Project: Archive of Agricultural Genetic Engineering and Society Center Interviewee: Scott Shore, Shore Consulting Interviewers: Fred Gould, Zack Brown Videographer: Nic Beery Date: February 21, 2017 Location: James B. Hunt Library, room 4217, NC State University Length: 1:30:51 Learn more at https://go.ncsu.edu/AAGES SEE FULL TRANSCRIPT AT: https://research.ncsu.edu/ges/files/2017/09/Shore_Scott_20170221_Transcript_-Final.pdf 00:24 Name and title. 00:40 - Can you describe what you do now? 01:06 - What did you want to be when you were growing up? 01:28 - How did you end up going to the field that you’re in now? 02:13 - You could have gone in a lot of different directions with your PhD. You chose teaching. 02:59 - What is it exactly that you like about teaching? 03:15 - Who influenced your career the most? 04:30 - Why did you think the technology mattered? 05:20 - You work in two areas of bio-technology that are very different. One that is with bacterial products in the lab or factory, and one that is out in the field. Very different landscapes, bacteria and crops. Can you talk about that? 07:23 - It’s interesting to try to separate out what is food and what is non-food. Field release and factory production. I think about the first minus bacteria was met wth a lot of opposition. That was in the field and I wonder if people worried about it getting loose or something. 08:11 - back to when you were in High School. Was it the technology that was so cool, or was that you felt you could solve a lot of the world’s problems? 09:57 - You were teaching how to understand the science of technology. When did you take your current position, working for yourself? Why did you do that? 11:16 - Are there plenty of opportunities out there? You say you can pick and choose your projects. Or is it sometime’s slim pickings? 12:01 - What is an example of a current project that you like? 13:29 - You were involved with lot of key people in regulatory affairs early in your career. Can you talk a little about that? Influences, role models? 15:40 - You’ve probably had to hold you own with a lot of powerful people. True? How did you avoid conflicts? Build coalitions. 17:45 - Were there ever any examples of people bringing a suit under the law? 18:55 - Can you go back a little more and talk about the genesis of the North Carolina law, so we’ll have that context? 20:47 - When you came in and read this law and you were supposed to hint at regulations and all that sort of thing, you were supposed to say, “ Oh, that was a good job.” Or did you see that it was pieced together and could be more efficient? 21:28 - Do you know how many total permits were put out for field releases? 22:20 - NC was one of the first states to pass a law like this, was it the very first one? Why do you think that was? 23:09 - What other states had laws? 23:47 - When you first got to the department of Agriculture, you were the first bio-technologist to be there. What was the communication like, was there a learning curve? 25:52 - You were involved in this way before anything came out into the field. Around 1996-2000, you saw what was happening you you might have seen some ind of division of how this thing would progress. Would you have envisioned we have what we have now? 28:54 - Did you think the opposition would slowly melt away? 29:24 - If you could make an optimism curve about the various points in your career. When were you feeling most optimistic, and when were things not looking so good? 30:43 - Could you tell us about what kind of person Ben Lebeau (the executive head of Ligget Tobacco) was? 31:35 - Earlier though…when he said nicotine is addictive. 32:00 - Back to the optimistic curve. 34:00 - Are there any key factors in terms of when the Carta Hanga protocol was originally being developed and what you are talking about, anything that could have been done differently to avoid some of the problems that we are seeing? 34:35 - Do you think that if the first products didn’t come from multi-national corporations, things would look differently? 35:56 - If the Gates Foundation was the first one to do this for casaba. If casaba was the first thing, or golden rice was the first thing out of the pipe, as opposed to pesticidal cotton, or something like that, I don’t know what the reaction would be. It is interesting when you say they are against technologies, but I don’t see too many protests against say Google. Well now you do….But is it the newness or the specifics of the technology tat people are responding to? 37:06 - What roads did you not take in your career and did you have any regrets? 38:40 - I think it would be good to get on the record what happened with tobacco with the Amish group and your involvement in that. (Vector Tobacco) 42:15 - Do you know if there were farmer’s wo were at those meetings that were really concerned?