After 38 plus years with MSU Extension, Thomas Dudek is retiring Dec. 31. Currently, the senior horticulture educator for greenhouse and nursery crops at the extension, Dudek’s extension career started on the MSU campus in the Department of Entomology as the Pesticide Impact Assessment Coordinator in January 1978. In March of 1979, he became the program leader for the MSU Office of IPM programs at MSU. After two years (April 1981), he assumed the role of the County Horticulture Extension Agent in Kent County. In February 1983, he then became the district horticulture educator for greenhouse and nursery crops as well as vegetables. Dudek maintained that role until 1998 when he was able to focus his educational efforts on just the greenhouse and nursery industries in West Michigan.
Dudek received the Distinguished Extension Academic Staff Award in 2011, the highest award conveyed annually to any Extension educator in Michigan by Michigan State University.
During his time at MSU, Dudek worked with many excellent dedicated Extension staff on a lot of great grower educational programs. Those included greenhouse, nursery and vegetable farms adopting IPM, increasing the usage of pH and EC meters with the usage of plugs in the greenhouse industry, training English and Spanish speaking growers via the College of Knowledge for Greenhouses, leading tours in Michigan, out of state and to foreign countries to study vegetable farms, nurseries and greenhouses. More recently, he assisted in the implementation of insect bio controls for greenhouses, education on labor management, utilizing drones for inventory of nursery stock and facilitating the increased use of LEAN principles in greenhouse and nursery production to just name a few of the efforts.
“Through all these years and experiences it has been a joy to work with you growers and industry personnel,” Dudek wrote in his West Michigan Nursery Notes e-newsletter. “I am amazed with the dedication you all have and how the greenhouse and nursery business has grown over the past 30 years or so. The industry I am leaving is well respected across the nation thanks to all of your hard work. I want to thank you for treating me with respect and I hope that I have been of assistance to you and have helped you build your business. I have learned from many of you over the years. I have had a great career at the “premier land grant university”, MSU, and feel blessed to know and work with you.”
A retirement reception is being planned for Thursday, Dec. 1, from 4 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Ottawa County Fillmore Administration Building in West Olive, Mich. More details will be forthcoming.