My passion for ruminant, especially cattle, IVF was born from two things: Being a city lad but with many relatives on my mother’s side were farming, I loved working on farms, the beauty of the country and the enjoyment of working with animals; and appreciating that the research work could lead to real benefits to industries important to the Australian and New Zealand economies. Besides, unlike human IVF, when I began studying ruminant IVF, it didn’t work at all. So there was the challenge there that remains, of improving it.