Life's Ups, Downs, & Warts, It's My Story and I'm Sticking to It: Volume One (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798869371348)

This is a story about the life journey of Alberta, Canada, farm boy Alex McCalla, who was born in the late Depression years. His father worked their 160-acre farm with horses, and milked 19 cows, and his mother raised four children in a rambling 15-room house built around an original four-room log house, which had neither electricity nor running water.

The story details how Alex ended up with four doctorates, including a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and three honoris causa doctorates. He spent 28 years as a professor at the University of California, Davis, including serving two deanships: Dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences for five years starting at age 32, and Founding Dean of the Graduate School of Management 1979-1981. He also served as Chair of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of The Consultative Group on International Research (CGIAR) for seven years (1988-1994). After retiring from UC Davis, Alex was appointed Director of Agriculture and Rural Development at the World Bank 1994-1999, and later served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of CIMMYT (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maize y Trigo) CGIAR Global Wheat and Corn Center, headquartered in Mexico 2000-2005.

In the period 1970-2020 Alex flew over 4,300,000 air miles, and visited at least 90 countries before his travel was stopped abruptly with the COVID pandemic beginning 2020. He has been involved as an author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of 17 books and monographs, and was major professor for 14 Ph.D. recipients.