11 minute read
The Inflection Point
At this critical moment at the Otis L. Floyd Nursury Research Center, we examine the past, present, and future of the facility | By Charlie Morrison
It was in February of 1997 that a relatively new, then-four-year employee of the Tennessee State University College of Agriculture (TSUAg), research faculty member Dr. Nick Gawel, was hired to be the first full-time director of the College’s brand-new nursery research facility, the Otis L. Floyd Nursery Research Center (NRC) in McMinnville, TN. Though at that time he was merely an associate investigator in the cooperative agriculture research program, “not even really a part of the College,” as he says it, Dr. Gawel took a leap.
He applied. He impressed. He was hired, and for 27 years Dr. Gawel guided the facility to a place of prominence in the nursery industry in Tennessee, in the scientific community, and in the TSUAg family. With Dr. Gawel’s January retirement and the subsequent introduction of Dr. Karla Addesso as the facility’s new Director, the NRC is at an inflection point, a point at which to take a glance at the people, the politics, and the passion that brought the facility to be, and keeps it on the cutting edge.
Origins
The story of how Tennessee’s only agricultural research facility dedicated to the well-being of the woody ornamental industry came to be features everything you’d want from a movie script, larger-than-life personalities, power brokers from a long-established rural industry lobbying maverick lawmakers in big city Nashville, unexpected partnerships, and even a happy ending. There were twists, there were turns, there were moments of both celebration and doubt in the story of the NRC. That said, there would not have been a story if not for the growers. They were the spark.
By the mid-1980s the woody ornamental industry had been, for about a century, established as one of the Volunteer State’s most important agricultural industries. Over the generations, growers in Tennessee had utilized their proximity to the Smoky Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau in developing more than 1,400 species and 14,000 genera of woody ornamentals, mastering the art of accessing the great diversity of naturally grown plant materials from which they could take cuttings and propagate at their nurseries.
After 100 years of solid growth, leaders in the industry were looking to both protect what they had and invest in the future. For the growers that meant creating an ally in the scientific community that would promote the industry, serve the industry, and further the industry. For some of the prominent growers of the time like Ed Porter of Triangle Nursery, Bill Boyd of Flower City Nursery, and Frank Collier of Pleasant Grove Nursery, a facility like the NRC represented the next step in the evolution of their industry. And with that belief in mind, they pushed to make that vision become a reality.
As Collier describes it, it took “the perfect storm” of circumstances to get the people, the money, and the passion on board for the facility to be built, and the perfect storm they got. “It goes back a long, long time, before my time. The old guys of the industry tried to get the University of Tennessee or someone to start a similar type of facility and no one would bite,” says Collier. “It was tried way before us, we just hit a perfect storm. The timing was perfect, and it just came together.”
“Back in the ‘80s the growers had the foresight to say ‘we need a place that’s going to look out for our interests,’ and so they’re the ones who got the political will together and did all the lobbying and all the convincing to get someone to say ‘yes’, to get TSU to say ‘yes, we’re going to do that, we’re going to work with you to put this together,’” says Dr. Gawel.
The first friendly ear the growers found on the topic of creating a research facility in middle Tennessee to support the nursery industry was that of State
Floyd. Working with then Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter and Tennessee Commissioner of Economic and Community Development Johnny Hayes, Floyd and Cooper collaborated with industry representatives to secure about $2 million in funding for the project from the State of Tennessee, the Appalachian Regional Commission, Warren County Commission, and the USDA.
When it came to securing funds from the Federal government, Tennesseebased U.S. Senator Jim Sasser took the lead, working the project from D.C. and ultimately securing Federal funds of $240,560, $413,320, and $355,990 respectively over three years from 1991 to 1993. Additional funding was obtained when TSU sold property to the Nashville Airport Authority that had previously been donated to the university by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.
Funding a facility was one thing, but acquiring the land was another hurdle. The unofficial faction behind the construction of the NRC worked tirelessly behind the scenes, beating the bushes for leads on a sizable, yet affordable tract of land. In the end, word reached the group that an 83-acre tract of land in McMinnville, Tennessee was available, in default to the Farmers Home Administration. They pursued the land, and on March 4, 1988, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Richard Lyng conveyed it to TSUAg after signing a quitclaim deed changing the owner of the land.
Early Leaders
With the land acquired in 1988, and funding secured over the subsequent five years, the project to physically construct the world-class research facility itself took years. In the meantime, the NRC needed a leader, an experienced Director who could serve as a stop-gap administrator until the school could make a permanent hire. Enter retired USDA research facility administrator Bill Butt.
Butt unretired for the opportunity to guide the NRC along in its earliest days, and it was he who oversaw the first two phases of the facility’s construction, made the first hires for the facility, and was on hand with some of the other key players who’d contributed to the effort for the August 15, 1996 ribbon cutting ceremony of the brand-new $5 million, 20,000 square-foot office and laboratory building, the equipment building and two greenhouses.
Collier called Butt’s service to the facility “marvelous,” service that in a way continues through to today. After all, it was Butt who suggested to
Dr. Gawel that he should apply for a position he himself felt underqualified for. It was Butt that put in the calls behind the scenes backing Gawel for the position, and it was Butt who pushed Gawel ahead of each stage of the interview process. Given his role is supporting Dr. Gawel’s candidacy and the fact that current NRC Superintendent Dr. Karla Addesso was Dr. Gawel’s choice to replace him, you might say Butt is the grandfather of the NRC.
In February 1997, Dr. Nick Gawel was hired as the Director of the Nursery Research Center. Dr. Gawel coordinated the completion of Phase III of the construction in 1998. His early years at the helm of the facility spoke volumes about who Dr. Gawel was and is, and what his leadership was going to be about. Before the facility was fully integrated into TSU, Gawel was often seen on the lawn mower, keeping the facility’s grounds in tip-top shape.
When rumors reached him that locals in McMinnville were anxious to know what the facility was and what went on there, he opened the doors to the public, serving hot dogs and hamburgers and giving tours. “When I first got hired I didn’t know what the heck I was doing,” says Dr. Gawel. “We had this brand-new building, we had just a few people coming in to work, I was out there on the mower mowing grass, things were very different. From there to where we are now has been a big change.”
Since opening unofficially in 1995, the Center has grown to contain 12,000 square feet of greenhouse space, a state-of-the art pesticide mixing and storage facility, a fire ant quarantine facility, back-up generators, a soil mixing/potting facility, shade houses, propagation houses, multiple irrigated container yards, a pot-in-pot yard, a 2-acre irrigation pond, and office space for Tennessee Department of Agriculture plant inspectors. The entire site is plumbed for irrigation using either well water or municipal water.
A History of Partnerships
By its very nature, the Otis L. Floyd Nursery Research Center is a collaborative endeavor between TSU, growers and various governmental agencies with a stake in woody ornamentals. The partnerships that exist today were all part of the original plan for the facility, according to Dr. Gawel. “The original vision for the center was one that had research,
Extension, and regulatory all in one spot and when we opened officially in 1996, we were only research,” says Dr. Gawel. “In the ensuing years, we added the Extension piece and since the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) people came onto the property we added the regulatory piece.”
Indeed, the collaboration that gave rise to the TDA housing plant inspectors at the NRC beginning in 2010 is just one of a handful of key partnerships that backs the facility, but a key one. With the introduction of the TDA component of the NRC, the facility gained the regulatory piece its originators envisioned for the site.
“It’s been just a wonderful partnership because we’ve been able to work so closely with the researchers, and they’re doing practical, on-the-ground research and our folks have been able to assist with a lot of their projects when they needed extra hands,” says TDA Plant Certification Administrator Anni Self, who has worked extensively with TSUAg folks at the NRC.
“We’ve also worked together with them on different disease and pest issues over the years. It is so very collaborative, and (Dr. Gawel) has been the tread that’s run through all of this. He put his heart and soul into that place,” Self continues.
“I think what I’ve appreciated the most and what I think will definitely continue is that any time something new shows up they’re on it. They hear about things that are coming and they know to look for it and they start on it before it is a problem and that’ll continue.”
Partnerships are a huge component of how the facility is funded as well. At its real strength. We are here to keep the industry moving forward and the mission hasn’t changed.”
“What’s unique and what’s great about this place is that we do have a constant dialogue with our stakeholders with our growers and we’re not there making the decisions for them we are interacting with them, understanding their needs, understanding their wants, understanding the industry itself, the pressures of the industry, the ebbs and flows of the industry, and we’re doing things that are based on the needs the growers themselves express,” he says.
On Walking Away
After 31 years at TSUAg and 27 years as the Director of the NRC, Dr. Gawel is the first to admit that stepping away from the University and stepping away from the Research Center comes with both a sense of pride and a touch of sadness.
The blood, sweat, and tears he put into his time at the NRC, for the part of the College of Agriculture, won’t soon be forgotten either.
“I’m leaving behind a big part of myself. It’s almost like a child, it was something that started very small and it’s something that really grew into something pretty big step by step by step... It feels good to leave that behind and know that, yes we’re thriving and I’m leaving something that’s doing well and will continue to do well.”
With Dr. Karla Addesso now serving as the Director of the facility, Dr. Gawel can walk away from his longtime service to the College with his head held high and his smile wide.
“We’re in good hands, we’ve got a good system, the industry still needs us, and the industry is growing,” he says. “It’s a strong industry with good people, good research, and good science. It’s been a good time to be here and it’s going to be still good when I’m gone.”
Longtime NRC Director and TSUAg research faculty member Dr. Nick Gawal was the first permanent head of the facility after being hired in 1997. Dr. Gawel stewarded the facility to a place of prominence during his tenure as the head of the NRC, before retiring in 2024.
