College Job Leads to Lifetime Career for Extension Entomologist


Auburn, Dec. 11, 2003 --- Dr. John McVay’s lifelong fascination with insects started quite by 
accident while he was an undergraduate at Florence State University (now the University of North 
Alabama) working toward a degree in zoology and history.

The Colbert County native spent a summer working for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s 
mosquito management program and was overcome with a passionate interest in insects.  It 
wasn’t long before he settled on a career path working with insects. 

After his graduation in 1973, McVay enrolled at Auburn University to pursue a master’s in 
microbiology and pathology with a concentration in insect pathology, earning his degree in 1975.  
His first job was working as an insect pathologist with ChemAgro in Vero Beach, Fla., managing 
the company’s rearing facility and undertaking field research in pesticides.

Later in his career, he also earned a doctorate in entomology from Oklahoma State University.

He returned to Auburn in 1976 as an entomologist with the then-Alabama Cooperative Extension 
Service.  Extension had recently secured a federal grant to develop an integrated pest 
management program for the state’s pecan industry --- an more environmentally friendly 
approach for controlling pecan pests.

McVay’s efforts have produced tremendous results for the environment and pecan growers alike.

Insecticide usage on pecan trees dropped from an average of between 10 and 14 applications 
each year to around two or three.  Alabama’s pecan IPM program was the first such undertaking 
in the country and has served as a model for other states.  More recently, McVay has helped 
develop a similar program for the state’s apple growers.

The program’s resounding success surprised even McVay..

“Our goal originally simply was to manage insect pests in the best way we knew how,” McVay 
said.  “It just turned out that there was a lot of spraying that wasn’t necessary.”

The development of better management tools, coupled with the advent in recent years of more 
environmentally friendly, low-impact insecticides, have also helped, he said.

“The insecticides we’re using are targeted specifically to the pest and don’t impact other species.”

Most important of all, McVay said, is that they don’t affect beneficial insects, which assist pecan 
growers by feeding on common foliar pests.  

McVay, who will end his 27-year career with his retirement in December, considers his greatest 
professional accomplishment not only safeguarding the environment but keeping pecan growers 
profitable in an era of mounting operating costs.

“It has helped. Their overall cost of production has gone out of site since I’ve been here, but their 
prices have not.  So it’s helping them remain profitable.”

[Writer: Jim Langcuster, Extension Communications Specialist, News and Public Affairs, 
(334) 844-5686.]