HILLS, GORDON AND CICELY - Vermillion - 2004

Gordon and Cicely Hills

This is not as fancy as Tom did I just cut and pasted from my curriculum vitae.
After graduation I stayed at the university and completed a masters degree under Dr. Peter Kondra in the Poultry Department. After completion Dick Allen found me a job with J.H. Hare and Associates Limited. The company’s primary business was developing agricultural products and marketing them for companies whose main business lay outside agriculture. I was responsible for the marketing of the “ChemStor,” a liquid feed grain preservative produced by Canadian Celanese Limited. This included all phases of the marketing process from farm calls on customers, to creating advertising copy, to coordinating the research into the use of the product under western Canadian conditions.

The job ended when the Celanese folks decided that the market for the product wasn’t large enough.

From there I moved to the now defunked National Grain Company where I was Director of Quality Control for about a year. I was responsible for the quality control program for the company’s five major feed mills and numerous mixer mills attached to the elevator system in western Canada. This involved development and implementation of a sampling system for ingredients and finished product. I was also responsible for all of the proximate analyses carried out by our consulting laboratory. I also modified various laboratory techniques to meet specific company requirements. The company nutritionist and I developed one of the first liquid feed supplements for cattle to be successfully marked in western Canada. This was the first such supplement to be based on beet molasses.

This was followed by a return to school. From 1971 to 1979 (that’s right eight years, there’s a story and I’ll tell you at the reunion) I worked on a Ph.D. under Dr. Bob Christopherson (an other Manitoba Grad 66 I think) at the University of Alberta.

Following graduation I stayed at the UofA as a research associate was responsible along with a postdoctoral fellow for the conduct of a number of research projects at the Metabolic Research Centre of the Department of Animal Science. One of these projects determined the metabolic cost of sucking to both the ewe and her lamb. Another project developed an accurate means of calibrating oxygen analyzers used in making metabolic determinations in large animals.

In 1981 I took a temporary teaching position in the Agriculture school at Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alberta. The job turned permanent and I never left. For 1981 and 1982 and again from 1985 to the present I have instructed technology students in two year diploma courses in animal science, animal health, and herd health. I have instructed a variety of courses including genetics, livestock, animal physiology, general livestock, microbiology, swine management, master student, clinical laboratory practice, and reproductive physiology.

During the years 1983 and 1984 I held the position of Director of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. In this administrative position I was responsible for a staff of approximately fifty. I was also responsible for delivery of a program for day care workers and for the management of the college farm.

From 1987 to 1990 I was elected to the added responsibility of being Faculty Professional Development Officer. As such I was responsible to the Faculty Professional Development Committee for all development and upgrading as well as the management of the dispersal of the short term professional development fund.

Some of you may remember me running about campus in an army uniform.
Concurrent with much of my civilian career and education, I served in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve (Militia). I enlisted as a private soldier in the Winnipeg Grenadiers in 1963. On entering university, I transferred to the Canadian Officer’s Training Corps (C.O.T.C.). I graduated from the program in 1969 (the last cadet to complete the program before it was discontinued) and was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Winnipeg Service Battalion. I was promoted to Captain in 1970 and to Major in 1976 (being at that time the youngest officer in the peacetime Canadian Forces to attain field rank). I graduated from the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, Fort Frontenac, in 1977. I served in many line and staff positions throughout Canada. I was promoted Lieutenant Colonel in 1980 and assumed command of the 15th Edmonton Service Battalion. Following completion of a normal tenure of command I retired to the supplemental list in 1983.

In 1996 I was appointed Honorary Lieutenant- Colonel of the Battalion. I continue to serve in this capacity.

On a personal level I married Cicely Langille a social worked for the city of Edmonton in 1975. Our only child Heather was born in 1981. Heather is now grown and married. The present centre and joy of our lives is our 16 month old grandson Tyvale who lives a block away from us.