Bio of Mark Boudreau, Ph.D

Hebert Green Agroecology, Inc. was established by Dr. Mark A. Boudreau in 2004, and became a chapter-S corporation in 2005. Mark has a Ph.D. in plant pathology and has been involved in science and agriculture his entire life, from growing up in a tiny farming community in Illinois to his last position as Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. He established a sustainable agriculture curriculum there in 1996. Then, during a sabbatical at Imperial University's Wye Campus in Kent, England, he decided to concentrate on research and education in organic production as an independent agent back in the U.S. Hebert Green Agroecology was operated from his home in Asheville until he moved into a downtown office in Autumn of 2006.

Professional chronology

Received a B.S. in General Biology from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1980. This included a year in the Agricultural Botany program at the University College of North Wales in Britain.

From 1980-1983 Mark ran an organic gardening program for the Urbana Park District, worked in the plant ecology lab of F. A. Bazzaz at Illinois, and did a bit of freelance writing.

Mark experienced a great number of organic farms and smallholdings in Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia through the various "WWOOF" organizations (originally "Working Weekends on Organic Farms") between 1978 and 1983. During this time he started an American version of WWOOF in the Midwest U.S., known as Sativa, and worked on many of these farms as well.

An M.S. in plant pathology was earned in 1986 from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, studying the biological control of Venturia inaequalis, the pathogen which causes apple scab, under advisor John H. Andrews.

Mark's plant pathology Ph.D. began with a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, and concluded in 1991 at Oregon State University, with advisor Chris Mundt. Mark studied the disease-control potential of intercropping, and specifically found that common beans and corn (maize), when grown together, can reduce two important diseases of beans, angular leaf spot and rust.

Cultural practices and their effects on strawberry anthracnose were examined during a post-doctoral position with Larry Madden at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, a part of The Ohio State University, until 1993.

For the past decade Mark has focused on teaching, first as a professor in the Botany Department at Eastern Illinois University from 1993-1995, then at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, from 1995-2004. He developed and taught many courses in sustainable agriculture and botany, and started and coordinated the Sustainable Agriculture Concentration in the Environmental Studies major at Warren Wilson. He also served as Biology Department chair there for 4 years, and spent a sabbatical at the agriculture campus of London’s Imperial College in Wye, Kent.

Research on intercropping continued through grants from the USDA’s National Research Initiative, in collaboration with Barbara Shew at North Carolina State University, this time on peanuts. Growing this crop with corn or cotton was found to reduce early leaf spot, a major problem for peanut growers, and Mark continues to work with Dr. Shew to understand and optimize this effect.

Mark became an adjunct professor in the Dept. of Plant Pathology and Physiology at Clemson University in 1996, and throughout his employment at Warren Wilson College collaborated with colleagues there and at North Carolina State University on various research and extension activities. He wrote and reviewed scientific papers and grant applications, co-authored a book chapter on environmentally sound disease control, and presented at national scientific conferences and regional organic workshops.

With the creation of Hebert Green Agroecology, Mark continues to build collaborations in research and education, and offers consulting services and workshops throughout the Southeast and Midwest. He is also developing a second career as a writer in science, agriculure, and wherever else his muse takes him.

Mark lives in Asheville. He has two sons, Alex (14) and Joe (11). He likes to hike, travel, write, read, sing, and astronomize for fun.

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