While I was exploring other opportunities, I was invited to meet two visiting faculty members (Dr. Merlin S. Bergdoll and Dr. Hiroshi Sugiyama) from the Food Research Institute (FRI) of the University of Chicago (UC), who were consultants at Fort Detrick. I learned that the founder and director of FRI, Dr. Gail M. Dack, had decided to add viruses to the foodborne pathogens being studied at FRI. I was fortunate to be interviewed and promptly offered a position as ''Research Associate (Instructor),'' beginning July 1, 1962. The job description was necessarily vague, as no one knew what a food virologist was at the time-least of all me. History was also difficult to explore, in that there was no Internet and all the needed information was recorded in books, on cards, and on pieces of paper, not all of which were readily available at any given time.