[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 21 (Monday, February 5, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E255]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO W.R. ``REG'' GOMES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. DENNIS A. CARDOZA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, February 5, 2007

  Mr. CARDOZA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to W.R. 
``Reg'' Gomes, who is retiring with distinctIon as Vice President, 
Agriculture and Natural Resources, for the University of California.
  Over the past four decades, Reg has dedicated his life to the land-
grant university missions of teaching, research and public service. He 
has mentored hundreds of current agricultural leaders from his early 
career as a professor at The Ohio State University, then as the Dean of 
Agriculture at the University of Illinois and finally in his home state 
to which he returned 11 years ago to lead the vast and varied 
agricultural education, science and Cooperative Extension programs of 
the University of California.
  The grandson of immigrants from the Azores of Portugal, Reg was 
raised in the hard working dairy farming culture of California's 
Central Valley. This early appreciation for farming life led Reg to 
California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo) to study 
animal science. Reg and his brother became the first in their family to 
graduate from college. Reg went on to earn a master's degree from 
Washington State University and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. This is 
an impressive collection of degrees for a young man from a small dairy 
farm in the small town of Hanford, California and it was the beginning 
of a remarkable academic career.
  As an internationally recognized scientist and educator, Reg has been 
a leading voice on several prominent State and national boards, 
including the Farm Foundation Agricultural Round Table, the California 
State Board of Food and Agriculture, the California Farm Bureau 
Federation Board and the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of 
the National Research Council, which he currently chairs.
  As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, I am particularly 
proud that California is the Nation's leading agricultural state with 
nearly $30 billion in sales coming from over 88,000 farms which produce 
350 different commodities. These impressive statistics are due in large 
part to the innovative spirit of California farmers who are usually the 
first to use new technologies and science-based farming practices, and 
it is our state's great land-grant university--the University of 
California--and leaders like Reg Gomes whom we have to thank for much 
of our farming successes.
  Madam Speaker, it is my honor to offer these words in tribute to my 
friend Reg Gomes and to wish him and his wife Anne a wonderful next 
phase of their lives.

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