KEMPTVILLE -- Officials at University of Guelph Kemptville Campus are in the process of establishing a memorial scholarship after a giant in the Canadian embryo transfer industry died suddenly this summer.
“We have collected about $9,000 so far towards an endowment fund in Jim's memory,” said Dr. Paul Sharpe, an animal scientist at the college and long-time family friend.
Jim Vander Meer, 55, of Kemptville died in a single vehicle accident on August 19.
“He was a brother I never had. He was my right-hand man,” said Dr. Luke Besner, who worked with Vander Meer for nearly 20 years.
An animal health technologist who graduated from St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Vander Meer got in on the ground floor of Canada’s embryo transfer industry, joining Via Pax, a pioneer Brampton-based embryo transfer facility, in 1975.
Vander Meer originally worked side-by-side with Dr. Myron Mills, now retired and living in Stittsville.
“Everybody got along with Jim. Or put it the other way, he got along with everyone,” recalled Mills.
The pair worked together at a time when embryo transfers, a procedure in which embryos from “super-ovulating” donor cows are implanted into recipient cows, were still done surgically. By 1981 the pair decided to leave Via Pax, and joined Eastern Breeders in Kemptville.
Dr. Mills recalled a friendly, well-liked man who took the time to answer farmers’ questions.
“He and I worked as a pair, a team, so nearly always we went to these farms together. The farmers, being such nice people, often asked us to have lunch with them. A lot of farms had us back regularly, and they would arrange ahead of time what Jim wanted for lunch,” said Mills.
Vander Meer’s wife Barbara, echoed Mills’ sentiments.
“He had such an easy way with people. That’s one of the things that drew me to him,” she said.
Like his colleagues, Barbara remembered an honest, hard-working man dedicated to his job— but also to his family, which included children Kelly-Anne and Darren.
“We were all very spoiled by him. If the kids were involved in plays at school or soccer, he was always there and very, very proud of his children,” she said.
In addition to shouldering the extra work when Barbara went back to school for a nursing degree in 1999, Jim found time for one of his own passions: music. He sang in St. John’s United Church Choir, the Ottawa Valley Men’s Choir and the North Grenville Concert Choir.
“His dream was to sing the bass solos in the Messiah last fall, and he took singing lessons, got the song part, and he was able to do those solos. It’s like everything else in Jim’s life— I’m so proud of him. He did such a good job,” said Barbara.
Anyone wishing to make a donation to the Jim Vander Meer Memorial Scholarship can contact the University of Guelph Kemptville Campus at 613-258-8336.