Source: AgriLife Today
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service entomologist Dr. Charles Allen retired last week after three decades of service to the agency.
Allen, a professor and associate head of Texas A&M’s entomology department is an award-winning scientist who spent the last 10 years of his career in AgriLife Extension’s District 7, based in San Angelo.
These meaningful projects included his leading the charge to eradicate the boll weevil. The state of Texas was saved an estimated 3.3 billion dollars in cotton crop damage and revenue loss thanks to the boll weevil eradication efforts of Allen and his team. Every year, those eradication efforts have kept 12 million cumulative acres of cotton from needing to be sprayed in Texas.
He also led the team that eradicated the pink bollworm from the continental U.S. The eradication resulted in over $400 million in net benefits for cotton growers in the southwestern U.S.
Last month, Allen received a Superior Service Award in the Distinguished Career category for his 34 years with AgriLife Extension and for his work with the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Program.
Other awards for his work include the West Texas Ag Institute’s Innovator award, the Service to Cotton award from the Plains Cotton Growers and the Friends of IPM – Pulling Together Award for the Entomology Team’s work in managing the sugarcane aphid.
Allen supervised as many as 2,200 people during his 38-year career. He started his AgriLife Extension career in 1981 in Weslaco. He then went to Fort Stockton where he spent 13 years as a specialist. In 1996, he left to be an extension entomologist at the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.
Allen’s academic contributions include 19 publications authored or co-authored, 43 extension publications, 117 articles and three white papers. Over the course of his career, he received $3.1 million in grant funding and managed over $16 million in state funds.
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