Image Credit: Diana Velasquez-munoz
Recent IAA graduate Sydney Wallace is managing one of the world’s most technologically advanced greenhouses. Where? Right here at the University of Maryland campus.
A 2012 IAA Agricultural Business Management major, Wallace was named Facility Manager in February of the Research Greenhouse Complex (RCG) on campus. The $18 million facility built in 2003 beside Comcast Center houses environment growth chambers, cold and postharvest storage rooms, and a graduate laboratory. Greenhouse ranges have total climate control, supplemental lighting, and even three different sources of irrigation water. Research projects are very diverse including Chesapeake Bay restoration projects, green-roof studies, biofuels, and pest management. Small grain breeding continues year round in the facility. The wheat for your bread five or six years from now is quite likely to be a seedling in the RCG today.
A native of Costa Rica, Wallace holds a B.S. in Agronomy from the Costa Rica Institute of Technology. Wallace and his wife Sandra moved their family to the US in 2000, and he began working for the plant science department doing field and lab work on small grains. He transferred to the RCG as a technician in 2005. Wallace quickly realized that agriculture in the US was very much a business and he began taking classes at the IAA. He enjoys education and has started his Masters degree with Dr. Yilmaz Balci in tropical agriculture and plant pathology.
Sydney and his wife Sandra have four very successful grown children including a pharmacist, electrical engineer, and business owner. Their youngest son Rodney plays professional soccer for the Portland Timbers. In agreeing to this article Sydney had one request, and that was to make sure everyone realizes how proud he was to be associated with UMD.
And the IAA is proud of him.
