Researcher receives ‘Life-time Achievement Award’

MAT-SU — Lifelong farm researcher Sig Restad received the “Life-time Achievement Award” from the Mat-Su Farm Bureau at its annual meeting in Palmer Feb. 19.

The Mat-Su Farm Bureau is organized to improve the economic wellbeing and expansion of agriculture in the Mat-Su with a focus on enriching the quality of life for Alaskan farmers while advocating for fair oversight and public/community support.

Restad was working as an agriculture extension agent in Minnesota when he accepted a job in Alaska in 1958. Restad said he and his wife, Carol, packed their belongings and two small children into a truck and headed up the Alaska Highway the same year.

Restad worked as animal husbandman and farm manager for the University of Alaska, Fairbanks from 1958-1962. Gov. Bill Egan appointed him as director of the state Division of Agriculture in 1962, a position he held until 1968. He returned to the University of Alaska as the Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station’s executive officer and thereafter assumed the role of assistant director. He retired from that position in 1987 and returned to provide support at the University of Alaska’s extension campuses in Soldotna and the Mat-Su.

Restad has also been a member of the Resource Development Council for Alaska, Alaska Rural Development Council, Alaska Association of Soil Conservation Districts, Advisory Committee for Northern Television, Alaska State Grange, Northland Pioneer Grange, Palmer Elks and Kiwanis. The Restads have six children, 15 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.