Course
Certificate in Sustainable Food and Agricultural Systems
Education
University of Nebraska
Ph.D. Agronomy, Crop Physiology
Kansas State University
M.S. Agronomy
Kansas State University
B.S. Agriculture
Selected PUBLICATIONS
Oilseed and algal oils as biofuel feedstocks
Washington’s Pursuit of the Life Sciences: Engaging University Research
Planting the future: developing an agriculture that sustains land and community
The impact of farming practices on soil quality in North Dakota
Rapeseed and crambe: Developing useful products from oils that are high in erucic acid
Overview of current sustainable agriculture research
Conservation reserve program effects on soil quality indicators
A soil quality framework for evaluating the impact of CRP
Evaluation of a field test kit for measuring selected soil quality indicators
Biodiversity for industrial crop development in the United States
Nitrogen use efficiency among diverse sorghum cultivars
Bio
John has been an entrepreneur, an agricultural researcher, a passionate champion of sustainability, a teacher, a leader of community economic development and a senior academic administrator. He is now the Dean of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, a charter business school among the first to offer an MBA in sustainability. Nearing ten years old with close to 500 alumni, BGI is charting a growth strategy to expand national offerings at its destination program at Islandwood on Bainbridge Island, and also grow an emerging effort in the Seattle metro area for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.
For the past four years, he was Vice President at Washington State University responsible for better leveraging all of WSU’s assets for economic growth and vitality of the state. Prior to WSU, he filled a similar role at the University of Missouri as Vice President for Research and Economic Development. In all, he has been a student, faculty member, or administrator at five land grant universities.
Gardner is a native of the Kansas City area and earned degrees in agriculture and agronomy at Kansas State University, and a PhD at the University of Nebraska in plant physiology. Though most of his career has been in the US Great Plains, his graduate work in both institutions was supported by US-AID in the sorghum/millet program INTSORMIL directed at Africa and India. While at the University of Missouri, his international research and development efforts focused on East Asia.
He spent twenty years in Carrington, North Dakota, much of it as Director of the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center. His work on the domestication of new crops led to business interests throughout the 1990’s. He was one of the founders and chief executive of AgGrow Oils, a 540 member LLC that integrated the production, processing, and marketing of both novel and designer oilseeds.
He lives in Seattle and is married to Julie Rae Gardner. They have three grown children living in Maryland, Switzerland, and Peru.