His roots trace back to growing up in rural Ontario and having a personal connection to the agricultural industry. In his youth he spent many summers up on his grandparent’s farms in Gorrie and Listowel. As a teenager, he worked for Pioneer at their corn breeding station outside of Woodstock. At the time it was just a summer job, not knowing things would come full circle after completing his B.Sc. and he would end up managing the plant genomics lab in the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph