Richard E. Ford was born May 25, 1933 in Des Moines, Iowa. He received a B.S. (1956) from Iowa State University and an M.S. (1959) and a Ph.D. (1961) from Cornell University.

Ford began his career as an undergraduate teacher in botany (1956) and as a graduate research assistant in plant pathology (1956-1959) at Iowa State. While at Cornell, he worked as a graduate research assistant in virology (1959-1961). Once Ford received his doctorate, he went to work for the USDA and the University of Oregon as a research plant pathologist and an Assistant Professor (1961-1965). He returned to Iowa State as a Professor in Plant Virology (1965-1972). He spent the remainder of his academic career at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana as the head of the Plant Pathology Department (1972-1998). On January 1, 1999, Ford became Executive Director of the Consortium for International Crop Protection.

The collection consists mostly of research publications authored and coauthored by Richard E. Ford, 1959-1998. The papers also contain a small amount of biographical information.

This collection is organized alphabetically then chronologically.