Canadian genebank legend Ken Richards sadly passed away late last year.
In 1996 Ken took over management of Canada’s Plant Genetic Resources with its relocation to Saskatoon from Ottawa. Ken supervised the construction of the new Gene Bank attached to Agriculture and Agri-food Canada at the University of Saskatchewan. Ken and Tim Myers divided in half every packet of the 550,000 packet collection of plant seeds for the transfer. Half of the collection was sent by surface trucks and half of the collection was relocated by a Canadian government Hercules airplane. In subsequent years the plant collection was joined in Saskatoon by the microbial, fruit tree and animal collections. Ken assembled and supervised a wonderful team of scientists who worked from P.E.I. to the B.C. Okanagan. He and Linda and Kimberly lived in beautiful Saskatoon for fifteen years.
Sad.