Ronald E. Cole joined the UC Davis campus, and the Department of Animal Physiology, as a laboratory technician in 1965. Prior to working at UC Davis, Ron had 10 years of experience collecting and preparing vertebrate specimens, first as a student at the University of Arizona, then for the Mammal Division of the Smithsonian Institution, where he conducted field collections in southern Africa.  He became the founding curator of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology in 1972 in the then Department of Wildlife and Fish Biology.  Ron, by training, is primarily a small mammal ecologist but spent a lifetime also working with birds and fishes. Ron spent the balance of his 30-year career laying the foundation for the Museum. In his own words, "I knew no biologist who had been asked to start a teaching/research collection from a zero base, and as this was decades before the advent of the internet, I had limited opportunities to search out methods and materials. In addition, I had, essentially, no specimen inventory, no supplies, and virtually no equipment that wasn’t on loan from colleagues.  In fact, I didn’t even have a name for the new 'museum.' For convenience, I chose to call it the Museum of Wildlife and Fisheries Biology (MWFB)."  Ron still provides institutional knowledge of the Museum and Department and consults on important Museum programs. Learn more about Ron Cole on our History page.