The National Cotton Ginner’s Association recently recognized Greg Holt as recipient of the NCGA’s 2022-23 Charles C. Owen Distinguished Service Award. That award honors those who have provided a career of distinguished service to the U.S. ginning industry.
Holt, research leader at USDA’s South Plains Ginning Laboratory in Lubbock, received bachelor’s and master’s from Texas A&M University and then his doctorate in industrial engineering at Texas Tech University while working at the ginning laboratory.
Over his 24-year career with USDA, Holt has been involved in countless research projects that added to the U.S. ginning industry’s success. Among those studies were post-harvest processing of seed cotton, cottonseed and cotton gin by-products such as hydro-mulch and fuel pellets.
Holt also was involved in development of the Power Roll Gin stand design, generation of new particulate matter emissions data that has been used to improve the permitting process for gins, and the successful design and testing of an improved mechanical delinter that efficiently removes residual lint from ginned seed. More recently, his work has focused on designing detection and removal systems for removing costly plastic contaminants from seed cotton.
