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Riddick joined the Biotechnology Center in September 2003 with more than 35 years of experience in the life science and horticulture industries and the higher education sector. With the life science industry, Riddick manufactured and managed various human and animal vaccines, diagnostics, blood products, consumer products and pharmaceuticals.
While a faculty member of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, Riddick served as Guilford County Director of the Cooperative Extension Service. Riddick later managed the Economic Development and business and industry education at Guilford Technical Community College as director.
He now directs activities in the Piedmont Triad region that promote biotechnology development through community capacity building and the Biotechnology Center's grant and loan programs. The grant and loan programs encourage research and development, entrepreneurial development and academic program development.
Riddick received his BSc Degree in Microbiology from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio and an MBA in economics and marketing from Butler University in Indianapolis. He is a Fellow of the Natural Resource Leadership Institute and received a Certificate in Non-Profit Management from Duke University, Durham.
He is a member of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro's Bryan School of Business Advisory Board and works as a freelance journalist covering ecology, environment and horticulture.
"Horticulture and microbiology have been avocations or vocations for all of my life," says Riddick. "As a Fellow of the Natural Resource Leadership Institute at North Carolina State University, I know that we owe significant tribute to plants for not only our shelter, clothing, food and medicine. We also owe our very existence through the oxygen we breathe which plants produce.
"We have hardly begun to tap the resources harbored in plants that will benefit mankind. Plants are our future and are an integral platform for biotechnology development." | 