Faces of Extension: Mike Basedow

For me, it starts with my grandfather - he gave me a real love of plants and gardening. He used to take me apple picking every fall in the Hudson Valley. Even growing up in the suburbs of Northeast New Jersey, I had that exposure to New York apples.

Then there was a farm stand down the road from us in suburban New Jersey with a small peach orchard. They had the best peaches because they picked them tree ripe and sold them on site. I was excited to start working there as a teenager, but they went out of business before I was old enough. That experience made me passionate about keeping orchards in the Northeast.

When I was in first or second grade my mom got me a book from the Scholastic Book Fair about fun things you can do with plants. It had all these different activities like growing orange trees from seeds. I've been weirdly obsessed with plants since I was a kid.

When I was in high school I knew I wanted to do something in the orchard world, so I applied to a few land grant universities. Cornell was my top pick. I applied Early Decision and got in. At Cornell, I focused on orchard management under my advisor, Ian Merwin. I had hoped to become an orchard owner, but Ian taught me about the financial realities of buying land, tractors, and sprayers, and I realized I didn't have the money for it.

At Cornell, Marvin Pritts and Marcia Eames Sheavley taught the intro plant science course. They brought in people to talk about their careers, including extension work. Up to that point I had no idea what extension was. That class helped me understand that I could combine education, science, and applied agriculture. I jotted down "extension educator," and that became my plan.

I had a summer internship through Cornell Extension at the Hudson Valley Research Lab after my freshman year, working with Peter Jentsch. This experience solidified my plan to go into extension.

I went to Penn State for my master's, focusing on orchards. I worked with their state extension specialist, Rob Crassweller, learning how to conduct research and extension work. After two years, I joined a precision ag company in Pittsburgh, but I felt like that wasn’t the right fit for me. Then I landed a job at Penn State Extension in Adams County, the largest fruit producing county in Pennsylvania. I worked with Tara Baugher, an amazing extension educator who helped me understand that extension is about relationship building and becoming part of the community you work in. Tara participated in various boards and knew the growers personally. She was there for the good times and the bad times, and that resonated strongly with me.