Howie (Oscar) Smith

Howie Smith joined Pioneer Hi-Bred as a research statistician in 1984 and worked on resource allocations for product development programs during the first several years of his career. He also worked in Agronomic Traits, Associative Genetics, Complex Trait Genetics and Molecular Breeding. He retired in March 2007 after more than 20 years with Pioneer.

Prior to joining Pioneer, he worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) at Iowa State University. During his time with USDA, he worked on theoretical and field research in quantitative genetics as applied to maize improvement.

Smith has made countless contributions to the science of plant breeding and genetics, including the use and application of molecular marker data to applied breeding programs and the use of genetic and molecular information to predict hybrid performance.