John Gardner
John Gardner is the Vice President for Economic Development and Global Engagement at Washington State University, a position newly created in 2007 by President Elson Floyd to focus on the relevancy of the contemporary public research university within the economy. Dr. Gardner works to engage private, public, and philanthropic sectors to better leverage all of WSU’s assets for economic growth and vitality of the state. Gardner is a native of the Kansas City area where he earned degrees in agriculture and agronomy at Kansas State University, and a PhD at the University of Nebraska in plant physiology. He spent twenty years in North Dakota, much of that time as Director of the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center. His work at NDSU on the domestication of new crops led to business interests throughout the 1990’s and he became 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. Just prior to WSU, Gardner spent seven years at the University of Missouri as the Associate Dean/Director for Research and Outreach in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources, and then as Vice President for Research and Economic Development across the University of Missouri System.
