Starsky and Hutch, Batman and Robin, Shaggy and Scooby, Joe and Todd.
Wherever you see one-half of any of these famous duos, chances are the other is somewhere close by. Each is an example of the philosophy of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. It is an ideal voiced by Aristotle to illustrate the concept that people accomplish more as part of a team than they do individually.
For the past decade, Joe Rimelspach and Todd Hicks have been a 1-2 punch for Ohio State's turfgrass pathology program. Thanks to their nearly two decades of hard work together, the program has become one of the leading centers for disease and fungicide research as well as extension outreach as they help golf course superintendents, sports field managers, lawn care operators and homeowners around the state and throughout the country solve some of their most challenging grass-growing issues.
"Todd and Joe are always ready to help superintendents and speak at local association meetings," said Tim Glorioso, director of golf course operations at Toledo Country Club and a past president of the Ohio Turfgrass Foundation. "Their passion for the industry is truly evident in their actions."
Along the road to where the program is now, they have encountered a few potholes.
"Our professor, Mike Boehm, was becoming more involved in administration, and when you have a professor leaving that usually means the end of the program," Hicks said. "I told Joe that we need to start selling ourselves as the Todd and Joe Show."
Boehm, formerly a professor in the department, went on to become vice provost at OSU and three years ago was named vice chancellor at the University of Nebraska.
In that 10 years, the two are almost inseparable - professionally, at least.
"I cover research, and Joe helps me. Joe covers extension, and I help him," Hicks said.
"We spend way too much time together. We know each other's families: I know his; he knows mine. I joke that in a couple more years, we are going to be common-law married."
Hicks, 51, credits the U.S. Army for giving him the mettle needed to get where he is today.
A native of Mendon, Ohio, Hicks joined the Army after high school and served with the 82nd Airborne based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
"I wanted to jump out of planes and blow **** up," he said.
"I told the recruiter I wanted to do something that I could tell stories about as an old man."
The Army taught skills like patience, perseverance and focus.
"If you make a mistake in the Army, someone dies. If you make a mistake here, it's grass, it will grow back," he said.
Rimelspach has been part of the OSU turf pathology program since 1992. Until Hicks came aboard, turnover in the program at the staff level was high, which led to all sorts of challenges.
"Before Todd, there were different people here all the time and I was always training new people," Rimelspach said. "We didn't have consistency; consistency of getting work done right, or consistency of taking advantage of each person's skills and education.
"I became more embedded in research at that time, and my main focus was working in the clinic diagnosing samples and giving extension talks around the state."
Even when Hicks joined the department after graduating from OSU with a degree in agronomy in 2001, it took some time for the program to get on an even footing.
"The girl who ran our field season was leaving, and I knew what that meant. It meant the field season was just Joe and myself with no help and no background info," Hicks said.
"Joe and I spent the summer together piecing together what we needed to do field research. It was a long and hard process. If Joe wasn't such a good guy, I would have quit and never looked back. It was awful; no student help, half our trials didn't work. From that day forward, we worked to make things more reliable, easier and faster. We were all about working smarter, not harder.
"When I got out of the service, I realized I could do anything as long as you are with good people. In the service, whatever you were doing might have stunk and sucked, but you had your buddies with you. Joe is my buddy, and that is how we have survived for so long."
Although the program does not have anyone with the letters "Ph.D." behind their name, it is one of the country's top pathology programs.
"Mike Boehm gave me just enough rope to either climb the ladder or hang myself," Hicks said. "There aren't too many people with a four-year degree who have gone from student researcher to heading up plant pathology research at a place like Ohio State University. "We're called by companies to conduct research on their products and kick off fungicides. We speak at meetings with colleagues around the country.
"Joe has a lot of years in this industry diagnosing things and working with chemistries, and he is as good or better than any Ph.D. I've worked with."
In those early days, it wasn't uncommon for them to be spraying test plots until 11 p.m. while they figured out what worked, what didn't and where they could save time. In the two decades since, Rimelspach and Hicks have been busy building one of the countries busiest and most highly regarded turf pathology departments into a finely tuned machine that each admits he could not have done alone.
"We learned from those days and initiated new systems to address those issues," Rimelspach said. "Todd was very organized. He set up new systems and new ways of doing things to make everything more efficient and more accurate. It pulled us both together to where we now play off each other's strengths."
Besides conducting extension work statewide, through the years the turf pathology team has partnered with other entities around the state, including golf courses, parks and others to establish remote test sites to monitor disease pressure and fungicide efficacy under a wide range of conditions.
"Joe is constantly in the field, and he is our eyes and ears as to what is going on around the state," said Dave Shetlar, Ph.D., professor emeritus of entomology at Ohio State. "Todd is always tending their applied research projects, mainly at the turfgrass facility, but also at some remote locations."
At times, that even includes the classroom, where the two teach what used to Boehm's turf fungicide class.
Over time, the setting for that class has often met in a location where both are more comfortable - on the research plots at the OTF research facility.
"We talk about diseases, but we also get them outside in the field," Hicks said. "Too much is done in a book, and there is a big difference between what happens in a book and what happens in real life out in the field."