Patrick Colyer is first to be the second regional director in the LSU AgCenter administration. Colyer, a plant pathologist at the Red River Research Station in Bossier City for 25 years, became director of the Northwest Region, one of the AgCenter’s seven regions in March 2008.
The region includes the parishes of Bossier, Caddo, Desoto, Sabine, Natchitoches, Red River and Webster. Colyer has responsibility for all the research and extension programs and reports directly to the LSU AgCenter chancellor.
Colyer took over from Jere McBride, who retired in February 2008. McBride was one of eight named regional director when the AgCenter reorganized its administrative structure in 2001. Since then, two regions were combined making a total of seven regions.
"My goals are to make sure our programs address the needs of our clientele and that we adapt to change as our clientele's needs change," Colyer said, adding, "The biggest changes are in technology."
Colyer has been with the AgCenter since Jan. 15, 1984, when he was hired as an assistant professor and researcher at the Red River Research Station in Bossier City.
His research focus was production-limiting diseases of the major row crops in Northwest Louisiana. He was promoted to associate professor in 1989 and professor in 1996.
Colyer received his Ph.D. in plant pathology in 1983 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. After receiving a B.S. in biology from Edinboro State College in Pennsylvania in 1978, he went straight through to the Ph.D. degree at U Mass-Amherst.
Because his father was in the military, his family lived in several places across the country. He was born in Virginia.
Linda Foster Benedict (This article was published in the summer 2008 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.) 
