winebusiness.com [2019-07-23]:
Dr. Chris Gerling, chair of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture, Eastern Section, presented the Section’s Outstanding Achievement Award to Dr. Timothy Martinson, senior extension associate at Cornell University at the opening session of the ASEV-Eastern Section conference in Geneva, NY on July 16. In presenting the award, Gerling noted that Martinson had been the senior extension agent and statewide viticultural extension person since 2007. “Tim is a really giving and generous colleague,” Gerling commented. “He’s one who ‘shares the credit and takes the blame.’”
Martinson began his career at Cornell in 1991 after working for the Peace Corps in Central America for three years. He had completed both his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in entomology at Cornell and initially was research associate with the grape entomology program at the university’s NY State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva. He became the grape extension specialist for the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Finger Lakes Grape Program in 1997, at a time when the Finger Lakes region had a vineyard base of 10,000 acres, 230 growers and 90 wineries.
For ten years, Martinson’s focus was on the development of the VineBalance sustainable viticulture program and the production of The New York Guide to Sustainable Viticulture Practices Grower Self-assessment Workbook. He was appointed senior extension associate in 2007 with the goal of creating a statewide viticulture extension program. As part of that program, he edits the Veraison to Harvest weekly newsletter that is delivered across the state from late August through early November and Appellation Cornell, a quarterly online publication that features articles and news about viticulture and enology research, extension and teaching programs at Cornell.
From 2011 until 2017, Martinson provided the leadership for the Northern Grapes Project (NGP), a coordinated agriculture program funded by the United States Department of Agriculture that involved 12 institutions, 34 researchers and 23 industry associations. The NGP focused on the integration of viticulture, winemaking and marketing of the new cold-hardy cultivars in 12 Midwestern and Northeastern states.