Dr. John Gardner is Associate Dean for Research and Outreach at the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.

Gardner was President and General Manager of AgGrow Oils, a value-added, new-generation cooperative. AgGrow Oils is a grower-owned agricultural processing business. AgGrow Oils built an oilseed crushing plant, capitalized by 540 North Dakotans who invested more than $5 million in 1997. The plant produces oil and meal from specialty crops.

Prior to helping start the co-op in 1996, Gardner was director of a North Dakota State University (NDSU) research and extension center in Carrington. The center was the first in North Dakota to bring together extension and research faculty at an outlying farm. He also held the position of adjunct professor of plant sciences at NDSU. Gardner's B.S. and M.S. degrees are from Kansas State University. Gardner received his Ph.D. in agronomy from the University of Nebraska in 1988. Prior to that, he was an agronomist at Carrington.

Gardner, 41, was born and raised in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. He has been married for 23 years to Julie Rae Abare Gardner. She has degrees from Kansas State University and University of Nebraska and is completing requirements at NDSU as a clinical counselor.