Alumni Profiles

The Butterfly Effect Joris Brinckerhoff '82 created a Latin American industry By Suki Casanave '86G

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Joris Brinckerhoff '82 was a new Peace Corps volunteer hitchhiking in Costa Rica when a truck pulled up beside him and changed the course of his life. The driver was an entomological prospector, full of stories about bug-hunting expeditions in the rainforest. Brinckerhoff soon became entranced with the idea of breeding butterflies, capitalizing on Costa Rica's rich natural environment without destroying it. The country is home to 900 species of butterflies—many of them, like the blue morpho, endangered because of habit destruction.

Armed only with his enthusiasm and his UNH degree, Brinckerhoff set out to launch his new business—the first of its kind in Latin America. It was rough going at first. "I worked around the clock for one year," he says. But with his wife, Maria, Brinckerhoff built Costa Rican Entomological Supply into one of the world's leading suppliers of butterfly pupae.

Cultivating butterflies takes patience—and a steady hand. Much of the breeding work is done beneath house-sized net enclosures in the forest. Here, safe from predators, adult butterflies lay eggs—up to several hundred thousand, which are carefully collected and placed on potted plants where they hatch into caterpillars and begin a month of nonstop eating.

As soon as the caterpillars spin their cocoons, timing becomes critical. In just two weeks the insects will emerge as butterflies. But first they a have a long journey to make as they are shipped to destinations around the world. If the timing is off, the butterflies will emerge en route and die. When they are ready, the pupae are packed 40 to 100 per cotton-stuffed foam box and sent off.

Customers include many large institutions with butterfly exhibits like the Smithsonian, Callaway Gardens and the Museum of Natural History. The couple has also developed their Butterfly Farm into a popular tourist destination where visitors take tours and, on export days, watch thousands of pupae—more than 400,000 per year—being packed for export.

Through the years, formerly unskilled locals have become valued employees at Brinckerhoff's company, and he has trained many independent breeders from whom he now buys pupae. His butterfly enterprise has also helped more than 100 Costa Ricans leave poverty behind and become part of the middle class, and is cited by Harvard Business School as a case study of a successful, socially inclusive business.