Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 13, 1994                   TAG: 9407210057
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

NEW AGRICULTURE STATION HEAD ALSO TO BE TECH ASSOCIATE DEAN

Robert Q. Cannell, whose title also includes associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, spent the first portion of his career researching crop production, crop physiology, drought, and minimum tillage - or, how not to have to plow an entire field, said Charlie Stott, spokesman for the agriculture college.

Cannell is away and could not be reached for comment.

His new post is a promotion, up from heading the college's Department of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences. He arrived at Tech in 1987 from the Welsh Plant Breeding Station at University College of Wales, where he also worked as a professor of agricultural botany. He has been deputy director of the Agricultural and Food Research Council's Letcombe Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

"We expect Bob to lead the research of VAES in agricultural, natural and human resources - critical work that extends across several colleges at Virginia Tech - to new heights in service to the people of Virginia," said Andy Swiger, dean of the agriculture college.

The experiment station focuses on research born in four of Tech's colleges: agriculture and life sciences, veterinary medicine, human resources, and forestry and wildlife resources. Other colleges sometimes participate, and 12 branch centers are scattered throughout the state.

Swiger complimented Cannell's global perspective, which, in addition to his work in Britain, includes a range of projects throughout the United States and the Third World.