Dr. Perry grew up in a fruit orchard operation in the Santa Clara Valley of California and received his BS in Fruit Science at Cal Poly and a Masters and PhD in Horticulture at Texas A&M. While at Texas A&M, he focused on viticulture where he identified wine grape growing regions, conducted grape variety and rootstock trials and studied root dynamics of Vitis. His work began at MSU in 1980 where he focused on rootstocks, soils and high density systems for tree fruit. He served on the Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council during his 7 year tenure as Chairperson of the Department of Horticulture at MSU. Dr. Perry retired and is Professor Emeritus as of September 2016 and will continue teaching HRT 430 and conducting some cherry research for the industry. Now retired, he was hired part time to continue teaching HRT 430 that was developed by him in 2009 and enrolls over 120 students from across the University. He co-authored an electronic textbook to support the wine course “Wine and Other Hospitality Beverages.” Dr. Perry collaborated with P. Sabbatini and J. Burns to provide a map to industry regarding regions regarding “Growing Wine Grapes in Michigan”. He serves and has served as a judge in wine competitions in the region; Tasters Guild International (Grand Rapids), Great Lakes Great Wines (Novi), Indy (Indianapolis), and Michigan Wine Competition (East Lansing). He also served as Chairperson of the Department of Horticulture from 2000-2007. He and co-author/Viticulturist, Dr. Paolo Sabbatini, published an industry bulletin in 2015 to assist Michigan grape growers in considering grape rootstocks for the state MSU Extension, E.3298.