ATHENS, Ga. – Bobby L. Tyson has been named Associate Dean
for Extension in the University of Georgia’s College of
Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, effective July 1. Tyson
has been serving as interim associate dean since July 2001.
As associate dean, Tyson will oversee the statewide programs of
the Cooperative Extension
Service. In addition to the educational
outreach of the Extension Service, he will be part of a team of
CAES leaders who administer research and teaching programs. Tyson
succeeds William Lambert, who retired in 2001.
“Dr. Tyson has had a long and distinguished career in the
Cooperative Extension Service,” said CAES Dean and Director Gale
Buchanan. “He has demonstrated his ability to lead a dynamic
educational organization that reaches into every county in
Georgia and has the potential to impact every Georgian.”
Broadening Audience
Buchanan said Tyson will help lead an effort to find innovative
ways to deliver more and more information to a broader
audience.
“Extension will always have a major responsibility to serve
agriculture and rural Georgia,” Buchanan said, “but we must find
ways to serve more urban audiences as well.”
The Cooperative Extension Service has offices in all but one of
Georgia’s 159 counties, maintaining strong programs statewide in
agriculture and natural resources, family and consumer sciences
and 4-H and youth development.
County Delivery System
“I am a strong believer in the county delivery system, whereby
the Extension Service strives to provide unbiased research
information to Georgia citizens,” Tyson said. “Both the
University of Georgia and the College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences cannot afford to lose touch with people at
the local level.”
Tyson is an agricultural engineer. He has worked for the
Extension Service since 1980. He also has worked for the CAES
Coastal Plain Experiment Station and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Richard Russell Agricultural Research Center and
Southern Piedmont Conservation Research Center.
Tyson earned a doctorate in engineering from Clemson in 1979, a
master’s degree in agricultural engineering from UGA in 1969 and
a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from UGA in
1965.
A native of Tift County, Tyson and his wife Catharine have two
children and four grandchildren.
