Clarence Funk, Ph.D.

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Clarence is one of the founders of Improving Perennial Plants for Food and Bioenergy, Inc (IPPFBE). He currently serves on the Board of Directors and is the Secretary/Treasurer. Clarence’s interest in trees and other perennial plants began in his childhood. He grew up working of the family’s farm located in the foothills east of US Highway 91 between Richmond and Smithfield, Utah. Alfalfa was the primary crop produced by the farm and was used to feed a herd of milk cows and the other livestock raised on the farm. The farm provided many acres of native grassland and there were abundant trees growing on Spring Hill and in the hollows that drained the snowmelt from the surrounding mountains each spring.

Clarence continued to milk cows, operate farm machinery, care for cattle, and perform the many other chores common to family farms while he attended Utah State University. He married Joan Henderson on March 18, 1965 and graduated with a B.S. degree in physics in June 1966. Upon graduation, Joan and Clarence moved to Pasadena, California, where he commenced his career working as a research scientist for the US Navy. Clarence enrolled into a graduate program in physics at UCLA in the fall of 1966 and received his M.S. degree in physics in 1968 and his Ph.D. degree in applied physics and engineering in June 1972. The Naval research laboratory was relocated to San Diego in 1970.

Clarence Hiking in Southern Utah

Clarence and his brother Reed purchased their parents' farm and took over its operation following the death of their father. Reed and Clarence created the Crow Mountain Farms partnership in 1976 and transferred this real estate to the Springhill Ranch, LLC (SHR) in 1997. SHR began a tree breeding research program in 1998. The program began small with a few black walnut, hazel nut, apricot and other fruit trees and increased in scope each year. In 2005, 5,817 trees were planted including black walnut (2,055), Persian walnut (1,495), pecan (1,268), hickory (515), and a collection of 484 other trees (almond, apricot, Asian pear, Bur Oak, butternut, Dawn Redwood, hazelnut, heartnut, hican, oak, peach, plum, pomegranate, and prune). In the same year Reed and Clarence decided to create a section 501.c.3 public, non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable scientific research organization that would ensure the continuation of the tree breeding research program begun by SHR. Improving Perennial Plants for Food and Bioenergy, Inc., (IPPFBE) was formally organized on November 11, 2005. The original directors of IPPFBE were Reed Funk, Clarence Funk, Carol Petersen, Tim Ford, and Tom Molnar. Jeff Johnson was added as the sixth director in October 2007. The directors elected Reed Funk as the President, Tim Ford as Vice President, and Clarence Funk as Secretary/Treasurer of IPPFBE.

Carol Petersen is Reed's daughter and she and her husband are involved in another tree breeding research program in Thatcher, Utah.

Tim Ford has been associated with Reed in plant breeding research projects for many years and is a professional plant breeder living in Huntsville, Utah. Tim is listed as a co-inventor with Reed on the plant breeding protection certificates for "Masterpiece" tall fescue, "Picasso" tall fescue, and "Rembrandt" tall fescue. Tim and Reed are also the co-authors of plant registration articles published in Crop Science for "Affinity" perennial ryegrass, "Picasso" tall fescue, "Masterpiece" tall fescue, "Exacta" perennial ryegrass, "Oxford" hard fescue, "Pathfinder" strong creeping red fescue, "Affirmed" perennial ryegrass, "Rembrandt" tall fescue, "Champagne" Kentucky bluegrass, "Secretariat" perennial ryegrass, "Cabernet" Kentucky bluegrass, "Churchill" perennial ryegrass.

Tom Molnar received his PhD degree from Rutgers University after being associated with Reed in plant breeding research for many years. Tom is continuing the tree breeding research program initiated by Reed at Rutgers University. Tom is listed as a co-inventor with Reed on the plant breeding protection certificate for "Jefferson" Kentucky bluegrass. Tom and Reed are also the co-authors of plant registration articles published in Crop Science for "Jefferson" Kentucky bluegrass, "Secretariat" perennial ryegrass, and "Lakeshore" Kentucky bluegrass. Tom is also listed with Reed in the publication of several important technical papers.

Reed, Clarence, and their nephew Jeff Johnson formed a second farm partnership, Grass Valley Enterprise, in 1988. This farm was located in Dayton, Idaho. They transferred the farm to the J7, LLC in 1997 and sold all but fifty-four acres of the land in the spring of 2004. J7, LLC used the proceeds from the sale of the Dayton farm to purchase farmland in Malta, Idaho. A perennial plant breeding research program has been established on the Malta farm to evaluate many different varieties of drought resistant alfalfa and range grass. In 2006, 5,938 different samples of seed were planted in Malta. The seeds were from 498 different alfalfa varieties collected in 23 different countries. Seed collected from Kazakhstan (198), United States (89), Russian Federation (56), Armenia (24), and China (20) contributed 77.7% of the different varieties and the seed collected from the other 18 countries provided the remaining 22.3%. Several important varieties of dry range grass were seeded in 2007.

The remaining fifty-four acres of the Dayton farm were transferred to SHR and became part of the SHR tree breeding research program. Reed and Clarence leased all of the land and water rights owned by SHR to IPPFBE for thirty years with lease payments set at one dollar per year. They also donated all of the germplasm developed by the SHR tree breeding research program to IPPFBE. In addition, both Reed and Clarence have made significant donations of appreciated securities to IPPFBE as an initial endowment to ensure its continued operation for many years.

Clarence and Reed fully support the mission of IPPFBE: "Scientific selection and improvement of underutilized perennial plants for the production of food, timber, and energy and the preservation and enhancement of soil for the benefit of all."

During his long career as a scientist for the US, Clarence has worked on a variety of interesting projects. From 1966 through 1972 Clarence helped to designed optical and acoustical imaging systems for a variety of deep diving vehicles such as the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV). The research for his doctoral dissertation was focused on modeling the effects of multiple scattering of light and acoustical waves on imaging system performance. During 1973 though 1982, Clarence work involved the development of systems that process the information provide by the nation's Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) and methods for assessing the performance of this system. He directed the processing of information and the generation of performance assessment reports for the Chief of Naval Operations.

Clarence's research from 1983 through 1992 was concentrated on the development of a decision-support system that processed multiple-source intelligence and generated threat status reports. From 1993 to 2005 his research involved the performance analysis of data association algorithms used to process the vast quantities of information collected each day by national reconnaissance systems. Clarence retired from full-time employment in October 2005. He worked part time as a rehired annuitant from February 2006 to February 2008 continuing research related to the collection, processing, analysis and dissemination of national intelligence.

In 2003 Clarence received the Lauritsen-Bennett Award for Excellence in Science from the Space and Naval Systems Center (SSC) in San Diego. The is the highest honorary award presented by SSC and recognizes employees who have made significant achievements in science, engineering, and/or staff support. The citation on this award reads: "For over 35 years, Clarence Funk has analyzed the performance of undersea optical and acoustic imaging systems and some of the world's most sophisticated signal intelligence systems. He has spent years developing tools to help the warfighter extract tactically useful data from the sea or from space."

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