2002 Continuing Service Award Winner

Bill Hohenboken Receives BIF Continuing Service Award

The Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) honored William H. Hohenboken with its Continuing Service Award at the organization’s 34th annual meeting July 12, 2002, in Omaha, Neb. Hohenboken is professor emeritus at Virginia Tech.

He was raised on a crop and livestock farm in Geneseo, Ill. In 1963, he received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Oklahoma State University. Following a two-year tour of duty in the U.S. Army, he earned a master’s degree (1968) and a doctoral degree (1969) from Colorado State University, working with Jim Brinks in beef cattle breeding research. During 1969 and 1970, Hohenboken was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Wisconsin, working with Ed Hauser and A.B. Champman on beef cow efficiency.

Hohenboken joined the faculty of Oregon State University in 1970 as an assistant professor. He was appointed to associate professor in 1976 and professor in 1981. In 1987 he was appointed professor at Virginia Tech University. Hohenboken retired from that position in June 2001. Following his retirement, he spent the spring semester of 2002 as a Fulbright Fellow teaching animal breeding and experimental design in Turkey.

Hohenboken’s research interests have emphasized the development of computer-assisted decision aids for cattle breeding, management and marketing as well as the study of genotype x management system interactions. His most recent research focused on the study of genetic variation in fescue toxicosis in beef cattle using the mouse as an experimental model. He supervised 17 master’s degree candidates and 12 doctoral degree candidates, including students from 11 foreign countries.

At Oregon State University and Virginia Tech, Hohenboken taught introductory animal breeding, applied meat animal genetics, sheep production, population genetics and quantitative genetics to hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students. In 1993 he was awarded the Rockefeller Prentice Award in Animal Breeding and Genetics by the American Society of Animal Science.

Hohenboken has been a continued supporter of the BIF and recently served as editor of the 8th edition of the Guidelines for Uniform Beef Improvement.