I was born and raised in Payson, Utah, a semi-rural community that erected its first stop light in the 1980’s (it has several now).  My father’s (1920-2009) grandparents all emigrated from Sweden and settled in nearby Benjamin, Utah (which still lacks stop lights).  My Mother (1928-) was raised in the South (Alabama and Texas), with her ancestors coming from England, Scotland, and enough other places to provide a healthy mix of genetic diversity.  My first direct ancestor on Mom’s side to arrive on American soil was William Spencer, who landed in Virginia on 13 May 1607--thirteen years before the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Colony and over 400 years bp.

    Some of my favorite activities growing up included fishing at Strawberry and Scofield reservoirs, chasing butterflies and moths (my Dad’s hobby), rock hounding, building model rockets, skipping school to go to the genealogy library in Salt Lake City with my mom (where I perused the bookstores and hobby shops of the ‘big city’ while she pursued her passion), and, in my teenage years, breeding show pigeons (especially Komorner Tumblers). Pigeon breeding introduced me to mendelian genetics and initiated my interest in genetics in general. Somewhere along the line I also gained an interest in learning plant names and stopped to look more closely whenever something new caught my eye.

    I graduated from Payson High School in 1984, which has absolutely nothing to do with George Orwell’s book, although it is one of my favorite novels.  At the end of my junior year of high school, the Paramount Pictures film “Footloose” was filmed largely in Payson and my entire 15 minutes of fame was spent as an extra in that movie where I can be spotted in four or five scenes (hint: I wasn’t follicularly challenged back then); this, of course, makes me only 1 degree removed from Kevin Bacon.

    I met my wife, Deborah, that same year (1983).  We were married in 1990, a year before I finished my undergraduate degree, and had our first daughter in 1995, a year before I finished my graduate degree from Washington State University. After our graduate school years in Washington State (plus 6 months in Virginia where I did some pre-doctoral work at the Smithsonian), we moved to Claremont, California while I post-doc’d at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, and then Cary, North Carolina where I had my first faculty appointment at North Carolina State University.

    We moved back to Utah in 1999 and have since added three more great kids to our family. We have made our home again in Payson, not from a need to stay close to my childhood roots, but because its a nice, family friendly town.  The half-acre of lawn that came with our house now includes over 80 trees and shrubs, and many more perennials.  Our yard has over 75 families of vascular plants -- a bit short of the 116 families of angiosperms the eminent botanist Robert F. Thorne had at his home in Claremont, California, but not too bad for a zone 5-6 (and we are not finished yet!).  Like most of my other hobbies now, our “botanic garden” serves a dual purpose: our own enjoyment and a resource for my courses at BYU.