Jeff Clawson Oral History Interview

Jeff Clawson has worked for the Department of Food Science and Technology as the research brewery and food processing manager since 1993. In his interview, Clawson talks about growing up in Davis, California, where his father was a University of California Extension Agent and his mom worked as a department admin assistant. He also shares his early memories of Davis, thoughts on campus and city culture, and his decision to move to Oregon to attend Eastern Oregon College (now Eastern Oregon University) in LaGrande, where he studied Agribusiness. It was in college that Clawson took a class in brewing, which became a personal hobby and ultimately led to a career. He talks about transferring to OSU to finish his BS, adding a food science minor and working with Mina McDaniel on sensory analysis; about working for NORPAC Foods in Stayton after graduation; about returning to OSU for graduate school in 1991 to study Rangeland Resources and Water Quality; and finally about returning to the food sciences in 1993. Clawson talks about the gift from James Bernau that facilitated building the pilot research brewery and establishing the Nor'Wester endowed professorship, the evolution of the program, and the future of brewing education at OSU.