INTERNATIONALLY-renowned for research work establishing Meat Standards Australia's carcase grading system to indicate eating quality, professor David Pethick has retired.
Credited with changing Australia's livestock industry methods through his research, professor Pethick is far from hanging up his lab coat at Murdoch University's Centre for Production Animal Research which he helped create as part of its School of Veterinary and Life Sciences.
While his formal 49-year academic career - 40 of them with Murdoch in Perth - may have ended, his research into meat - particularly lamb and sheepmeat - eating quality and establishing quantitative measurement indicators, is set to continue.
Professor Pethick, who specialised in biochemistry and livestock nutrition, has accepted the university's offer of an emeritus professor title and his research will continue.
"I might take a step back and spend some more time with my wife (Diane, who keeps horses), but I'll continue to work, maybe just not at the same pace as I have been," professor Pethick said last Thursday at a gathering in his honour.
His research on carbohydrate and fat metabolism in horses, cattle and sheep - his work has also involved pigs' digestive systems - and studies of the biochemistry of exercise has been in close collaboration with sheep and beef co-operative research centres, Meat & Livestock Australia and researchers at the Department of Agriculture.
He has authored or co-authored 264 scientific papers, including on a range of factors from genetics to environment and carcase preparation which affect eating quality of meats and which are widely recognised as identifying and developing new concepts since adopted by the livestock industry.
Much of his research work included consumer taste panels to judge the end results.
Professor Pethick acknowledged his research focus in recent years had been on paddock-to-plate factors, looking to improve taste and tenderness, for a very simple reason.
"Without satisfied consumers continuing to eat meat there would be no livestock industry and no need for research into it," he said.
Professor Pethick's contribution to the university, to agriculture and to the economy was acknowledged by Murdoch deputy vice chancellor research and innovation, professor David Morrison.
"I'm very proud of explaining to people about the translation (from scientific research to practical application uptake) of work that the university does (and) I always use Dave as one of the examples," professor Morrison said.
"We did a case study last year and worked out that the contribution of Dave's work in Australia is probably worth about $860 million a year to the economy.
"Dave and his team have managed to do that fantastically well for the past 40 years.
"One of his great strengths is that he has been able to talk not just to academics, he can also translate what he does in a way that the people who will benefit from his research understand it and want to adopt it.
"You are one of Murdoch's legends and we are extremely grateful for that and very pleased you have decided to accept the title of emeritus professor."
Long-time local sheep industry leader and innovator as Western Australian Meat Marketing Co-operative chairman for 20 years, Popanyinning farmer Dawson Bradford, who received an honorary science doctorate from Murdoch in 2010 and was later inducted into the Royal Agricultural Society of WA Hall of Fame, supported professor Morrison's assessment.
"He (professor Pethick) was the link between research conducted at the university and the farmer producing the livestock," Mr Bradford said.
Professor Pethick came from an agriculture background.
He was raised on a mixed farm in the Adelaide hills in South Australia and completed a degree in Agricultural Science at Adelaide University, the first in his family to go to university.
Former School of Veterinary and Life Sciences colleague, emeritus professor Nick Costa, who coincidently grew up on a property behind the Pethick's dairy and attended the same university, joked at last Thursday's function that initially professor Pethick saw further education as a way of avoiding milking cows.
After his degree professor Pethick was offered a scholarship to complete his doctorate at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
After three years in the UK he successfully applied for a job at Murdoch and returned to Australia in 1980 to join the university staff.
Over the years he has won a number of meat and health industry awards for his scientific contributions and also for his university undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.
At Murdoch he examined 24 PhD theses and graduated 28 postgraduate students who are all employed in universities, agriculture departments or industry across Australia.
Five of them spoke at the function, not only of professor Pethick's encouragement and mentoring in animal sciences, but also of his contribution to their learning of life skills with his plain speaking.
On the Murdoch website he has acknowledged the achievements of his postgraduate and postdoctorate students he assisted has given him greatest satisfaction.
"What you leave behind as a legacy is more important than what you did," he said.