Clark: A scientist, adventurer and film buff
Christopher John Clark, D.Phil September 19, 1950 – July 26, 2018
Chris Clark looked just a little like Robert Redford. Handsome, with a quiet charisma grounded in self-confidence, his was a happy smile.
A scientist, adventurer and film buff, Chris’s personal warmth was matched by a rigorous intellect and wide-ranging knowledge. His opinions were well considered and offered in the spirit of mutual debate.
A systematic and consistent researcher, like most scientists, he enjoyed hunting for missing information and solving puzzles – not all of them in his professional field.
Intrigued by some photographs of his father Percy’s experience in Italy during World War II, Chris researched, and had almost completed at the time of his untimely death, a book on the New Zealand campaign.
Schooled at Glendowie College, Chris completed a master of science in crystallography at Auckland University, where he met Delwyn Rickards. He started a PhD in the same research field but when, after a year of trying, he found he could not get the hormone to crystallise, he gave doctoral studies away, changed tack and joined Delwyn at Auckland Teachers’ College.
The couple married in 1973 at the Maclaurin Chapel and Chris taught chemistry and science at Tararua College in Pahiatua from 1974 to 1977 before signing on as a science technician in the Selenium Laboratory of the Soil Chemistry Group at MAF at Ruakura. He was not in the job long – in May 1979, he was awarded a National Research Advisory Council fellowship to study for a doctorate, and by August he and Delwyn had sold their Hamilton house and moved to Ithaca, New York, where their son, Greg, was born in 1980. This time Chris’s doctoral research at Cornell University was in agronomy on a soil-science project (adsorption of trace metals on volcanic ash clay minerals) that MAF was keen on at the time.
But by 1983, when he returned to New Zealand as a newly minted doctor of philosophy, things had moved on in the government system, priorities had changed, and he found himself in a research unit where he needed basic biology and chemistry expertise.
At the Crown Research Institute of Plant and Food Research (PFR), Chris conducted sophisticated MRI imaging of fruit, working closely with the kiwifruit industry, studying ripening and plant disease.
By 2001, Chris was making a significant contribution to commercial kiwifruit projects working alongside Zespri and Apata Centrepac staff in New Zealand and Belgium. He had also developed a role in facilitating interactions between engineering and biological aspects of post-harvest research, foreshadowing a future move to the Bioengineering Group in 2002.
In 2010, Chris reported two highlights that had given him great personal satisfaction as a scientist: a kiwifruit management project that determined optimal storage conditions and the active participation in Zespri’s expeditions to Europe and Japan that established consumer preferences for the new cultivars coming out of PFR’s breeding programme.
‘‘It was very satisfying to know that Zespri’s marketing decisions had been based on trials in which the final ripening decisions fell to me to design and implement,’’ Chris noted at the time.
Zespri global marketing manager Melanie Auld told those at Chris’s funeral that he had made a ‘‘tremendous’’ contribution to the industry.
‘‘He absolutely loved the work he did on Zespri trials and he was one of the best in the game: his anal attention to detail; scoping of every possible aspect; throwing himself with gusto into the various challenges that came our way each day – he was one of the first to put his hand up for extra work.’’
Colleague Peter Schaare described Chris’s scientific output as prodigious, including, as it did, 75 refereed articles, seven books or chapters in books, 78 client reports, and 68 scientific conference presentations. As a result, Chris’s CV was a ‘‘must have’’ on any of the PFR funding applications. ‘‘We always found a way to work it in,’’ Peter said.
At the time of his sudden death from a heart attack while exercising, a further two articles had been accepted for publication, while a third was out for review.
Last November, Plant and Food Research (PFR) acknowledged his 40 years of service as a research scientist and presented him with a Hogland Art Glass vase.
Chris was committed to his career, but he was smart and pursued a work-life balance more vigorously than most. He got his work done and then came home and pursued his other interests, hobbies and family activities.
For many years, this involved tennis every lunchtime as well as weekend club games. Work was not allowed to interfere. When he got his own MRI scanner, but was forced to commute to a laboratory at Massey University in Palmerston North, he always made sure he got home for the weekend to play Saturday tennis. An adventurer at heart, Chris was able to combine work and adventures on most of his overseas research projects. A keen traveller, he loved his research trips for Zespri to Japan, Europe and Asia, usually adding a few days of rest and recreation on to projects to explore.
Chris had a bucket list well before the 2007 movie made that idea famous. His list of places to go and things to do was always being updated. It never got shorter.
A keen tramper, kayaker and rafter, his trips were not of the ‘‘quiet drink watching the sunset’’ variety beloved by travel agencies. He sea-kayaked in Samoa, rafted in Australia, Chile, Nepal and on the Zambesi River in Africa, and walked part of the Great Wall in China. He drove a four-wheel drive across the Northern Territory of Australia with colleagues and counted blue ducks in the Whakahoro eco-sanctuary. Often his adventures were tagged on to research trips. When helping with research on dragon fruit in Vietnam, he took the opportunity every weekend to explore the country by motor-bike taxi (well before Uber), as well as to kayak to floating villages and fish farms in Ha Long Bay in the northeast of the country.
As a result, his photo calendar (yes, photography was another interest) made compelling viewing for his network of friends collected over the years from his travels, international research collaborations, colleagues and family.
As well, Chris was a film buff and after 25 years was made a life member of the Hamilton Film Society.
Auteur House proprietor and fellow cinephile Richard Swainson said when it came to the cinema, Chris was a font of knowledge.
‘‘When I joined [the film society] in the mid-1980s, Chris was both president and principal projectionist, a cheerful presence devoid of pretension or selfimportance. Circa 1987, I remember him manning a silent projector in a Wintec lecture hall for screenings of two DW Griffith classics, The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), something of a thankless task given the length of the material, accentuated in some ways by the lack of musical accompaniment. What a privilege to watch such masterpieces projected in such a manner, a revelation to the small but dedicated crowd, each screening nearly three hours long.’’
Chris was one of several especially invited guests at the society’s 70th bash last year.
Apart from movies, Chris loved music, was an avid reader and enjoyed collecting things – most recently war medals and Chinese coins.
Chris was the archetypal scientist, his work vitally important to the success of the kiwifruit industry, one of this country’s unsung heroes.
Chris is survived by his wife Delwyn, son Greg and wife Jenn, his mother Aroha, and his sisters Margaret, Louise, and Sara.
A Life Story tells of a New Zealander who helped to shape the Waikato community. If you know of someone whose life story should be told, please email Charles.riddle@wintec.ac.nz