Hendersonville‘s Herb Hollender is a quiet, self-effacing man who needed some convincing that an article about his career and current volunteer work would interest and inspire others. But upon the urging of his pastor, John Neville of Covenant Presbyterian Church, Herb agreed to an interview.

Herb’s story takes us from the exciting quest to find food suitable for the first astronauts, to the quiet mountains of Western North Carolina.

Herb, now seventy-four, was brought up in a Christian home on a small dairy farm in central Wisconsin. Holding degrees in bacteriology and food technology, Herb was associate professor at Purdue College of Agriculture when he left in 1955 to join the Armed Forces Food and Container Institute. At F.C.I., Herb soon was responsible for food prod