About the Rev. Dr. Clark

Thanks for dropping by my Bio Sketch. It is only wise for you to find out a little about me before you can develop any confidence in what I have to say. I am a retired research scientist and university professor, and I have developed science-based marketing and coaching programs for new entrepreneurs such as I was in 2006. My blog will be explaining how I do that as I add more contributions to it. So I welcome you to read and enjoy what I have to say.

Meanwhile, I’ve added some interesting and fun stuff about me here. At least I think it is interesting and fun. That’s just me. My new prefix, for example, is Reverend, since I recently became an ordained minister. So I just added it on, in front of my regular moniker. The whole title and name thing is quite a mouthful, isn’t it?

Getting to the Point…

I have had a 30 year career in teaching and research. My blogs are now my outlet to keep doing the things that I got good at – doing research and explaining it to others (i.e., my students). If you want, you can think of yourself as my student (although without having to pay the high-priced tuition that my classroom students paid!).

My fun derives from many subjects, which at the moment includes making a living by blogging. Most of my blogs have to do with natural approaches to health (cancer, weight loss, herpes, shingles, fitness, herbs, food in general). I also like to blog about cats, golf, and the environment. You can see a full list of all of my blogs here: My Blogs. It is a pretty interesting and somewhat eclectic set of interests on my part. Take a look and see whether you would like to see what I have to say about those topics, too.

By the way, if you are looking for one of those stuffy scientist type sites, you will be disappointed in my blog. (Okay, you can see my stuffy background info at the bottom of this page, if you insist.) I aim to have fun here and to provide first class information that you can enjoy and maybe even apply to making your life better.

By the way, yes, the photo above does show me wearing a bright green bow tie. It was for a formal dinner at the Irish Open in Palm Springs, CA, a few years ago. Really big tournament (!).

Who is Dennis Clark?

Let me be really clear – there are a lot of Dennis Clarks in the world. In 1966 I discovered six others at college in my freshman year. However, my parents, bless their hearts, named me William Dennis Clark, then decided to use my middle name. (Please don’t ever do this to a child. Bureaucracies have no place for middle-namers.) This just means that I’m more available via a Google search using the name, “W. Dennis Clark,” (my professional handle) in the search. If you do this, you should find about 1,200 pages, some of which are obsolete (does anybody EVER take pages down when they get obsolete?). Have a blast.

I have enjoyed science since I discovered how much I liked it when I was in high school. I had my own chemistry kit (yikes!), microscope, and home-built radio. Nevertheless, for a brief period in college I thought I was going to be a lawyer so I could make gobs of money. The path to lawyerhood was so boring, though, that I ended up focusing on biology for my bachelor’s degree.

A couple of my professors influenced me to study plants. I love botany and most things to do with plants. I came from a small town (Redding, CA – well it was small back then), where I grew up with a love of the outdoors. This is probably why I was attracted to field trip classes in botany and ecology at Sacramento State College. It could have included zoology field trips, too, except for I had no stomach for collecting animals for the museum. Also, that smelly, preserved dogfish shark that I had to dissect in my first biology class kind of drove me away from animal studies.

I spent a great four years in my doctoral studies at the University of Texas at Austin. That was a wonderful place to learn about country music, Lone Star Long Necks, and big-time college football. Oh, and it was the top program in plant chemistry in the U.S. at the time, which had become my main professional interest.

My first and only professorship began at Arizona State University in 1976, right after graduate school. I spent about 30 years there, interspersed with a couple of 1-year visiting professor appointments at the University of Heidelberg and the University of California. I now consider myself to be a real Arizonan. I love the desert – it offers a wonderfully rich array of plants, including my favorite, the creosote bush (Larrea tridentata). One of my graduate students and I even developed an herbal formula from this plant for treating herpes. I consider it to be the best natural treatment for herpes and shingles. You can find out more about this at my shingles blog at my herpes and shingles blogs (get the link at the My Blogs page).

What About Fun?

Outdoor fun is possible nearly every day of the year in central Arizona. I love running as my main source of fitness. Five miles every other day or so keeps me in good shape. I love to play golf. I kind of gave up racquetball, handball, softball, and basketball a few years ago. (Notice that these are the sports that demand quickness and reflexes, which seem to have slacked off a little as my hair began to descend from my head, onto my neck and shoulders and into my ears. Cause and effect? Hmm.) Once or twice a year I will also go out with my buddies for a little dove hunting or quail hunting. I’d tell you about skydiving and SCUBA diving, too, except that I don’t want my insurance company to know about that.

And my wife, Eve, and I are sports fans – football season ticket holders for the Arizona Cardinals (what a year!) and the ASU Sun Devils. Tailgating is always a blast!

By the way, some sage advice for everyone is: drink better beer. Good, dark beer is loaded with antioxidants. Rumor is that Guinness ale is even served to patients in hospitals in Ireland, the better to speed their healing. One thing I have learned in my world travels is that the most popular beers in the U.S. are truly awful compared with anything from microbreweries. I learned to appreciate good beer during my first sabbatical leave, when I spent a year in Germany. I never did get through all 101 beers at the Bier Museum in Old Town Heidelberg, though. I’ll keep that on my to-do list.

Keep This Rambling Biography Short, Dennis!

Okay, you know how guys love to talk about themselves – NOT! So I will cut this short, and promise myself to write my full book-length autobiography some other day. Just a few more details to round me out – I have two sons, Eric (40) and Will (23), and a doll of a daughter (Liz, 25), plus a stepdaughter (Jennie, 32) and stepson (Kyle, 29), all of whom are also bitten by the love of sports. Somehow I managed to luck out and get three grandchildren, too (Eric’s son and two daughters), although I really didn’t do anything to make that happen.

Which Brings Me to the Present

After I retired from ASU, Eve and I bought a retail nutrition store and we started “school” all over again. I like to say that I tested that old notion that teachers don’t know how to do anything practical. One thing I learned is that retail business is pretty tough, regardless of the status of the economy. We kept the retail location for a little more than 3 years, and now I focus on my careers as a professional blogger and on our local weight loss clinic.

The unique thing about my blogs is the scientific approach that I provide. Not many research scientists do very well communicating with the public, in spite of all the grant money that we get from taxpayers. So I aim to rectify that failure to communicate, as much as I can. Just for fun, this also includes blogging about cats and about golf, two other loves of mine.

And That Little Thing About Making Money

Here is a little perspective that I have learned as a relatively new entrepreneur – money talk is crucial for success. It is very clear to me that if more people talked about making money, more people would be successful in doing it. So I love to talk about making money.

In the past three years I have blossomed as an entrepreneur and have combined my newfound business career with my longtime experience as a professor, to teach others to find their own niche for bringing in some extra (or even full time) cash, too. Now this is really a blast, because it allows me to teach and help people worldwide, regardless of their attitude about my professional background in natural health, my choice of hobbies (golf), and my love of cats (I’m talking about all you dog people – note that I have a dog, too).

I’m Just Dennis

I was never really comfortable being called “Dr. Clark,” although I realize that it carries some sort of instant credibility with the title. I sure as shootin’ haven’t become used to the addition of the “Reverend” to the list. I do feel the need to admit, though, that when I lived in Heidelberg, it was ego-gratifying to be called “Professor Dr. Clark.” (Those Germans really know how to make a guy feel good about himself!) Overall, though, I really just like to be called by the name that my mother calls me: Dennis.

Oh, one more thing. “Dennis the Menace” has accompanied me my whole life, so I’ve come to know and love that association, too. Indeed, it is still gratifying to see my 8-year old self in the Sunday comics every week. Youthfulness is an attitude!

Come to think of it, everything good starts with an attitude…so make it a great one!

Now for That Stuffy Scientific Stuff That You Really Wanted

Here is a brief official summary of what I did for more than 30 years.

Dr. Dennis Clark holds a Ph.D. in botany, with a specialty in plant chemistry, from the University of Texas at Austin and is a leading expert on plant natural products chemistry and integrative medicine. He taught and conducted research for 30 years as a professor of plant biology at Arizona State University. Dr. Clark is currently an adjunct professor at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. He has also been visiting professor at the University of California and the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Dr. Clark is the author of a college-level textbook on botany as well as books on probiotics and on botanical medicine. He has received grants for his work from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His primary research interest for more than 30 years has focused on bioflavonoids.