Jeff White

— 47th — (2022) Joseph Biden

My contact with Jordan J started in the summer of 1971 when Gay, Wick and Frank stopped by our house in New Mexico on a trip to explore the Southwest. I recall them joking about Gay saying “this is just like Kenya, only not quite as nice.” My brother George (‘72) was in Jordan W and was a housemate of Wick and others from Dunster House. During my freshman year, I sometimes dropped by the Jordans for dinner. I fondly recall a trip to the Robert Frost farm in New Hampshire, where the Jordans put on a huge dinner followed by square dancing.

Following graduation from Harvard, I pursued a PhD in Botany at UC Berkeley. Peter Kenmore (‘74, not a Jordan resident) and I met through biology classes, and he had located a house for rent that could handle five or six people comfortably. We set up a mini-coop with shared dinners just a few blocks from the Berkeley Coop grocery store.

My grad studies at Berkeley involved an 18 month stay in Colombia for research on why bean varieties differ in their growth and yield. I finished in Dec. of 1980 and in January of 1981, started a postdoc at the International Potato Center in Lima. Most of my work focused on how to produce true seed (vs. tubers) of potato within a larger project to promote production of potato from seed. While in Lima, I met a group of university students who enjoyed hiking and camping. I had a Datsun pickup with a shell, so we had some good weekends exploring the mountains near Lima. An Easter break trip was proposed to help inspect a possible relic forest to see whether the forest merited protection. The instigator was the sister of one of my fellow hikers, who worked for the Peruvian equivalent of the National Park Service. She accompanied us, and although the forest was disappointing, I enjoyed talking to my friend’s sister, Teresa Gutierrez. We met again a while after the trip, soon shifted to serious dating and exploring., and married in January of 1983.

The prospects of my postdoc turning into something permanent were slim, so I started looking for another job in international ag. With amazing luck, I landed back in Colombia in the same program where I had done my PhD field studies. From 1983 to 1995, I studied how to help plant breeders develop beans that were more drought resistant or yielded higher under favorable conditions. My main activities involved field trials, but I collaborated with a group at the U Florida in development, testing and using a computer model of a growing bean crop.

We enjoyed living in Colombia, although many areas were off limits for exploring due to guerillas and drug trafficking. Due to visa restrictions related to my employment, Teresa could only work as a volunteer, so for 11 years she volunteered as the Cali zoo’s wildlife biologist. This included designing diets, improving habitats, developing collaborations with other zoos, and encouraging a more conservation-focused approach to exhibiting animals.

We adopted twins, Gabriel and Teresita, in 1994 and a third child, Mateo in 1995. In Dec. of 1995, we moved to Texcoco, Mexico, home of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). My research focus changed from field experiments to using GIS and crop models to assist other researchers. The main projects I supported were in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to multiple trips through both regions.

By 2002, Tere and I decided that the time had come to return to the US to be closer to my aging parents, to get our kids into better schools, and to change jobs one last time before age discrimination might be an issue. I began work with USDA’s US Water Conservation Lab in Phoenix, AZ where I used computer models to assess potential impacts of climate change. When I retired in 2020, it still appeared that most people had made up their minds about climate change and wouldn’t be influenced by research reports. In the past two years with more droughts, forest fires and threatened cuts to water for irrigation, attitudes toward climate change seem to be changing but for Arizona farming, this may be a case of too little, too late.

On the home front, our three kids moved out after finishing high school, but they still have struggled with substance abuse and related issues. The twins just turned 29 and seem finally to be settling down. Mateo is also getting sorted out and moved back in for a more stable living situation and to help with grandkids. Along the way, Teresita has had five babies, three of whom are now our adopted kids (Frances, age 9; Kayce, 6; Tyson, 3), another is on track to come into our household until the mom and dad can convince the AZ Dept. of Child Services that they can be safe parents (Charm, age 2 months as of mid-June), and one is awaiting a court decision that likely will have him placed with us for adoption (Bentley, age 2). So instead of touring the world, visiting friends and family, engaging in political activities, etc., we are busy, busy being parents 24 x 7 for three grandkids with plans to expand to five. “La vida te da sorpresas, sorpresas te da la vida ay Dios.” [“Life brings you surprises. Surprises bring you life, oh Lord.” From the song Pedro Navaja, by Willie Colon & Ruben Blades]

Looking back, Jordan J taught me a lot about living with other people. The Harvard trial for Ellen Messing helped change my views on the Vietnam War and Harvard by 180°. Cooking for 25 people taught me how to plan and clean on-the-fly while watching pots, chopping onions and interacting with passerbys. I became a vegetarian at Jordan J – but have since shifted to a plant-heavy omnivory. And there are many other wonderful memories of parties, trips to the Cape, half-zies for baked goods, managing wholesale fruit and veg orders …