Growing up on an eastern Indiana family farm in the 1930s and early 1940s, Jake Ferris, whose given name is John, has seen the transition from horse drawn equipment used for centuries to tractors, combines, corn pickers, etc. He was familiar with much of the equipment displayed in the Farm Mechanization Centennial on the campus of Michigan State College in August 1955 marking the transition to Michigan State University (MSU) after 100 years. He happened to capture the celebration with an 8 mm movie camera, the only documentation known to exist about the event. It is available on YouTube.com under "jake ferris;" then select Videos.
At that time, he had just completed two years as a draftee in the Army and was returning to MSU to complete a PhD in agricultural economics. As a member of the Department of Agricultural Economics at MSU for 40 years (1957 to 1997), Jake blended extension, teaching, research, consulting and international programs. His specialties were outlook and marketing strategies. With the assistance of computer software, he developed an econometric model of U.S. agriculture with an international component. This model routinely generated projections 10 years or more into the future. At the close of his MSU career, WCB McGraw-Hill published his graduate textbook, Agricultural Prices and Commodity Market Analysis.
His wife Maxine, also with a PhD from MSU (hers in the Speech Department) was on the faculty of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources with Jake for 20 years mostly as an administrator. Their major contribution to the community was, with 6 other couples, in 1968, founding the first Montessori School in the central Michigan area and the second in the state. Their most notable graduate was Larry Page, co-founder of Google. His father Carl, professor in Computer Science at MSU, served on the Board with Jake for 3 years in the late 1970s.
After retiring, Jake continued his career featuring biofuels until 2015 when he turned to writing books including Jakes's Journey and three focusing on his Quaker ancestors. They were about a Quaker leader, a suffragette and a Ferris genealogy, all on Amazon.
