Vern came to NDSU as an extension agricultural engineer providing leadership in the area of farm power and machinery in 1975. His work with spray uniformity testing has resulted in a close working relationship with aerial applicators, improving uniformity of application and coverage and reducing pesticide drift. His spray work also led to work on coverage and efficacy of fungicides on sugarbeets, potatoes and small grains. Vern has been a leader in working with site specific farming. His cooperative work with researchers at the USDA_ARS station at Mandan led to development of several guidelines for North Dakota farmers. He also developed and organized a college course on site specific farming. Vern is routinely sought for presentations in neighboring states and Canadian provinces and has given a series of presentations on seeding equipment in Australia and New Zealand, and visited Mongolia to work on a no_till seeding project. He wrote a chapter on seeding equipment for a book sponsored by the Man_Dak Zero Till Association.