Not too many teenagers can say they couldn’t wait to get to the packing house…except me. My Uncle Walter was a well‑respected tree fruit grower and nurseryman and my first mentor. Every chance I got, I’d ride my bike to his ranch and work in the packing house and in the fields. I knew then I wanted to be a farmer.

After college, I ran a citrus packing company before I had the great good fortune to be hired by Stewart Resnick as COO of his 150 million dollar citrus business at The Wonderful Company. I worked for and learned from Stewart for the next 20 years as president of that business and am proud to be part of the team that grew Wonderful’s citrus operation to just north of a billion dollars.

I’m as excited by the opportunity at Frutura as I was when I was a kid pedaling to my uncle’s ranch. We have the chance to craft an extraordinary business through careful acquisitions. We will make our companies that much stronger by association and set precedents through our execution of the values foundational to Frutura.