webmaster at Australian National Botanic Gardens
webmaster at Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research
past webmaster at New South Wales Sea Kayak Club
If you must play, decide on three things at the start:
the rules of the game,
the stakes,
and the quitting time.
- Chinese Proverb
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change,
and to preserve change amid order.
- Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher (1861-1947)
Born in Victoria, Australia, in the middle of the 20th century, to parents with ithcy feet, spent only a short and unmemorable infancy in Melbourne, followed a wonderful childhood in Papua New Guinea (Port Moresby), South Australia (Adelaide), Fiji (Suva), New Caledonia (Noumea). This idyllic existence was tragically terminated with the delayed onset of adolescence and the need to acquire mimimal literacy and numeracy in later secondary school years at boarding school in Sydney, New South Wales.
This experiment in education was apparently reasonably successful, graduating in botany and zoology at the University of Sydney with a heap of biological systematics and ecological options, but nothing offering the faintest prospect of employment. Almost immediately offered first full-time job before further remedial education could be undertaken and in 1973 became a botanist with the Papua New Guinea Department of Forests at the PNG National Herbarium (see picture) and Botanic Gardens (see picture) in Lae. A two year contract was renewed, and renewed, and renewed, PNG achieved self government and independence, and nations rose and fell. Moved through the ranks to become Director of the botanic gardens and herbarium and the unexpected result was 15 superb years of botanical field work and botanical exploration in one of the most biological exciting places on earth, a partner Jenni, and two young sons.
In 1988 offered a position as Curator of the Herbarium at the Australian National Botanic Gardens and the family moved to Canberra. Then became Director of the Botany Section of the Australian National Botanic Gardens, now part of Environment Australia and then Deputy Director of the Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research. Now Deputy Director Science and Information responsible for botanic information at the Australian National Botanic Gardens and program leader for Australian National Herbarium at the Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research.
Basically a lifetime with only two identical jobs; maybe a bit boring, but that's who I am and what I do.
See full resume with links to some Internet activities.
Responsible for the scientific information services of the ANBG and CPBR which includes the:
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Not partiularly interested in this, but a people perodically enquire if I am related to them or to famous or important people somewhere or other. I am not. A fragment of recent geneology is available for those interested in such things.
Name: Jim Croft
Email: jrc@anbg.gov.au ; jim.croft@deh.gov.au
URL: http://www.anbg.gov.au/people/croft.jim.html
URL: http://www.anbg.gov.au/projects/fern/
| Deputy Director, Science & Information Australian National Botanic Gardens GPO Box 1777, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia |
Program Leader, Australian National Herbarium Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research GPO Box 1600, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia |
| phone: +61-2-6246 5500 | phone: +61-2-2246 5500 |
| fax: +61-2-62509 599 | fax: +61-2-6246 5249 |
Home: 63 Gellibrand St, Campbell, ACT 2601, Australia
phone: +61-2-6247 6712 (voice); +61-2-6248 8955 (voice and data)
If you want to build a ship,
don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
