Award for Distinguished Service to Oat Improvement
May 2002
Dr. Sam Weaver – Quaker Oats Company Ltd.
Sam was born and raised in Lubbock, TX. After graduating from Texas Tech University with a degree in agronomy, he headed north to Purdue University. He received his MSc in 1968 under the direction of Dr. Wayne Keim and his Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics in 1971 under Dr. David Glover. While at Purdue Sam was a teaching assistant in genetics and held a NIH Fellowship. Also, during this time he met and married a fellow graduate student, Carolan Wieker. After receiving his Ph.D. Sam was hired by Purdue to teach at Vincennes University and serve as an extension agent in southwestern Indiana. While in Vincennes, Sam and Carolan’s son, Warren, was born. In 1974, Sam was hired by the Quaker Oats Company and the family moved to Wheaton, IL. Shortly, after the move, their daughter, Amy, was born.
For the first 15 years at Quaker, Sam was in the Purchasing Department and directed grain research and development in oats, white and yellow corn, durum wheat, navy beans, and barley. In 1989 he moved to the research facility in Barrington. While the initial research focus was principally on oats, white corn and durum wheat, the focus gradually changed to oat variety development and value-added grains. However, the main objective during Sam’s career with Quaker was to fundresearch resulting in the development of oat varieties for purchasing and processing into products by the food industry in general and for Quaker in particular. Varieties developed from this program and released to farmers resulted in savings to The Quaker Oats Company of approximately $15 million dollars annually in purchase price and milling yield improvements.
He consulted with state, federal, and private oat researchers in the US, Canada and Latin America and traveled extensively serving as a consultant for international oat programs. It was from these consultation activities that he gained his greatest personal satisfaction. In addition to his work at Quaker, he served on advisory committees for the Agronomy Department at the University of Illinois and at Penn State University, the Dean’s advisory board at the University of Illinois, and the supervisory board for the Chicago High School for Ag Sciences. He was also the president of the Chicago-Cook County 4H Foundation where he was responsible for raising several hundred thousand dollars for youth programs effecting over 35,000 participants. He is an active member in the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America, serving on the public relations committee, the finance committee, the industrial agronomist committee, and the genetics and plant breeding award for industry committee. He served on the board of directors for the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST). He was also an active member of the National Oat Improvement Conference and the Oat Crop Advisory Committee. In addition, Sam was a member of the American Oat Association and the American Oat Workers Conference serving as a lobbyist to the US Congress to increase funding for the USDA-ARS. Sam is a Certified Professional Agronomist and a Certified Professional Crop Scientist.
Over the years, Sam received various awards including many from state FFA groups for his leadership in the Oat Improvement Program for high school students, which was sponsored by Quaker. These awards included honorary state farmer awards from Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota as well as numerous local FFA Chapter awards. He also was awarded the Gamma Sigma Delta Award of Merit for Distinguished Service to Agriculture by the University of Illinois and received the Friend of Agronomy Award from the University of Wisconsin.