Nurturing Agribusiness

By:   Michael Chilton, Bob Griffin
Imprint:   Fourth Lloyd Productions
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 9mm
Weight:   218g
ISBN:   9781735034171
ISBN 10:   1735034177
Pages:   158
Publication Date:   12 May 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

After receiving a graduate degree in botanical sciences from Iowa State University, Mike spent the next fifteen years in Southeast Asia. He worked initially as an agricultural volunteer and team leader in Vietnam and then as a remote area security development specialist with the Thai Border Patrol. He returned to Vietnam to work in private and public sector development activities before returning to the USA in 1975 to an uncertain future and the development of a new career.He served with a small agricultural company in Salem, Oregon, for eight years catching up on the world of agriculture before establishing his own company, Agricultural Alternatives, Ltd. in 1985. Specialty plant and seed production expanded into a broad range of plant products, all marketed internationally, before he sold the company in 2001.Mike has visited and traveled in over eighty countries and has lived, worked or conducted business in nineteen countries. He lives today near Salem, Oregon, on an acreage he developed with his late wife, Simone, and continues to serve useful purposes following a number of ancillary interests. Bob began his international development career with USAID in Laos in 1966. There, he was regional manager for southern Laos working on a new joint venture of USAID and the Royal Lao Government called the Agricultural Development Organization (ADO). ADO was organized to provide Lao farmers with agricultural inputs including tools, machinery, fertilizer and pesticides, as well as credit and marketing services. This work included ultimately unsuccessful efforts to develop a commercial rice plantation in Laos. Subsequently, Bob worked three years on a UNDP regional project that served UN country projects in regard to management, training and communications issues.Specializing in agricultural and rural development, Bob then became an independent consultant working at various types of international development projects. He continued as an independent consultant contracted by various development agencies for the next thirty-five years, retiring in 2013.Bob studied political science at Oberlin College and completed a master's degree in education at the University of Southern California and an MBA in international business at the City University of New York. He lives with his wife, Normalah, in Honolulu and enjoys spending time with his three adult daughters and three grandchildren.