Hesser

Unretired from previous page

three-month study to assess potential markets for U.S. agricultural products in Japan as it recovered from World War II.

"He's a quiet, thorough professional," Hardin says. "With our line of work, I was able to keep in close contact during our careers abroad. Our friendship built from there, and now we still e-mail every week, and my wife and I got to visit them in Florida last winter. He's sent me a copy of the biography he's writing for Norman to proofread as well."

Hesser's career peaked in the 1970s with a challenging job at the State Department, as the director of the U.S. government's worldwide program of technical assistance to develop agriculture in poorer countries. There, he was in charge of five divisions: crops, livestock, soil and water, economics, and fisheries. He also had the responsibility of U.S. funding for a set of international agriculture research centers, and he managed contracts with 75 U.S. universities to provide technical assistance. Before his assignment in Washington, Hesser had signed on for a two-year assignment in Pakistan. He stayed seven years.

"It was an interesting time to be there," Hesser explains. "India and Pakistan were suffering from starvation and famine, and it was at that time that Norman Borlaug introduced his high-yielding wheat varieties."

Borlaug, a Rockefeller Foundation scientist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, doubled wheat production in four years, Hesser says.

Hesser took early retirement from the State Department in 1978. "I retired on Friday and went to work at a new job on Monday," he says.

His new career was with Ronco Consulting Corp. During the next two decades, he worked to increase food production in 20 developing countries of Asia, Africa, and the former Soviet Union. On an Agricultural Land Share Project, between 1995 and 2000, Hesser made 23 trips to Ukraine, helping transform large, inefficient collective farms from the communist system into privately owned farms.

"We first had to hire lawyers to work with parliament to get laws to accommodate this," Hesser says. "We then worked with interested farms out in the countryside to divide them up into individual units, and got land titles to the former workers who then became landowners.

"We started in one state. At the end of five years we were working in 17 out of 25 states, and within the next five years virtually all farms were in private ownership. All of the 18,000 private farms created from 922 collective farms have stayed afloat."

Since his second retirement from Ronco in 2000, Hesser has been to Egypt two times working with a project to help Egyptians produce and export fresh fruits and vegetables to Europe during its off-season.

"It's a win-win situation," Hesser says. "The Egyptians earn foreign exchange, and they in turn use it to buy American grain."

Probably Hesser's other biggest accomplishment since retirement was Nurture the Heart, Feed the World. The book is a first-hand account of his story, from his marriage to Florence and their farm beginnings to both being students in their 30s at Purdue University. (Florence Hesser entered Purdue at age 35 as a freshman, and earned a doctorate in education.) The book is intended to send a message of encouragement to those who may already have a family or career, saying "If we can do it, you can too!" The book is also intended to help Americans see that not just the government, but also universities, foundations, and other private entities, have done a lot for poorer people in less-developed countries.

"With effective foreign aid programs, the United States benefits as much as the other countries," Hesser explains. "Countries that can feed themselves and are free and democratic make good trading partners and allies."

Since the Hessers moved to Florida in 2000, Leon manages to stay busy around there as well. "Besides working on the biography for Norman, Florence and I are fairly active in the Methodist church we attend," he says.

In 2001, the Hessers sponsored Julia Kramarenko, a young woman from Ukraine, to attend the International College for three years near their home in Naples. She was student of the year in 2003 and graduated summa cum laude.

"It was very rewarding to see her be so successful with her education here," Hesser says.

Contact Hesser at lhesser@comcast.net