Deer antlers, moose heads and dark accents furnish the ideal office of any outdoorsman. Now, Robert Brown, dean of the College of Natural Resources, sits in his virtually empty office with only a few remaining artifacts to complete his man-cave. In a few weeks, a new dean will move in and new decorations will take the hunting trophies’ places.

Brown will retire as the dean of the College of Natural Resources effective Oct. 1. After six years as dean, Brown’s position will be assumed by Mary Watzin, who is currently the dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont.

After 36 years of helping students find their direction, Brown, 67, said he's now taking the time to change his.

“Sometimes you just have to pull the plug," Brown said. "I love my job. I’d like to keep doing it forever, but there are other things I’d like to do."

Originally from Red Bluff, Calif., Brown became interested in veterinary medicine after working for a small animal veterinarian while still in high school. He attended the University of California at Davis as an animal husbandry major. After taking an agricultural course in “feeds and feeding,” Brown found his calling in the field.

“I really liked the animal nutrition aspect,” Brown said. “It’s because of that class that I transferred to Colorado State. They have a bachelor’s degree in animal nutrition. It was the only one in the country.”

Brown found the field both fascinating and sparsely populated, with very few people working in the area of wildlife nutrition. After earning his undergraduate degree in 1968, Brown enlisted with the Marine Corps and was deployed to Vietnam where he was wounded several times. Three years later, Brown attended Penn State University where he pursued a graduate degree and became part of the deer nutrition program.

By the time he arrived at Penn State, Brown had already had research published while at Colorado State and also had a few graduate classes under his belt. This, along with aid from the G.I. Bill and a fellowship, allowed him to take his preliminary for his doctorate and skip a master’s degree all together.

“I did four years at Penn State,” Brown said. “My dissertation was a little strange. It was on the endocrine control of mineral metabolism in deer as a model for osteoporosis in elderly women.”

Although equipped with an animal nutrition degree, Brown had only worked on deer and other wildlife up until then. That changed after Texas A&I (now Texas A&M) University in Kingsville, Texas, offered him a teaching position in domestic animal nutrition, which covered everything from introductory biological chemistry to dairy cattle science. With this opportunity came something Brown had seen very little of — funding.

“I was able to outfit a laboratory, build deer pens and get graduate students,” Brown said. “Once I had all of that set up, I also had a parallel career just doing practical applied wildlife nutrition.”

Brown subsequently spent six years at Mississippi State where he was head of the Wildlife and Fisheries department and another 13 years at Texas A&M as head of its Wildlife and Fisheries department. After his final stint at Texas A&M, Brown was asked to take the position of dean for the College of Natural Resources at N.C. State.

Even with his extensive resume, Brown ranks his family and his ability to “keep the ship afloat” as his biggest accomplishments.

“If you rank accomplishments, I’ve got three sons, they were all Eagle Scouts and are all doing different things,” Brown said. “My wife’s a nurse practitioner, and although she retired when we came here, she volunteers at the United Ministries clinic in town. As for my accomplishment here at State, I think that dealing with budget cuts and no pay raises is an accomplishment all on its own.”

As his retirement day approaches, Brown will continue to follow his love for the great outdoors.

“A friend of mine from Texas A&M and I are into marathon canoe racing,” Brown said. “We’re contemplating racing the Texas Water Safari again. It’s 260 miles, and they give you 100 hours to finish it.”

Brown and his friend have completed the race three times and hope to finish it a fourth, making them the oldest paddlers to have reached the finish line in time.

Brown recently went tandem skydiving for the first time and wants to continue doing the different things his retirement will allow him the time to do.

“You shouldn’t plan out your life for very long,” Brown said. “If you tie yourself too closely to a plan, then you might miss opportunities that come up — the possibility of serendipity. Never be afraid to take a chance on yourself. You never know which direction you might go.”