The Year 2002 Awards

Robert made significant technical contributions to the design of buildings, ventilation systems, and facilities, but has also been innovative and active in the area of research, extension and technical development. Robert thoroughly deserved his reputation as a much sought after and respected expert in all aspects of livestock facility design.

Robert's work was characterized by the technical rigour, coupled with creativity, that is the essence of good engineering. He embraced and exploited new technology whenever it offered opportunities to enhance his work, and actively sought to be current and ahead of

developments from around the world in his area. Often, he was responsible for adapting these developments to local conditions and championing their introduction to producers. He was responsible for a wide variety of technical and extension materials in both print and video and, as chair of the Canada Plan Service Swine Series, provided effective leadership in this area at a national level.

Robert was active in working for, and encouraging support of, CSAE/SCGR and was local arrangements chair for the 2001 CSAE/ASAE Pacific Northwest Meeting. He was an effective leader and mentor for his colleagues, providing quiet encouragement and a shining example. His work, and that of teams that he led or was part of, has been recognized by previous awards,

Robert Borg is an outstanding recipient for the John Turnbull Award.

Swamy is a Professor in the Department of Food Science at McGill University. He obtained his BSc (Bangalore) and MSc (Mysore) from India and Ph.D from UBC. He spent 4 years in BC as PDF (UBC and Okanagan Dried Fruits) prior to joining McGill as an Assistant Professor in 1987. Dr. Ramaswamy has been a member of CSAE/ASAE since 1988. He is also an active member of several other professional organizations: CIFST, IFT, IFTPS, R&D Associates for Military Food & Packaging Systems, Inc.

Swamy's contributions include fundamental and applied research on thermal processing for quality optimization and enhancing safety of processed foods (static and rotary autoclaving, aseptic processing, microwave, RF and ohmic heating). More recently he has established a strong program of research on ultra high

pressure processing as a non-thermal alternative to conventional processing, and has attracted CFI funding for establishing for establishing a million dollar state of the art research center for high pressure processing. He has also worked extensively on process calculation and process modeling using computer programming and artificial intelligence technologies.

Swamy is the recipient of the 1999 W.J. Eva award of Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology for his outstanding contribution to research and society the field of food processing. He has authored over 150 research papers in refereed scientific journals, 250 presentations and 30 book chapters. He has supervised 30 graduate thesis and has edited three books. Swamy has been active in several CSAE/ASAE activities. Currently he is an Associate Editor of Canadian Biosystems Engineering. He has chaired technical sessions in CSAE, ASAE, COFE, CIFST, IFT, IFCON, ICEF conferences.

Dr. Hosahalli Ramaswamy is an excellent recipient of the CSAE/SCGR John Clark Award.

Rick's career over the last twenty years has been a steady progression towards his current position of Head of the Agricultural Engineering Branch of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. In this position he oversees the activities of a dozen engineers and numerous technical and support staff. In a period of extraordinary fiscal restraint, he was successful in maintaining the viability of this branch and, more recently, has been guiding it through a period of growth and redeployment in strategic areas.

Richard serves at the Alberta Agricultural Technology Centre in Lethbridge, which has evolved out of the Alberta station of PAMI, and the Alberta Agricultural Machinery Research Centre. It is in this environment that he has made a particularly noteworthy contribution to agricultural machinery engineering in Canada. Since his days as Project Engineer and then Station Manager with PAMI,

Rick has been responsible for the evaluation, testing, and development of a huge array of machinery and equipment He has authored or co-authored over 30 technical publications and has established strong working relationships with industry and educational institutions in both Canada and the United States.

Rick is a very effective leader and manager who consistently encourages his staff to support and become active in the activities of CSAE/SCGR. He personally chaired local arrangements committees for at least one CSAE/ASAE Pacific Northwest meeting and the 1996 CSAE/SCGR annual meeting in Lethbridge. In addition he has served on numerous committees, both local and national, including the Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on Agricultural Machinery.

Rick has produced outstanding work that encompasses aspects of industry, teaching, research and extension in agricultural machinery. Richard Atkins is an excellent recipient of the CSAE/SCGR Glenn Downing Award.

Dr. Harold Steppuhn is a Research Scientist, Semiarid Prairie Agricultural Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Swift Current, Saskatchewan.

Harold has used his experience, knowledge and understanding of the salinity problem, together with his engineering skills to design and oversee the construction of Canada's Salt Tolerance Testing Laboratory. He has conducted research using this state-of-the-art laboratory, together with an equally innovative field laboratory, to initiate and conduct cooperative research aimed at devising efficient and cost-effective remedial strategies for controlling root-zone salinity His knowledge of agricultural salinity has been sought internationally, including by the International Atomic Energy Agency and FAO. Recently, he led a collaborative work-study project with scientists from the George E. Brown Jr. Salinity Laboratory (U.S. Agricultural Research Service) at Riverside, California.

Based on the high-level of precision associated with Canada's Lab., Canadian findings are providing the scientific rationale for a major, world-wide revision of the general response of plant crops to root-zone salinity.

Dr. Steppuhn's findings on the salinity tolerance traits of over 30 cultivars of annual grain crops and forages have refined and greatly improved producer recommendations on the adaptation, suitability, and expected productivity of various crops and cultivars being grown on saline soils throughout the 10 M ha of salt-affected soils on the Canadian Prairies. His technologies, combined with subsurface drainage and solar-powered ground water pumping, have generated the new concept of extracting near-surface, salinizing water for agricultural uses such as irrigating shelterbelt vegetation and establishing remedial crops in severely-saline soils.

He is active in the CSAE/SCGR contributing as Associate Editor of Canadian Biosystems Engineering, and has been active in the community, including the local church. Harold Steppuhn is a very worthy recipient of the CSAE/SCGR Jim Beamish Award.