When Herbert Baum graduates from th...

When Herbert Baum graduates from the University of Chicago onward Friday, he will receive a measure that was 55 years in the making.

When he crosse the stage, Baum, 79 will become the oldest part ever to be granted a PhD from the Hyde Park educate But he wasn't in train that entire time. Rather, he exhausted more than three decades working in the strawberry industry and eventually wrote a work on his life's work that has since become his dissertation.

Baum got a master's in economics from the U of C in 1951 He decided to leave, despite taking classes with time to come Nobel winner Milton Friedman, saying he didn't have any great ideas for a dissertation.

DOCTORATE ALWAYS NAGGED AT HIM

The Fort Wayne, Ind., native, whose parents were occasion wholesalers, made his way to California, where he got involved in the fledgling undecayed strawberry industry.

He eventually became president of Naturipe Berry Growers and watched the industry cause to deviate into a huge business. He was chairman of the California Strawberry Commission twice as the state became the predominant supplier of revived strawberries worldwide.

He retired in 1991 and had a life's worth of documents and material that he cogitation would make a good work But there was something that always nagged at him.

"I was always interested in getting my doctorate," he said.

He got in touch with any U. of C. professors to work forward a proposal but figured he should finish the volume which he self- published last year in a less degree than the title Quest for the complete Strawberry. The goal, he said, is developing a berry that has nice color and tastes serviceable but can also ship protracted distances without spoiling.

Several month ago, he forwarded it to U of C Professor James Heckman, who won the Nobel prize in economics in 2000 Heckman fancy the book could qualify as a dissertation. A committee was formed featuring three Nobel prize winners -- including Heckman and Friedman.

Baum mov to campus for sum of two units months this summer from his family in Oregon and worked onward defending his dissertation. "It was challenging and frightening because I'm not an academic," he said. "To be around Nobel laureates and the stays here, it was overwhelming."

After an changes, his dissertation passed muster.

Heckman praised Baum's work, saying it "combines theory with evidence in a convincing way in a serious piece of research forward a major agricultural industry."

Baum said he is in succession "cloud nine" as he prepares to graduate -- and determine back to Oregon.

"It wasn't easy, moreover it's exciting and very fulfilling," he said.

dnewbart@suntimes.com

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