Jim Myers holds the Baggett-Frazier Endowed Chair of Vegetable Breeding and Genetics in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. Myers obtained his Ph.D. working on male sterility in peas from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983, then completed a post-doc at the University of Kentucky studying somatic cell regeneration techniques and transformation. He then spent 10 years at the University of Idaho Kimberly Research Station where he released 13 dry bean varieties, prior to moving to Oregon in 1996. At OSU, he works on a number of crops including snap bean, edible podded pea, broccoli, tomato, pepper, winter and summer squash. His main interest has been to improve vegetable and field crop varieties for disease resistance, human nutrition and organic production systems. He has been involved in bean improvement programs in Eastern and Southern Africa where his bean seed weevil resistant dry bean lines are currently being deployed. He was director of the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative, a multistate project funded for 12 years to breed and trial vegetable varieties adapted to organic systems. Myers is a co-editor of two books: Organic Crop Breeding and Cucurbits. He has also been involved in the Culinary Breeding Network, which brings chef and breeders together to explore the boundaries of plant breeding and cuisine. At OSU he has released several vegetable varieties including 'Legend' tomato with Dr. Jim Baggett, and five "Indigo" tomato cultivars. Other releases include 'Cascadia' broccoli, 'OSU5630' green bean, 'Patron' Peruano dry bean and 'Sweet Gem' snap pea. His latest releases are 'Mild Thing' and 'Notta Hotta' mild habanero peppers and he has popping beans and tromboncino summer squash next in the docket for release.