FACILITY & OPERATIONS
28 SportsTurf | February 2017 www.sportsturfonline.com
STEVE
COCKERHAM:
BUILDING ON
EXPERIENCE
TO CRAFT
THE FUTURE
■ BY SUZ TRUSTY
Editor's note:
This article
originally appeared in an
issue of Turfgrass Producers
International's Turf News. It's
a profi le of Steve Cockerham,
Superintendent of the
Department of Agricultural
Operations, University of
California in Riverside. Our
thanks to TPI for allowing us
to reprint it here.
S
tephen T.
Cockerham served
as American
Sod Producers
Association President from
1981 to 1982. He was owner
of Rancho Verde Turf Farms
in Perris, CA, at that time.
But his involvement with
sod producers began much
earlier. It was 1969 when
Tobias Grether, owner of
rapidly growing Cal-Turf in
Camarillo, CA, hired Steve
to put together a research
department for the company
that would focus on new
techniques and new cultural
practices in sod production.
Steve Cockerham
views the turf at the
agricultural experiment
station of the University
of California, Riverside.
PHOTO
COURTESY
OF
UNIVERSITY
OF
CALIFORNIA,
RIVERSIDE
Steve Cockerham in
1974 displays the netted
sod in one of the first
production fields.
PHOTO
COURTESY
OF
TPI
ARCHIVES