So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

 
It has been my pleasure to work for ISED off and on since the early to mid 1990s. During that time I have mostly been a utility player, starting programs and then handing them off to new staffs, filling in during transitions, and doing an occasional gig overseas. For the last couple of years I’ve been ISED’s Technical Assistance Provider for the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program (RAPP). I have loved working on this project and learned something new every day from RAPP agency staffs that I was able to pass along to other agencies and sustainable agricultural groups. Briefly, I have happily been the student of many extraordinarily effective experts who work on behalf of refugee farmers and market gardens.
 
But as we say in Arkansas, “it’s time to call in the dogs.” Over the next few weeks I’m transitioning into full time work at the grassroots level with farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates in the Ozark Mountains. Some things I’m currently doing and will expand on are marketing gardening, operating a community garden, and writing and producing “The Ozark Harvest Radio Hour,” a weekly radio program about sustainable agriculture and sustainable communities. As you can see, I’ll be busy.
 
Hugh Josephs, who many of you know from his work at Tufts University, will be taking my place. Hugh will provide ISED’s RAPP Technical Assistance with the new program cycle beginning on October 1st, 2010, and brings years of experience working with USDA to share with RAPP grantees.  ISED is delighted that Hugh will be joining us.
 
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series written by the late Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before it was demolished to make way for a hyper-spatial express route. The phrase has since been adopted by some science fiction fans as a humorous way to say "goodbye”—and I adopt it now.
 
 
All the best!
 
Dan Krotz