Steven Gylling, president of Gylling Data Management (GDM), was born and raised on a diversified farm in Tyler, MN, and graduated from Tyler High School in 1971. He earned his B.S. degree in agriculture education in 1975 from South Dakota State University. From 1975 to 1978, he was an instructor in vocational agriculture at West Lyon Community School near Inwood, IA, where he taught agricultural mechanics and advised the local Future Farmers of America chapter. From 1978 to 1984, he had a full time research assistantship in plant science at South Dakota State University, and he was Pesticide Impact Assessment Program coordinator from 1984 to 1985. In 1985, he received his Ph.D. degree in agronomy from South Dakota State University. In 1985, he began the extension computer specialist position in South Dakota and launched a state extension service computerization project that placed 140 computers in county and state extension offices throughout South Dakota, continuing through 1989. In 1987, he received the South Dakota Extension Specialists Association Merit Award for Service to the People of South Dakota. In 1989, he left South Dakota State University to work full time at Gylling Data Management. In 1982, Steven and his wife Fran developed the first version of Agricultural Research Manager (ARM) software for managing agricultural research trials. The software was designed as an economical tool to help researchers create, document, analyze, and report their research data. Goals of the software development were to provide a standardized format to enter public and private research trials so the information could be easily exchanged across departments, disciplines, institutions, companies, and languages. This portability allows rapid transfer of experiment data from field trials to the different “customers” of this data, such as company product managers and public information providers or registration authorities.
ARM was the first software to export and import data using the “Electronic Data Exchange” format defined by the National Agricultural Chemicals Association (NACA) in the 1980s and to adopt “Standardized Agricultural Research Terminology” proposed by NACA for describing research trials. The software also supports the governmental requirements and guidelines of several countries for Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and Good Experimental Practices (GEP).
ARM is currently used by approximately 7,500 customers in 75 countries and nearly 1,000 institutions and has been translated into 11 languages. GDM provides free user support for all products that include ARM, Summary Across Trials, Trial Database, and Tablet Data Collector.
Gylling has participated in APS annual meetings since 2001 and is also a sustaining member of Entomology Society of America, Weed Science Society of America, American Society of Agronomy, American Society of Horticultural Sciences, National Alliance of Independent Crop Consultants, North Central Weed Science Society, Southern Weed Science Society, Eastern Weed Science Society, and Western Weed Science Society.
Since 1985, he has given approximately 25 presentations on electronic data management at meetings of 11 different regional and national scientific societies, with educational displays at 15 different scientific societies in United States, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Scotland, England, Denmark, and Germany.
Steven Gylling has provided on-site ARM training and support to nearly every major global corporate supplier of plant protection products, including Ajay—SQM Group, ArborGen, Arysta Life Science, BASF (also American Cyanamid, Velsicol), Bayer CropScience (also Hoechst, AgrEvo, and Aventis), Cheminova A/S, Chemtura Corporation (Crompton), Dow AgroSciences, Dongbu Hannong Chemical, EDEN Bioscience, FMC Ag Products Group, Gowan Company, Helena Chemical Company, Makhteshim Agan, Monsanto, Nufarm, Nutra-Park, OHP, Pioneer Hybrid International, Sipcam, SPF-GAB, Stähler, Sumitomo Chemical Corporation, Syngenta (also Novartis, ICI), The Scotts Company, United Phosphorus, Inc. (UPI), Valent (also Abbott), and Zelam.
