Aggie Proud

Lambert Wilkes, father of Julia Gardner, has been chosen as one of five honorees for the Cotton Research and Promotion Program Inaugural Hall of Fame. The honorees are recognized for their contributions that have shaped the modern cotton industry.

Professor Lambert Wilkes (deceased), along with his team at Texas A&M, is responsible for the engineering of the cotton module builder, which dramatically increased the efficiency of cotton collection and storage.

Julia says of her father, “I am so grateful that he is being recognized for his contribution. Although we often tell others about the cotton module, he would be the last to tell you. I think that’s just one more reason he was so well respected.”

The cotton module builder is a machine used in the harvest and processing of cotton. The module builder has helped to solve a logistical bottleneck by allowing cotton to be harvested quickly and compressed into large modules which are then covered with tarpaulins and temporarily stored at the edge of the field. The modules are later loaded onto trucks and transported to a cotton gin for processing.

In 2000, the state of Texas acknowledged the module builder as one of the four most significant economic achievements of the 1970s, alongside the opening of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Southwest Airlines.

“I never really knew if he understood the impact of the module builder. Sure, he got how it changed things, but for such an important invention and innovation, he never mentioned its importance to anyone I’m aware of, or the fact that he led the team that invented it. He was always humble like that,” says an industry colleague.

In 2002, the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers dedicated the cotton module builder as an historic landmark of agricultural engineering, naming it “one of the top three inventions in mechanized cotton production.”

Lambert Wilkes was a pioneer in the cotton industry. Born in Blair, South Carolina, he attended Clemson, then Texas A&M. He served his country in the Air Force and then went on to become a professor of Agricultural Engineering at A&M. Professor Wilkes wrote many books, authored many papers as most professors do but he did something that truly revolutionized cotton ginning.