The Heart of the N.C. PSI: Geoff Bock
As the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative’s first employee, Geoff Bock has brought a keen attention to detail and mission-focused commitment to excellence that have helped shape the initiative from its early days.
Editor’s Note: As we gear up for NC State’s 2025 Day of Giving on March 26, the N.C. PSI is highlighting passion-inspired, donor-fueled staff, students and others behind our plant sciences research, extension and workforce development efforts. This is the third Q&A in our series.
There’s no one who knows the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative quite like Geoff Bock. Hired in 2016 as its first employee, Bock has seen it grow from a seed of an idea into a world-class interdisciplinary research enterprise involving 76 affiliated faculty members from eight NC State University colleges.
Bock’s role has evolved over the years as the initiative has taken shape. At first, he focused on managing the strategic planning and task forces that crafted its mission, vision and goals.
Before and during construction of NC State University’s Plant Sciences Building, he was one of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ primary liaisons for ensuring that it would meet those goals.
And since the building’s opening in 2022, Bock has served as the N.C. PSI’s director of operations, with day-to-day oversight of “everything from research to maintenance to events, as well as managing the implementation of PSI programmatic activities, in terms of budgeting, logistics and planning,” Bock explains.
Of all his duties, Bock says one of the most satisfying is leading tours of the building.
“I’ve long since lost count, but I have given hundreds of tours of the building over the years,” he says. “I love the opportunity to interact with visitors, students, and stakeholders and tell them about the great work being done at the N.C. PSI.”
What drew you to NC State and the plant sciences?
NC State is what drew me to move to North Carolina over 17 years ago from Maryland, where I am from originally. I have two graduate degrees from NC State – one from CALS’ Master’s of Microbial Biotechnology program and a master’s of business administration from the Poole College of Management – so I was already a proud member of the Pack when I learned of the exciting opportunity with the N.C. PSI.
My background and career had up to that point been more in the biotech sector, so the N.C. PSI was my first foray into agriculture and the plant sciences. But I was initially drawn to the N.C. PSI because I saw it as a unique opportunity to be part of a new and ambitious endeavor at NC State that would deliver significant benefits and impact to our university, our state and beyond.
How does what you do ultimately impact people and agriculture in North Carolina?
It’s my goal for not just myself but for our broader N.C. PSI team that we support researchers, students and Extension agents so that they are more easily enabled and equipped to do their great and impactful work, whether it’s in the building or out in the field, delivering new tools and technologies into the hands of our agricultural stakeholders around the state.
However, I’d like to believe that there’s also impact in more subtle and everyday interactions; perhaps a student on one of my building tours gets inspired to work in the N.C. PSI or in agriculture in general. Wouldn’t that be cool?
How does what is being done at PSI motivate you personally and professionally?
The N.C. PSI is a true game changer for NC State, CALS and the agriculture and plant sciences community in North Carolina, delivering significant benefits to growers and establishing the university and the region as a global leader.
To have had a hand in bringing this grand vision to reality is extremely humbling to me, and I am highly motivated and energized every day to do my part to ensure its continued growth and impact.
I am also constantly inspired by the people within the PSI – we refer to them as our “Plant Pack.” Be it our N.C. PSI-affiliated faculty and their students, our incredible staff or too many others to name, they are some of the most brilliant, passionate and dedicated people I have come across in my career.
In my book, they are all superheroes who are quite literally each doing their part in saving the world. I feel immensely grateful and fortunate that I get to work with such an awesome community of people.
What is a milestone you are most proud of since beginning your role with N.C. PSI?
At the risk of choosing something obvious, I would have to say the dedication of the Plant Sciences Building in April 2022 and the successful move and onboarding of the initial programs into the building.
For over six years, countless hours were spent not just by me, but by so many others, focused on delivering a state of the art plant sciences facility for NC State and the North Carolina agricultural community. Now it was no longer just plans and renderings on paper but a completed building, ready to catalyze new discoveries and innovations for decades to come.
It’s all incredibly humbling and something I will look back on fondly for the rest of my career and life.
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