Jerome H. Cherney was born and raised on a dairy farm in central Wisconsin, receiving a B.S. degree in Plant Pathology from the University of Wisconsin. After a three year tour as a North Vietnamese linguist for the U.S. Army Security Agency, he received a M.S. degree in agronomy from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in agronomy from the University of Minnesota. After directing a multi-college grass tetany program at Louisiana State University as a post-doctoral Fellow, he accepted a faculty position at Purdue University in forage crop research and teaching. A primary focus of his forage program at Purdue was the evaluation of herbaceous biomass crops. He became the New York State forage specialist in 1990, focusing on perennial grass management and quality. He was appointed E.V. Baker Professor of Agriculture in 1997, and has recently focused research effort on the feasibility of grass combustion as an alternative energy source.