Scientist of the Year Thomas A. Foglia I'm very honored. It's an honor that I really feel is undeserving to me alone because I didn't get to do the things I've done at ARS by myself I've had a lot of help along the way with my people I'm working with now and in the past. And I really have to thank them for a lot of the honor that's being bestowed upon me is because of their work. Our major focus is biobased products from fats and oils--animals fats and vegetable oils. We also look at co-products of the rendering industry such as recycled restaurant greases. Fats and oils were perhaps the predominant source of long chain aliphatic carboxylic fatty acids and hydrocarbons and they were widely used in many applications as lubricants, surfactants but with the advent of inexpensive oil after the Second World War they were displaced by petroleum derived materials. Now with the focus on renewable materials and quart oil being of concern biobased products have comeback in vogue but we have to compete cost effectively with petroleum based materials. One of the areas that we are very interested in is the production of biodiesel from these renewable agricultural materials. The other areas would be lubricant application as base fluids, hydraulic fluids and also uses for the fermentation process for the production of biodegradable polymers and biodegradable surfactants. A major advantage is that they are produced with domestic materials they not only help the farmer since most of these are co-products from the farming industry such as oils obtained from oil seed bearing material such as soy which is basically raised for its protein content and oil is a co-product, a very important co-product. Animal fats these are co-products that are part of the meat producing process. We realize the value of them being able to replace a petroleum based products which are currently imported. Remember the fats and oils are really competing with edible markets and that's why we've also looked at recovered materials. What I call second use fats and oils. The first use is a frying oil and then you can convert that to a biodiesel fuel. It's very important so rather than disposing of it as a waste or typical application is for an animal feed we can now use it for a fuel for a second use type product. We're also looking at lubricates and detergents these since they are natural products they are biodegradable. The president stated in a union address an important component of his speech was renewable fuels. These not only include biodiesel that we're working on but also of course ethanol which is a very large component in gasoline demand. Right now biodiesel is the fastest growing alternative fuel in the United States We're still behind the Europeans in their research because the Europeans have been ahead of us but we're catching up and I'm sure that we will eventually meet or surpass their use of biodiesel as an alternative fuel. Working in a center such as the Eastern Regional Research Center has provided me a lot of opportunities in the fact they we have a very large core of scientists with whom I can interact and who's expertise expands well beyond my own expertise. They have been very very supportive in the type of research I want to do and the scientists here within the Center, I think throughout ARS has always been willing to cooperate and assist you with what you want to do and I hope that in my career I've been of some assistance to them also. Professional group to me is important. Anyone can say it's my work but it's not. Your only as good as the people who work with you. When I started out I never thought I'd be here after 35 years and essentially almost in the same area of lipid chemistry and gone into biochemistry, into enzymology and fermentations and microbiology although I'm not trained in those areas working with my collaborators they've opened up areas of research to me that I have not had the training in. The scope of my research has been able to expand and I don't think that could have happened maybe without being in ARS. ARS has really been very open not only to my ideas but allowing me to pursue avenues maybe to identify national programs or chart goals for the agency to do the research that they need to do. They've been very supportive of programs I've tried to pursue. ARS is a very unique organization and we've always been able to answer the needs of the American farmer and the consumer and it's research that is not looking at the short term of today or tomorrow but more longer term. The idea of using biobased fuels or even biodiesel ARS as a whole has been in this field since the early 80s at the first oil embargo. I've been in this agency for 35 years and I just had to change directions in research because goals of ARS have changed but I've always had the flexibility and the freedom to move with those goals and to select lines of research that I could attack. I would say to the younger scientists ARS will give you the opportunity to pursue your careers and goals if you have good research they will always support it. And I think the work we have done in the past and that we are currently doing now will not only help agricultural research but it also helps the country. The scientist of the year award like I said was an award given to me but it really represent the work of many people and I would like to say to them thank you and to the agency I'm very grateful.