As Jane Dever, Ph.D., approaches retirement, she’s back at the cotton project she started 32 years ago after college, still excited about helping west Texas farmers boost the quality of the fiber in their cotton crops, to be more competitive in the global market. She knows cotton from genes to jeans. After her years in the corporate sector, being a public breeder enabled Jane to focus on underserved stakeholders. This led to a project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through Catholic Relief Services in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where growers face the same issues as U.S. growers.