Bob was raised on a small farm in eastern Nebraska, obtained a B.S. degree at the Univ. of Nebraska and graduate degrees at the Univ. of Minnesota. He joined the Agronomy faculty at Purdue University in Indiana in 1982 with statewide responsibilities for applied field research, graduate student training, and Extension programming emphasizing corn production. In recent years, Bob’s field-scale research has focused on determining optimum seeding rates for corn, evaluating the merits of biological inputs for corn, identifying the optimal use of sulfur and starter fertilizer for corn, and the evaluation of small UAVs for crop scouting and field research. Bob’s Extension programming focuses on optimizing yield, profitability, and stewardship of corn production for growers in Indiana and throughout the eastern Corn Belt. Bob began a voluntary partial retirement program in January 2020 with target timeline of retiring fully sometime before the end of 2022.