Spencer Award Goes To Don Baker

Don R. Baker has received the Kenneth A. Spencer Award for outstanding achievements and contributions in agriculture and food chemistry from the Kansas City Section of ACS. The award will be presented in Kansas City on Feb. 24. Baker is president and a founder of Berkeley Discovery, in California. He is also an adjunct professor at Diablo Valley College, in Pleasant Hill, Calif.

The award recognizes Baker's achievements in discovering new chemicals in food and agriculture. He invented the selective herbicide Devrinol and prepared the first herbicide "safeners" or antidotes that could be incorporated into the thiolcarbamate herbicides. He made early use of molecular modeling in the discovery of new agrochemicals and is a pioneer in the discovery of antiripening compounds for fruit.

Baker is a longtime member of the ACS Council and is active in the California Section.