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CORVALLIS - Phil Hamm has been appointed as the new superintendent of Oregon State University's Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Hamm has been an Extension plant pathologist at the center since 1990.

He succeeds long-time center superintendent Gary Reed.

"Hamm is an ideal choice to head the team of OSU Agricultural Experiment Station researchers and OSU Extension Service field faculty at the Hermiston Center," said Thayne Dutson, dean and director of OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences and Agricultural Experiment Station. "He has established an outstanding record of service in his research and outreach education work at the center over the past decade and a half and he has built excellent working relationships with area growers."

The Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center serves nearly 400,000 acres of irrigated agriculture in the Columbia Basin region of Oregon and Washington. Research at the center emphasizes identification of new crops and production practices, plant breeding, identification of plant diseases and insect pests, and integrated pest management. A relatively new research focus includes riparian and aquatic issues related to salmon.

In addition to other duties, Hamm has served as director of the center's plant clinic, which is the only OSU plant pathology diagnostic laboratory in eastern Oregon or Washington. In his new position he will have overall administrative responsibility for all research activities at the Hermiston Center along with maintaining his Extension plant pathology program.

Hamm earned a master's degree in plant pathology at OSU in 1981 and his bachelor's degree at Western Oregon University in 1975. He worked as a laboratory technician and researcher in the OSU Department of Botany and Plant Pathology prior to entering the Extension plant pathologist position at the Hermiston Center.