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Mike Blackburn
R&D Program/Portfolio Leader
Cargill
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Biochemist. Doctor of Theology. Restaurateur. R&D portfolio leader. What do these titles all have in common? They all apply to one man: Mike Blackburn, R&D Program/Portfolio Leader at Cargill.
"I believe you should diversify your interests and activities in life," Blackburn said. "As a long-term member of R&D, I like to say that I'm a quarter of an inch deep and two miles wide."
Blackburn started his career with Cargill in 1980 working in quality assurance for their corn milling operations while performing graduate work in biochemistry at Wright State University. He moved into R&D in 1986 as Cargill began to grow, focusing his work on analytical technologies. While working in that role, he completed an MS in Engineering Management from UMASS and over the next 20 years, after taking a few professional detours in some global positions at Cargill, he eventually earned a position in the core business as part of Cargill's Global Research Management team.
"On an average day I have the opportunity to connect with many people in our global R&D organization," Blackburn said. "This may be as a mentor helping an individual navigate our systems or for the preparation of a project proposal. It could be in facilitating our communities of practice to promote and improve our core technologies and enabling sciences. Or it may be in connection with a specific project to improve our processes or capabilities."
In his participation at IRI, Blackburn has taken on a leadership role in IRI's new Digitalization research platform, co-chairing the project on Big Data alongside Jeff Alexander (RTI) and David Legan, with Northwestern University's Diego Klabjan as the group's subject matter expert.
"The framework we have defined to ask how Big Data will inform, enable or disrupt R&D management is a very effective way to talk about this topic, which can be too big to handle," he said. "We are seeing that there are many examples and tools available today that have begun to inform R&D. There are fewer examples of how R&D is being enabled today and few examples of disruption. It is clear to see that technology is growing and new methods and applications are being developed. More enabling examples will be seen in the next few years. What is intriguing is to try to predict how these new capabilities will disrupt our current systems and processes."
When asked what advice he would give to young professionals coming up in his field, he said: "I like to talk about two rules [young professionals] should consider. First rule is: Do the things you like to do... look for the things you like to do and as your career advances, pursue those things. The second rule aligns with the first: You are allowed to be happy. In life we can be driven by what others define as success. Don't be driven by a perceived path to success if it is not comfortable or it makes you unhappy. If things are not going well in your position or you are frustrated and cannot see a solution, then look for a new position either in or outside your company."
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