FOR FACULTY, STUDENTS
An electrical hum roars through a nearly 600-acre site in western Pitt County, although it now powers microscopes and research labs instead of radio equipment.
Towering antennas dominate a pristine skyline, serving as landmarks for local wildlife instead of redirecting transmissions that formerly reached sites as far away as Cuba, South America and Europe.
The previous home of the Edward R. Morrow Transmitting Station — a control site for the U.S. government’s Voice of America initiative — has fulfilled a new purpose since East Carolina University leased the property in 2001.
The site, which at one point during its history served as a toxic waste dump, now brings research to life, as faculty and students from biology, engineering and geology congregate at ECU’s West Research Campus to answer the biggest environmental problems plaguing eastern North Carolina.
Growing research
“I’ll tell you one thing I think is really cool,” ECU biology professor Carol Goodwillie said while describing the campus. “There are at least three types of carnivorous plant species out there — pitcher plants, sundews and bladderworts. That’s not something I think many people get to encounter on their way to work.”
Instead of being surrounded by the buzzing of Greenville’s lively Uptown District or the cool shade of the campus mall, visitors to the West Research Campus are more likely to be greeted by knee-high grass, pollen and maybe a few unwelcome insects.
That’s just how Goodwillie and her biology students like it.
The architect of the campus’ longest running research project, Goodwillie leads an ecological study of the wetland plant community. For nearly 20 years, her lab has observed 96 permanently marked plots — within an experiment nearly the size of a football field — and identified, counted and catalogued every present plant species.
Goodwillie said that human activities can unintentionally add nutrients from particulates from industrial pollution and fertilizer runoff into the environment.
“What we’ve found is that we’re losing plant diversity when we fertilize the plots through time,” Goodwillie said. “They contain fewer types of plants because certain species are better able to take up those nutrients, becoming ‘bully’ species that outcompete others.
So how does this affect eastern North Carolina wetlands?
“We’re losing native wetland species,” Goodwillie said. “When we inject nutrients into environments that are not built for it, we lose these species because other plants that were not designed to thrive in wetlands can now get a foothold and outcompete them.
THIS SITE COULD BE A JEWEL IN ECU’S CROWN AND SOMETHING THAT WE FEATURE . . . . THERE’S NO REASON IT CAN’T BE A MORE VALUABLE FACILITY AND PUBLIC RESOURCE IN THE FUTURE .
– Carol Goodwillie, ECU biology professor Engineering solutions
Helping preserve the region’s natural habitat is just what College of Engineering and Technology assistant professor Natasha Bell was built to do.
An ecological engineer, Bell works in a lab that identifies ways to use natural microbial and plant processes to provide clean water. Since these processes already exist in nature, they should be available to supply clean water with more ecofriendly solutions than traditional remediation methods.
Armed with a rudimentary greenhouse, a rainwater-fed pond, three bioreactor cells and six constructed wetland cells, Bell’s students are taking science out of the classroom and testing it in the field.
Above, Natasha Bell works with students at the West Research Campus. The class was working with wastewater management techniques.
Bell believes the data collected by her lab can help provide insights into the barriers that keep companies and other stakeholders from using ecological-based treatment technologies to clean water.
“The technologies we’re testing are great and there’s a lot of interest, but there are still many unanswered questions about how they function and how to maintain them,” Bell said. “Some stakeholders are hesitant to put in green technologies. My hope is that once we get the data and share it with the community, people will start putting these green infrastructure practices to use.”
Crown jewel
What their projects have in common is the idea of integrating undergraduate students into their work at the West Research Campus.
ECU alumnus Matt Hodges, a Kinston native who graduated in 2020 with his master’s in biology, had a unique experience at the campus — as a student and a teacher.
Hodges worked as a teaching assistant for Goodwillie last fall and was responsible for data collection at the research site.
That diversity is a key component for the West Research Campus. With interdisciplinary scientists from various departments, the site provides a thriving space for researchers from multiple backgrounds.
“ECU doesn’t allow for researchers to stay in their silos,” Bell said. “There’s a collaborative feeling here. The West Research (Campus) is an example of that. It’s a physical representation of that Pirate spirit.” Goodwillie sees great things for the future of the site.
“I’ve always had a dream that this site could be a jewel in ECU’s crown and something that we feature,” she said. “How many campuses have a field site like this just eight miles from campus with all this potential? There’s no reason it can’t be a more valuable facility and public resource in the future.”
Top, students learn about wastewater management techniques while at the West Research Campus. Above, graduate research assistant Joseph Weddington collects gas samples.
Look around the country and you’ll find East Carolina alumni working with the land and the species that inhabit it to make the world a better place.
If a tree falls in the forest, Sammy Dormio ’17 probably hears it.
She is a lead forestry technician and silviculturist for the U.S. Forest Service, working in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in Winchester, Virginia.
In her role, she’s a land manager of about 600,000 acres in the North Zone of the 1.8 million-acre forest. She implements and monitors the restoration and reforestation of shortleaf pine trees, assists researchers with regeneration studies, coordinates volunteers and work crews, and collects data for future forest management.
Dormio says a key element to the health of the forest is removal of non-native invasive species, such as tree of heaven, autumn olive, empress tree, multiflora rose, Japanese barberry and mile-a-minute. She says all have the potential to compete against native trees such as oak and yellow pine, thus changing the ecosystem of the forest. The forest service uses herbicides in a safe way to combat the spread of NNIS.
“From experience, we know that most NNIS are aggressive and will grow back with a vengeance if they are simply pulled out of the ground and left. Some NNIS even proliferate faster after being damaged,” she says. “The forest service has been consistently working toward detecting and reducing the impact of NNIS on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest North Zone ecosystems.”
Dormio came to ECU to obtain a master’s in ecology and evolutionary biology, drawn to Greenville for its program and research as well as its biodiversity.
“Basically, there are a ton of amazing amphibian, reptile, bird and tree species that I’d never seen before, and I was stoked,” says Dormio, who grew up in Leesburg, Virginia.
Dormio says she felt at home at ECU, enjoying meals at the Mellow Mushroom. She remembers a road trip to New Orleans to participate in a conference.
“The van wasn’t very comfortable at all, but the laughs we had can’t be matched. I made a lot of pretty great friends while pursuing my graduate degree,” she says.
She says teaching labs, working on research, writing grants and collaborating with some of the top minds in the field allowed her to grow.
“All in all, the experiences I had while attending ECU molded me into the person that I am today,” Dormio says. “If it wasn’t for this program, I most likely would not be working for the forest service right now.” – Ken Buday
Sammy Dormio
Growing up on the family farm in the Rhems-Tuscarora community outside New Bern, Alvin Simmons ’80 loved watching bugs.
“The farm provided an environment that was essentially an encyclopedic view of the world of science, and entomology was one aspect,” he says in a recent email interview. Wasps and bees stung him, but their social behavior and value as pollinators fascinated him. Likewise the many flying and crawling insects that swarmed to the nighttime porch light and bonfires.
“I observed a lot of different types of insects in the different environments, and I recognized that some were pests, some were beneficials, some are economically insignificant, and some were just beautiful,” he says.
Simmons took that love for insects and turned it into a career. After graduating from ECU with a biology degree, he enrolled at the University of Kentucky, earning master’s and doctoral degrees. Since 1992, he has worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a research entomologist in Charleston, South Carolina. He specializes in insects that impact vegetables. He’s also an adjunct faculty member at Clemson University and the College of Charleston.
He’s written or co-written 104 refereed journal articles, plus book chapters, coreleased five breeding lines and provided more than 300 technical reports resulting in over 200 pesticide labels. He has given invited talks at numerous professional conferences and has traveled to 30 countries.
One insect he focuses on today is the global pest Bemisia tabaci, the sweetpotato whitefly, and its associated natural enemies. It feeds on many crops and transmits many viruses and demonstrates there are more questions about climate change than answers.
“Based on research by other scientists, this whitefly has already demonstrated its ability to develop resistance to several types of insecticides,” he says, indicating it may be more adaptable to stress than other insects, and thus more adaptable to climate change. But that’s not all.
“Mild winters favor population increases of whiteflies in the spring, while cold winters may limit their ability to survive. Frequent overhead irrigation or frequent rainfall events can have adverse effects on whitefly populations by physically killing some of the insects. There are other factors such as competition among pests for food that may affect either insect population in a climate change environment. Many questions remain about the direct impact that climate change has on food plants and ornamental crops.”
In 2016, Simmons co-chaired the International Congress of Entomology, which was the largest-ever gathering of
Alvin Simmons examines a whitefly in his USDA laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina.
entomologists with nearly 7,000 delegates from 101 countries attending. In 2019, his peers elected him president of the Entomological Society of America.
“I look back with appreciation for the ESA governing board in working with me in leading ESA on improving members’ diversity, inclusion and equality, as 2020 provided an opportunity for this society to focus on being a society of entomology for all.” Simmons says. “Interacting with subject experts from across America and around the world regarding all entomological subjects was priceless.”
– Doug Boyd
The library at ECU was where I first put my hands on an entomology journal. Interacting with members of the ECU Biology Club was the start of my interaction with others in science, outside of the classroom; I now interact with others in assorted fields of science during each workday.
When it comes to protecting species, Beth Chester ’92 wings it.
Working outside in Arizona in the summer where temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees is not most people’s idea of a dream job. But Chester, a wildlife biologist, is not most people.
On a typical day in the field, Chester is surrounded by the grassland valleys, mesquite trees and desert scrub of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge near Tucson, which aims to reintroduce the endangered masked bobwhite quail into nature. The small reddish-brown bird is iconic to the area, yet wild populations no longer exist in the U.S.
Beth Chester
If you’re going to be doing something 40 hours a week for the rest of your life, it might as well be something you enjoy. ... I think ECU gave me a really broad biology education. The department was wellrepresented in different subject areas and had really good professors.
Top, Beth Chester works at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge near Tucson. Above, the male masked bobwhite foster parent sits with his adopted brood of captive-bred masked bobwhite chicks, bonding before release into the wild. An outdoorsy career was not always part of Chester’s plan. For a long time, the Greenville native thought she’d go to medical school at the Brody School of Medicine. After graduating from ECU in 1992 with a biology degree, she got a job as a technician in a Brody lab and spent her weekends doing service activities with the local Sierra Club. That’s when she realized an indoor job was not for her.
“If you’re going to be doing something 40 hours a week for the rest of your life, it might as well be something you enjoy,” Chester says. So, she went back to ECU for her master’s in biology, this time with a plant and animal focus. “I think ECU gave me a really broad biology education. The department was well-represented in different subject areas and had really good professors,” she said. For her thesis, she worked with Carol Goodwillie, associate professor of biology, investigating the plant community at ECU’s West Research Campus (see page 22).
From there, Chester’s career took her west to Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to survey rare plant species, then to Texas to protect the Attwater’s prairie chicken for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “They are such comical birds and fun to watch,” Chester says. (And they have an elaborate courtship dance worthy of the Discovery Channel.)
For the last four years, Chester has been stationed at the Buenos Aires refuge in Arizona as part of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Southwest Region Biological Sciences Division. She returns to Greenville at least once a year to see friends and family, and to check in with Goodwillie from time to time. Between visits, you can usually find her outside – with sunscreen, sunglasses and lots of water.
– Erin Ward
D.R. Bryan ’75 builds for today and the future.
It was a seat in Professor Stan Riggs’ geology class at ECU that helped pique Bryan’s interest on the way to his career as a real estate developer.
Bryan ’75 owns and operates Bryan Properties in Chapel Hill, a full-service real estate development company he founded in 1984. One of three principals in the firm, Bryan focuses on the management of nonresidential properties. He once credited the geology class with helping him better understand land development.
The company has developed more than a dozen neighborhoods — with more than 5,000 single-family and 600 multifamily homes and about 350,000 square feet of commercial space — primarily in the Triangle and Triad, as well as the Charlotte area. It is one of the largest residential developers in North Carolina. It’s also a major land conservationist.
Fran Bryan ’90, D.R. Bryan’s wife, has served on the ECU Foundation board for eight years and on the Honors College Advancement Council for the last four years. The Bryans are also generous donors to ECU who support Access and Honors College scholarships.
“We think that it is important to give back and to help today’s students in whatever way that we can,” he said.
He and his wife aren’t the only Pirates in the family. His daughter and son-in-law received master’s degrees from ECU.
At ECU, D.R. Bryan earned a bachelor’s degree in correctional services in the School of Social Work. After graduation, he worked for Pitt County at a residential treatment program for autistic and schizophrenic children.
D.R. Bryan
He later worked in Rocky Mount for Mickey Dawson, an innovative developer. “From him, I developed an interest in real estate development,” Bryan said.
After six years, Bryan decided to study law and earned his Juris Doctor degree from Wake Forest University. In fact, Bryan was studying law at the same time he founded his company.
Bryan has seen many changes in residential development over the past 35 years. When he started, there were few if any amenities built with new neighborhoods, he said. Eventually, activity centers and gathering places within walking distance of homes were added. Recent projects feature streetscapes to replicate early 20th century neighborhoods.
Bryan Properties has received numerous awards including Business Conservationist of the Year in 2006 by the North Carolina Wildlife Federation for the Treyburn development north of Durham.
More than 10 years ago, Bryan partnered with the Triangle Land Conservancy to conserve almost 1,300 acres at the headwaters of Falls Lake near Treyburn. The agreement helped protect water quality, extend wildlife habitat corridors, reconnect elements of the Stagville state historic site and preserve part of the historic Indian Trading Path.
Before any soil was turned, developers shared a design charrette for their vision and to learn what community stakeholders envisioned for the Treyburn property, Bryan said.
“One of the ideas from the charrette was to conserve most of Horton Grove (the property adjacent to Stagville),” he said. “And that’s what we did.” – Crystal Baity
Adam Bachmeier ’14 keeps the turf green and the water clean at Bald Head Island Club.
Running a golf course on a sandy oceanfront carries its own set of challenges. For Bachmeier, just getting to work can be one.
Bachmeier is the golf course superintendent at the Bald Head Island Club, which Business North Carolina recently ranked No. 44 in the state. He puts his ECU business degree to work managing a $1.65 million operations budget and about 100 acres of land, including the 18-hole golf course and croquet greenswards.
Bachmeier, 36, took a winding path to the southeastern N.C. coast. He was born in North Dakota, moved to Indiana, back to North Dakota, then enrolled in Minnesota State University Moorhead to study landscape architecture.
“My best friend and I decided to relocate to somewhere more conducive to year-round golf,” he says. That somewhere was Winston-Salem, where he worked in the golf shop at Forsyth Country Club. Then he moved to Wilmington and the golf course staff at Eagle Point Golf Club, earned an associate’s degree in
There were times (remote learning) was difficult. ... I really think it helps with what you’re going to experience in real life. You have to rely on yourself. It helps instill that work ethic.
environmental sciences from Cape Fear Community College and worked his way up to senior assistant superintendent. He took the head job at Bald Head Island Club in 2016.
When he was thinking about continuing his education, one of his mentors at Eagle Point told him once he became a superintendent he would deal more with the business end of running a golf course than the agronomic end. East Carolina offered the best opportunity, he says.
Adam Bachmeier ’14 and course dog Django look after the land and the water at the 18-hole Bald Head Island Club on the southeast N.C. coast.
“The access to online classes for a bachelor’s degree,” Bachmeier says of why he chose ECU. “There were times it was difficult,” he says, coming home after a long, hot day then logging on for class. But the remote learning and collaboration worked. “I really think it helps with what you’re going to experience in real life. You have to rely on yourself. It helps instill that work ethic.”
Last year, COVID-19 led to the course being shut down in March and April. It reopened with best practices — such as removing commonly touched items such as bunker rakes and flagsticks and limiting golf carts to a single rider each — and experienced its best year ever, with more than 34,000 rounds played. That was a 40% increase over 2019, Bachmeier says.
Being on the coast brings some agronomic challenges. The reclaimed water he uses for irrigation has a high bicarbonate content, which interferes with plant nutrient uptake. It’s also alkaline, with a pH of 7.6-7.8. The sandy soil allows water and fertilization to quickly leach through. Thus, he uses low doses of fertilizer and water and educates golfers about the benefits of not having lush, soft turf. He also works closely with the state Division of Water Quality and local utilities to help manage the island’s reclaimed irrigation water program. Due to the course being near the ocean and Cape Fear River, protecting groundwater is a priority.
– Doug Boyd
Mark Scott ’10 farms 1,400 acres with his family in northern Pitt County.
From breeding plants to growing crops to putting food on your table, ECU alumni are in the field
It’s mid-morning on a hot April day in the Belvoir community of northern Pitt County, and Mark Scott ’10 has already put in several hours working his family’s 1,400 acres of farmland. He’s just planted corn and tobacco seedlings fill greenhouses at the farm, where he and his father and brothers also grow cotton, soybeans and peanuts.
“It’s a lot of work, a lot of hours,” he says. “It’s a good life, but it’s a challenging life.” So goes the profession of producing food and other products from the earth. That’s where ECU comes in.
Above, Mark Scott plants corn in a no-till field. Right, he inspects tobacco seedlings in a greenhouse.
Generally speaking, East Carolina University isn’t a school that produces farmers. But in recent years, it has been a school that produces better farmers. While Scott grew up on the land, he says his construction management curriculum provided valuable tools when it comes to running the family business and managing employees.
Likewise, Stacy Thomas ’00 comes from a family that grows 14,000 acres of sweet potatoes and other vegetables in Greene County. She used her business degree to help lead that operation and then founded spinoff companies to use sweet potatoes that were not large enough or the right color to go into grocery stores.
The companies, Natural Blend Vegetable Dehydration and Glean, produce purees that can be turned into products such as baby food and dehydrated vegetables that can be turned into flour, healthful snacks, pet food and more.
The family also began distilling sweet potatoes into vodka. Covington Spirits is named for the North Carolina-bred variety of sweet potato they grow.
Boosting family farms
Sitting in the middle of eastern North Carolina farm country, it made sense in 2018 when ECU partnered with N.C. State University to start a program in executive farm management aimed at large family farms. Since then, Clemson University and the University of Georgia have joined the effort.
Sharon Justice, a teaching instructor in the management department of the College of Business, helps lead the program for ECU. She grew up working and playing on her grandfather’s farm in the Black Jack community of Pitt County.
They work with farmers from as far away as Texas on entrepreneurship, management and human resources, which is Justice’s specialty. That’s a vital area as farmers figure out how to pass on their operations.
FOR MORE INFO
Students partner with nonprofit to explore canning business . Read more at bit .ly/3rops37 .
Thomas is on ECU’s advisory board for the program. “As farmers we’ve got to get better at what we’re doing,” she says.
Agriculture is a $92.7 billion part of the North Carolina economy, according to Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler’s annual state of agriculture speech in February. The state has 8.4 million acres planted in soybeans, corn, sweet potatoes, cotton and other crops, as well as millions of hogs, poultry and pork processing and food manufacturing. North Carolina is still the largest tobacco-producing state in the land, with 234.7 million pounds, or 50% of the U.S. total. North Carolina also leads in poultry and egg receipts and sweet potatoes and is in the top three in hogs and pigs, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Agriculture employs a fifth of the state’s workforce, Troxler said, and is on the cusp of becoming a $100 billion industry in terms of economic impact.
ECU is uniquely positioned to contribute to that economic impact.
“I agree that ECU is a place where graduates can get a good job in agricultural endeavors,” said Randall Etheridge, an assistant professor of engineering who has a degree in biological and agricultural engineering. “For example, students in the environmental engineering concentration are prepared to design drainage and irrigation systems that increase crop yields and promote sustainable use of water. Students in the bioprocess engineering concentration have the capability of turning the raw agricultural products into fuels, pharmaceuticals and food.” According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 60-70% of the sweet potatoes grown in the U.S. are grown in North Carolina. The official state vegetable, sweet potatoes have an estimated annual economic impact of $170 million and are responsible for about 5,000 jobs in the state. And regardless of the brand name or common name, they are sweet potatoes. Yams are a completely different plant grown primarily in Africa.
– Sharon Justice, ECU College of Business
Sharon Justice helps lead the Executive Farm Management program. Learn more about it at bit.ly/3riDrHi.
Clockwise from top, Mark Clough ’96 ’98 holds NC1216 and NC1217 potato tubers in a greenhouse at the Vernon James research farm near Plymouth. Tenita Solanto ’09 sells produce from her Green Panda Farms. Angela DeCuzzi ’04 prepares salads at her Locovore Kitchen.
Potatoes and produce
But it’s not just helping farmers be better managers. ECU graduates are also breeding better crops. Just ask Mark Clough ’96 ’98. He grew up spending springs and summers planting and harvesting potatoes on his uncle’s farm in Tyrrell County.
Clough now lives in Tyrrell County and works at the Vernon James Agricultural Research Center in Plymouth, where he’s an expert in breeding potatoes. They’re planted in March and harvested during an eightweek window in June and July.
– Angela DeCuzzi ’04, owner of Locovore online farmers market and delivery service
FOR MORE INFO
For more than 20 years, ECU has also been producing safer farms and farmers . Visit the ECU-based N .C . Agromedicine Institute at ncagromedicine .org .
– Stacy Thomas ’00, agribusiness leader
Clough says potatoes with a skin that’s too dark in other parts of the country are good for eastern Carolina, where the pigment diminishes in the heat and humidity. Once while walking through a breeder’s field in Maine, Clough noticed a potato with a deep purple skin and yellow flesh. The breeder wanted to discard it because of its color, but Clough had other ideas.
And while alumni such as Thomas and Scott are overseeing large acreages and big businesses, at the other end are microgrowers such as Tenita Solanto ’09 and Angela DeCuzzi ’04. After leaving the Navy, Solanto earned an online degree in business education and began information technology work in the corporate world. In 2016, she attended an Urban Farming Seminar at the 2016 Minority Landowners Conference sponsored by Fayetteville State University, planning to show farmers how to use digital systems to manage production. She left with a new plan.
“Literally that day when I went home, I started trying to learn more about farming and begin the process of teaching myself about how to farm,” she says in a recent N.C. State podcast about veterans in farming.
Thus started Green Panda Farms in a spare room she turned into a grow room producing microgreens — the stems and first two leaves of vegetables often used in salads.
The next year she received a grant to buy and restore a 1,200-square-foot building in Siler City. Now, Solanto produces more than 20 varieties of microgreens from floor to ceiling, selling directly to customers such as The Root Cellar in Chapel Hill and Pittsboro.
DeCuzzi and her husband, Titas Boucher ’06, started thinking about how to grow produce following one of Professor Arunus Juska’s sociology classes about food in rural areas and the need to grow local.
She and Boucher started Locovore in 2010, an online farmers market and delivery service. In 2014, they began producing microgreens, root vegetables, Asian turnips and greens at a small farm near Washington, selling to restaurants in Beaufort and neighboring counties. That evolved into selling value-added products such as salads and opening Locovore Kitchen, where they make and sell prepared meals.
DeCuzzi grew up on her family’s farm that’s off N.C. 903 in southern Pitt County and was home to the area’s first pick-your-own farm, Dewsberry Patch. Their long-term goal is to move back and go into broader vegetable production. “We would like to do more organic farming and be more stewards of the land,” she says.
Though a sociology degree didn’t teach her how to farm, she said it did teach her to look for solutions to problems. “There’s so much that goes into any business, not just agriculture,” she says. “Whatever your degree is doesn’t have to pigeonhole you. People can do whatever they want if they have the drive to learn.”
Other ECU alumni who work in agriculture
James Bolding ’77
Cary, N.C.
Partner/owner, AgChemical.com, which sells fertilizers, pesticides and other products to farmers
Nick Genty ’05 ’07
Raleigh, N.C.
Co-founder of AgEYE, an artificial intelligence company that uses technology to diagnose and correct conditions inside indoor vertical farms
Eric Hopkins ’87
Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Vice president, Hundley Farms, a producer of sweet corn, sugar cane and other vegetables and livestock
Cristina Meilicke ’04 ’05
Paraguay
Soybean operations lead/marketing with Bayer Crop Science
Class takes on Hollywood’s portrayal of epic disasters
How do you stop a gigantic asteroid from hitting Earth? If you’re in a Hollywood movie, you fly into space and detonate a nuclear bomb . When Earth’s molten core stops rotating? Nuke that, too . Doomsday comet? Nuke! (With a crack team of dashing scientists, of course .) Natural disasters lend themselves to big-budget films, but how accurate is the science? Professor Eduardo Leorri asks just that question . His introductory geology class is so cool it might make you wish that you were a student again . Here’s a sneak peek at GEOL 1010 .
You’re taking: Geology Goes to Hollywood: Natural Disasters
Your professor is: Eduardo Leorri, associate professor in the East Carolina University Department of Geological Sciences Your classroom time will be spent: Watching films, video tutorials and documentaries to understand geological concepts and processes, with special emphasis on earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and hurricanes. You’ll watch blockbusters such as Armageddon, Deep Impact, San Andreas and The Core, which will be followed by a discussion of their scientific accuracy. The course will focus on how science is perceived in Hollywood films and the real, rather than fictional, societal impacts of geological processes.
A lot of the time, the science in movies is junk, Leorri said, but not always. Deep Impact, for example, is one of the better depictions of cinematic catastrophe, he said. “I’m not sure nuking a comet will work, but the other science was pretty accurate based on what we knew at the time,” Leorri said, noting the size and surface of the comet as well as its impact in the ocean are plausible. You’ll learn about: How geological scientists approach problems, conduct research and report their findings. You’ll also discuss the impact of the geological sciences on our own and others’ cultures. You’ll leave the class with: The ability to think critically when exposed to information. “I hope that after this class, when students see or read something, even if it’s not science-related, they’ll be able to stop and think, ‘Does this make sense?’” Leorri said.
What they say:
PROFESSOR LEORRI’S CLASS ALLOWS US TO STUDY GEOLOGY BY SEEING HOW IT IS PORTRAYED BY HOLLYWOOD WHILE ALSO LEARNING THE REALITIES OF THE SCIENCE . IT’S A FUN AND UNIQUE WAY TO INCLUDE POP CULTURE IN OUR EDUCATION .
– Anna McMillan, sophomore psychology major
BY ERIN WARD
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Can you pass this rocks and minerals quiz?
Rocks and minerals are some of the most fascinating and valuable resources on earth . We tapped Adriana Heimann, associate professor of geological sciences, for help creating this quiz that ranges from rocks common in the earth’s surface to minerals that can be cut and polished into dazzling gems . How many are you familiar with? Pencils ready!
1. Amethyst ___ 2. Basalt ___ 3. Beryl ___ 4. Emerald ___ 5. Galena ___ 6. Granite ___ 7. Halite ___ 8. Magnetite ___ 9. Obsidian ___ 10. Pyrite ___ 11. Quartz ___ 12. Ruby ___
J K F
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1-K, 2-A, 3-F, 4-J, 5-H, 6-B, 7-D, 8-E, 9-L, 10-I, 11-C, 12-G
