By Han Chen, CEO, ZeaKal
The grief has finally subsided enough for me to finally talk about the passing of my mentor Dr. Jerry Caulder. As many of you may know, Jerry had been battling cancer for the past few years. During that time, he beat five different cancers, all while serving as the Executive Chairman of ZeaKal, which we co-founded nine years ago. Jerry was larger than life, and for a while, we all thought he was bigger and tougher than cancer. But in the end, the fatigue and side effects of all the treatments became too much. Jerry passed peacefully with friends and family at his side on November 14th of this year.
It is impossible to do justice to Jerry’s achievements in this short piece and there are so many people that can speak to Jerry’s many roles: the Monsanto Executive, the “Father of AgBiotech” and the CEO of Mycogen. If we were to additionally catalogue all his witty jokes and sage-like wisdom or “Caulderisms” as we called them, this would need to span several volumes.
For me, the simplest way I can distill my feelings is that I lost a father. Since coming out of graduate school, Jerry was the only boss I ever really had across the different positions I have held from intern to CEO. He was always by my side, watching over me.
Jerry and I met when I was finishing graduate school. It was my final quarter and I was looking for a part time internship that would hopefully pay better than the $8.00/hour I was making at the mall. My interview with Jerry consisted of a 5-minute meet and greet in a small office kitchen. While wolfing down a handful of peanuts he told me, “You look too smart to work here”. Then, he proceeded to tease me about my hair and how I looked like I electrocuted myself. It was undoubtedly the worst interview I ever had; yet 24 hours later, I was hired as an intern with Finistere.
It was only after I started my internship, did I realize just how amazing of a person I had the privilege of working for. Jerry opened a world of possibilities for me, giving me insight into entrepreneurship and venture capital. I learned from the best. No textbook could ever capture all the lessons, successes and failures that Jerry experienced building everything from life science companies to next-generation golf clubs. These lessons were also collected from a life lived across the world, with stories including plane hijackings, being forced out of a hotel room that Howard Hughes wanted and how a life-long passion for photography became the catalyst for a CIA operation in Latin America during the Cold War. Like Jerry, his stories were bigger than life.
These achievements, though, were nothing compared to the humility and generosity that made Jerry so beloved by everyone that knew him. Jerry was the most unassuming person I have ever met. He bought his khaki pants and shorts at JC Penny, which he often paired with a vast collection of golf shirts. He used to run down to Costco to buy Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches and White Castle burgers so that “us young guys could focus on work”. His go-to drink was Diet Mountain Dew, or as he called it, the nectar of the gods. He loved when I introduced him to authentic “hole in the wall” Chinese restaurants. We bonded over chitlins and he joked that I had the diet of a true Southern boy. Some of my favorite memories with him were building Ikea furniture for the office and fixing conference room chairs while he would teach me molecular biology and plant physiology. There was always half a ham on rye sandwich waiting for me during lunch.
In our 15 years together, Jerry transferred to me a lifetime of knowledge about strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. Having already achieved several lifetimes worth of success, Jerry had no reason to work as hard as he did or spend the countless hours educating me. It was a labor of love for him and an unequaled privilege for me to receive one-on-one tutelage from one of the most successful AgBiotech entrepreneurs.
In an industry that is often quite unforgiving, where results are what matter and failure is ever-present, I was nurtured under an umbrella of unconditional generosity in terms of time, knowledge and wisdom. Due to Jerry’s unwavering support for me from day one, I had the opportunity to cofound my own company within five years of starting my internship. We named it ZeaKal. He told me the best company names had two syllables with strong consonants like “Z” and “K”. ZeaKal had two meanings for us. It reflected our first product concept, a high energy corn, but also to celebrate our California and New Zealand roots.
I was given the opportunity to be a 28-year-old CEO, not because I was any more intelligent or hardworking, but because I was able to stand on a platform that Jerry had built for me. My voice and ideas could reach people, because it was magnified through the microphone of Jerry’s reputation. I was given wide enough swim lanes to grow personally and professionally but never without the safety net of having Jerry’s vigilance.
The generosity he showed me did not end at ZeaKal but extended into all aspects of my life. When my son Caleb was born two years ago, Jerry was every bit the mentor there as well. He saw Caleb, who he called “Little Jerry”, every bit as much as his own flesh and blood. I would get all these unexpected packages filled with the latest toys or Mizzou paraphernalia. He wanted me to be a good CEO, but more importantly, he wanted me to be a great father. Knowing how much he was away from family to build Mycogen, it was endearing to know that he was trying to minimize those sacrifices for me.
I don’t know if the sadness of losing him will ever be gone, but I know that if he was comforting me now, he would say “this too shall pass”. However, in losing Jerry there is one thing I have come to appreciate even more. If I had not known him, I would never have had a chance to meet so many of the wonderful people that are in the broader ZeaKal family and our broader community. He touched all of us profoundly and yet personally in a way that we are all connected through him. I am proud to belong to the last company he started, honored that he treated me as a son, forever grateful that I had the most wonderful mentor who gave me the internship of a lifetime.
