David Croft at Foulumgaard celebrated his 40th work anniversary

On 1 March 2016 it was 40 years since Senior Agricultural Technician David Croft started his long career of working for the Danish state. Spending four decades with the same employer must be proof that you are here dealing with a very stable and loyal employee. However, 64-year-old David Croft has also been very flexible in his attitude, both when it comes to what he does and where he does it. He moreover has the ability to take swift decisions.  This is what he did when he took on the job 40 years ago. But more about that later.

The adventure started already in England where David Croft was born and raised. After having completed his education as a horticulturalist he was employed by a horticultural research station in England. But in 1970 David Croft met a young Danish girl. It soon turned to love and marriage in 1972 and a life in Denmark forever after.

Back to that day 40 years ago...

In the first couple of years David Croft worked at plant nurseries in Vejle and Nyborg. When the nursery in Nyborg closed suddenly in 1975, David spent a winter unemployed. This unemployment came to an abrupt end one Sunday in January 1976. This is when David made his swift decision that led to 40 years in the service of the Danish state.

- One Sunday in January a job advert for an agricultural technician in Ødum caught my eye. I rang the manager and we had a chat. He invited me for an interview that same day, even though it was a Sunday. I had no car, but he said he would come pick me up at the railway station. We met, and I got the job – and he also had a job for my wife, explains David.

Plenty of job variety

The job was at Ødum Experimental Station, which was part of the then Danish Institute of Plant and Soil Science. It was one of the first units to move to the newly built Research Centre Foulum in 1983, and as a matter of course David Croft moved with it. 

- I had no practical farming experience, but we rotated the tasks so I tried my hand at different things. One of the tasks was running a sheep digestion trial and also the research station’s IT equipment. Later on I worked with organic wetland soils in Foulum, recounts David.

From 2000-2003 David was employed as site manager at Tylstrup Experimental Station, but when the Tylstrup station closed he returned to Foulum where he worked with organic forage crop rotations and conservation tillage (CENTS) as well as growing mixtures of forbs (MultiPlant) for fodder, protein extraction and biogas. In the last nine years he has also been the safety rep at his work place.

- The job has been very varied and I have worked in many different places. I have worked with nearly all kinds of crops in the different projects and met many different scientists – many of them women with whom I have been very happy to work, he says with a glint in his eye.

Although it is difficult to hear from his language that he is not Danish through and through, David Croft is actually still a British citizen. In his leisure time, he is a keen jogger and over the years he has completed no less than 47 marathons, besides the DHL relay race and the very traditional Foulum nisse run at Christmas. Family and home life are very important to David, who also enjoys spending time with his wife and their two daughters. His interest for plants also extends to his private life where he loves tending his garden, including a large vegetable patch.

The anniversary was marked with a reception in Foulum on 2 March 2016.

David Croft (left) is given a diploma from AU's rector by manager Jens Bonderup Kjeldsen. Photo: Birgit Sørensen Langvad. 

Among the paticipants in the reception were previous and present colleagues. Ph

oto: Birgit Sørensen Langvad