Leonard R. Joppa, research geneticist with the USDAARS Cereal Crops Unit at Fargo, ND, retired 10 October, 1998, after nearly 35 years of government service. He was an adjunct professor of agronomy in the Department of Plant Sciences at North Dakota State University, where he served as advisor for M.S. and Ph.D. students.

Dr. Joppa was born and raised on a crop and livestock farm near Billings, MT. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, spending more than 2 years in Japan. He earned his B.Sc. degree in agronomy at Montana State University in 1957. From 1957 to 1964, he worked as an agronomist with wheat and other crops at the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station in Sidney. During this time, he earned an M.S. degree at Oregon State University, majoring in genetics and studying the genetics of tall fescue. He returned to Montana State in 1964 and earned his Ph.D. degree in 1967.

Dr. Joppa joined the ARS at Fargo in 1967 as a wheat geneticist working primarily with durum wheats. His work in developing sets of aneuploid stocks in durum has led to international recognition. His stocks were viable and fertile and have been used by wheat scientists throughout the world for refined genetic analyses to locate important genes or molecular markers on chromosomes or chromosome arms and transfer chromosomes from one cultivar or related species to another.

One of his major interests has been the improvement of durum wheat quality, and he made several discoveries regarding the genetics of proteins important in pasta quality. Recently, he transferred genes for high grain protein content from wild emmer to durum, located the genes a chromosome, and mapped closely linked molecular markers useful for selection of high-proteincultivars. Recombinant inbred chromosome lines, developed by using his aneuploid stocks and a unique cytogenetic procedure, were used to map the high-protein gene and the associated molecular markers. After retirement, Dr. Joppa plans to continue that part of his research dealing with resistance to Fusarium

When he was a student, he met and married Catherine Osborne. They have four children and four grandchildren.