Robert Loring Nichols

Robert Loring Nichols: March 3, 1946 – October 7, 2020 Bob Nichols earned his first paycheck at 13 and his last at 74. Had he not had ALS, aka Lou Gehring’s disease, he was an excellent candidate to live to 100. He was diagnosed in Feb. 2020, declared 100% disabled in June, and passed on October 7. He was born in rural Sussex County, New Jersey. He heard Dr. Martin Luther King speak in person, and the announcement of Pres. John Kennedy’s assassination live on the radio. He graduated from Blair Academy in 1964 and from Yale College in 1968 with a concentration in economics and political science. He planned to attend law school, but went to war instead. Bob Nichols joined the Army Security Agency, volunteered for, and served three consecutive combat tours in Vietnam – one in the Central Highlands, and two in defense of the Cambodian border. He was a Vietnamese language interpreter for a tactical intelligence organization. He held security clearances above Top Secret, and was prohibited from travelling to any communist country for the rest of his life. He returned to the U.S. in 1972, lived in the Mt. Washington Valley of New Hampshire, worked as a carpenter, and read the words of Jonathan Swift, “If a man can make two ears of corn grow where before there was only one, he will have done more for mankind than the whole race of politicians.” He resolved to study plants. With the G.I. bill, a tuition wavier from the state of Connecticut (CT), and the assistance of the faculty of the Univ. of CT College of Agriculture at Storrs, he achieved a Masters and Ph. D. in agronomy in 1977 and 1980, respectively. His dissertation was on the then radical notion to use a new herbicide, glyphosate, for planting without tillage. Bob Nichols worked for USDA-ARS as the Southern Regional Forage Agronomist with a co-appointment with the Univ. of Georgia; for PPG Industries as a field development specialist and launched the soybean herbicide, lactofen; for F. Hoffman LaRoche coordinating field research in the Western U.S., managing a field station in Florida, and developing insect managing technologies in the Western Hemisphere. He headed the marketing of research services for Agri-Growth Research and managed research farms in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska. In 1992 he joined Cotton Incorporated and served for 28 years as Director, then Senior Director of Agricultural and Environmental Research. He had no requirement to publish after 1984, but authored over 190 publications in agronomy, biochemistry, entomology, genetics, nematology, plant pathology, and weed science. Bob Nichols considered his key expertise to be weed management and herbicide chemistry. He was a member of the Southern Weed Science Society (SWSS) and the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) since 1980. He chaired the SWSS’s Herbicide Resistant Plants Committee, when glyphosate resistance was discovered, and its Science Policy Committee, when off-target movement of dicamba was a national controversy. He was a Fellow of the SWSS and winner of the society’s Distinguished Service Award and its Regulatory Stewardship Award. He was a longtime member of the WSSA’s Science Policy Committee and a strong advocate for action, ethics, and scientific excellence. Bob Nichols is survived by his loving wife, Carol Lee Nichols of Raleigh, North Carolina, five accomplished children who live in four states, CO, CT, GA (2), and WA; and five grandchildren with great potential. He lived enthusiastically and will be missed. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the following organizations, in memory of Bob: ALS Association | als.org Jefferson Healthcare Hospice | hospicefoundationjhc.org End of Life Washington | endoflifewa.org