Name:Letixia Savage
Appearance:
Personality: Letixia is a very shy and introverted person, bashful and nervous under the scrutiny of anyone with a hint of authority. She often comes of as socially awkward, but all in all is a kind and caring person. She is not a people person. She is, however, a hard worker, a trait instilled in her by her father. He is a titan in the food production industry on Earth, but when Leti was young, he had but a small farm. He showed her that hard work and dedication to your craft could achieve anything. While she does not seek out danger, she has learned some in the ways of protecting herself and survive. But in light of all of this, he never could make her into a leader. Leti excels in her field, but she cannot manage people, and has therefore never seen a rise in ranks that requires more than skill.
Role: Senior Botanist and Food Production Specialist. (Unofficial representative of Savage Food Production Co.)
History: Letixia was born in the great plains of what was formerly the United States of America on a small farm. Her mother was a teacher, her father a commercial farmer, and she was the fourth and final child to them. Her, and her three brothers, went through school, while working on the farm. One brother went on to become a doctor, another enlisted in the military, and the other became a teacher. Letixia went to school for botany, and later went on to get her Doctorate in Plant Genetics with a specialty in Sustainable Horticulture and Food Production.
Having graduated she returned home to find the farm was beginning to fail despite her father's best efforts. Larger, commercial grade farms were simply far more efficient. So Leti went to work to find a way to save it. Hundreds of hours research, and she had an idea. Earth's fossil fuels were near depleted, and while society had moved on to more advanced forms, they still had the main purpose of producing plastic from them. Over several years, she developed a crop, a hybrid of corn, castor bean, and soybean, that would become known as the Buster Bean, named after a dog she had at the time. This crop could be grown in nearly any environment that had at least 15% sunlight access and meager amounts of water. Most of its nutrition would be pulled from the sun and the air, and it would not damage the soil. The bean itself could be processed into an oil that was not only clean burning, though still not a replacement for modern power sources, could be made into cheap, biodegradable plastics. It could also be processed into synthetic, highly nutritious foods.
Having secured the patent for the crop strain, her father became the sole producer of the Buster Bean. His little farm found great success, and soon, he had massive swaths of farmland on nearly every continent, and his company would found many of the farms on other moons and planets. But Leti had little interest in the business side of things. She enjoyed maintaining her gardens and greenhouses while doing research on her plants. When the Gliese 581g mission was announced, she signed up at the first chance she got. A planet with water that could support life would surely have its own flora. This was the chance of a lifetime to further her research. She was readily accepted, and with her parents' blessing left home.
Other: Leti prefers a more natural method to plant research and development and refuses to use any form of nanotech or cybernetics regarding herself, her plants, or her work.