The Farm Bureau of Ventura County 2009-2010 Board of Directors list, Director biographies, CEO biography and list of past Presidents.

Board of Directors 2009-2010

President	1st Vice President
Leslie Leavens-Crowe	Josh Pinkerton
P.O. Box 4278	P.O. Box 4099
Saticoy, CA 93007	Ventura, CA 93001
656-1568	647-2121

2nd Vice President	Treasurer
Andy Hooper	Ed McFadden
87 Berkeley Ave.	P.O. Box 517
Ventura, CA 93004	Fillmore, CA 93016-0517
656-0310	524-0107

Secretary	Director
Fred Van Wingerden	Scott Deardorff
3813 W. Doris Ave.	P.O. Box 1188
Oxnard, CA 93030	Oxnard, CA 93032
382-8070	487-7801 x112

Director	Director
Chris Sayer	David Borchard
19867 E. Telegraph Road	1400 La Loma Ave.
Santa Paula, CA 93060	Somis, CA 93066
320-2157	444-3283

Director	Director
Gus Gunderson	David Schwabauer
1141 Cummings R d.	12598 Broadway
Santa Paula, CA 93060	Moorpark, CA 93021
525-5541 ext. 259	529-1608

Director	Director
Steve Onstot	Scott Klittich
120 No. 10th St.	1835 E. Guiberson Road
Santa Paula, CA 93060	Fillmore, CA 93015
525-7101	524-2123

Chief Executive Officer	Director
John Krist	Phil McGrath
5156 McGrath St., Ste. 102	1012 West Ventura Blvd.
Ventura, CA 93003	Camarillo, CA 93010
289-0155	485-4210

Farm Bureau Director Biographies

David Borchard
David has been a Farm Bureau board member since 2000, and serves as the agricultural representative on the board of the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency. He is the Farm Bureau representative on the board of directors of the Association of Water Agencies, where he is involved in advancing and promoting recycled water in Ventura County. Raised in Oxnard and Somis, he is a member of a six-generation Ventura County farming family, producing lemons and avocados. He’s a graduate of Loyola Marymount University and is a past president of the Mesa Education Foundation, a non-profit group that raises funds to support the arts, music, technology and science at Mesa Union School. He lives in Somis with his wife and two children.

Scott Deardorff
Scott was first elected to the Board of Directors in 1997. He is the organization’s immediate past president, having previously served as first vice president, second vice president, treasurer and secretary. He is a member of the management team for Deardorff Family Farms, which grows and packs tomatoes, celery and other vegetables.

Gus Gunderson
Gus has been a member of the Farm Bureau Board of Directors since 2002. He is a graduate of Santa Paula High School, Ventura College and California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, where he received a bachelor of science degree in agronomy. He’s been director of Southern Operations for Limoneira Co. for 18 years. He is a member of the Ag Futures Alliance, the steering committee of the Ventura County Agricultural Irrigated Lands Group, and the boards of San Cayetano Water Co. and Associates Insectary. He lives in Ventura with wife Helen and sons Neil and Quinn.

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Andy Hooper
Andy has been a member of the Farm Bureau Board of Directors since 2007 and currently serves as second vice president. A Ventura County native, he has a bachelor's degree in agriculture business from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a master’s in business administration from California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. He has spent 19 years in the vegetable industry, and for the past eight years has been managing strawberry production for Terry Farms, Inc. He is married and has three children. He lives in Ventura.

Scott Klittich
Scott Klittich and his wife, Cindy, are the owners of Otto & Sons Nursery in Fillmore, where they specialize in growing container roses and fruit trees for retail garden centers throughout Southern California. Scott received his bachelor's degree in ornamental horticulture from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He has worked at Otto & Sons for more than 25 years and is currently general manager. He serves on the State Board of Directors for the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers, and has been on the local board for many years. Scott is the Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 406 in Fillmore. He is active in Bardsdale 4-H as a project leader for farm machinery and beef, and he led the swine project for eight years. Scott has been on the Ag Advisory Committee for the Fillmore High School farm for 20 years. He and his wife have three children.

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Leslie Leavens-Crowe
Leslie is a partner and office manager for her family’s farming company, Leavens Ranches, growers of lemons and avocados in Ventura and Monterey counties, and wine grapes in the Santa Lucia Highlands appellation of Monterey County. A member of the Farm Bureau Board of Directors since 2000, she currently serves as president. She is also on the boards of Saticoy Lemon Association, Sunkist and Fruit Growers Supply Co. As a member of the Ag Futures Alliance, she became involved in the critical issue of farm worker housing and is on the AFA Farm Worker Housing Task Force. Leslie is a graduate of the California Agricultural Leadership Program (Class 34) and the University of California, Los Angeles. She is married to Harry Crowe.

Ed McFadden
Ed was first elected to the Board of Directors in 1999 and is the organization's treasurer. He grows citrus and avocados for Rancho Simpatica, a company he manages, and McFadden Ranch, a family-owned farm. He was raised on a family orange and avocado grove in Orange County and moved his family to Ventura County in 1992. Ed and his wife Viki have two children; a daughter who graduated from Pomona College in 2006, and a son who is currently at Stanford. Both Viki and Ed are graduates of Pomona College. Ed is a member of Class 25 of the California Agricultural Leadership program, serves on several local boards, and is an alternate director for the California Avocado Commission.

Phil McGrath
Phil McGrath is a fourth-generation family farmer in Oxnard, growing mainly row crops and some lemons. His McGrath Family Farms delivers its products directly to restaurants, operates a Community Supported Agriculture program and a roadside market, and sells its fruit, vegetable and ornamental crops at seven farmers markets each week throughout the region. Phil has served on the boards of many agricultural, marketing and community organizations, including the California Farmers Market Advisory Board, the Ag Futures Alliance, the Sustainable Ag Working Group and the Southland Farmers Market Association board.

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Steve Onstot
W. Stephen Onstot, a Farm Bureau board member since 2000, was born in Santa Paula and is a member of a five-generation Santa Clara Valley farming family. He graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara with high honors, and is also a graduate of Loyola University Law School. He is a practicing attorney in the city of Santa Paula, whose clients include ranchers, farmers, water companies, railroads and other businesses. His area of legal practice is estate planning, probate, trust administration, real property agreements, land and water agreements and related matters. He is married and has five children.

Jonathan “Josh” Pinkerton
Josh joined the board in 1999 and is currently first vice president, having previously served as second vice president and secretary. He’s a member of a multi-generation Ventura County farming family, and grows lemons and avocados. He grew up in Ventura and Idaho, and is a graduate of the University of San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in international relations. He was a member of Leadership Farm Bureau Class #1 and California Agricultural Leadership Program Class 32. He lives in Ventura with his wife and two daughters.

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Chris Sayer
Chris joined the Farm Bureau Board of Directors in 2008. He was raised on a family farm in Saticoy. He served as an officer in the Navy, and qualified as an aircraft commander in P3C patrol aircraft. He subsequently worked in Silicon Valley for several years, before returning to Ventura County and purchasing a 23-acre avocado ranch east of Santa Paula. Chris also is engaged in lemon and avocado operations at the family’s Saticoy home ranch, and is a partner in Petty Realty, specializing in agricultural properties. He is a member of the Ag Futures Alliance, and serves on the boards of UC Hansen Trust, Associates Insectary and the Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce. He and his wife, Melissa, live in Santa Paula with their two sons.

David Schwabauer
David was elected to the Farm Bureau board in 1987 and has served as the organization’s treasurer, secretary, second vice president and first vice president. He served as president in 2003-2005, and has been a district director since 2004, representing Region 4 (Ventura and Santa Barbara counties) on the California Farm Bureau Federation Board of Directors. David is a managing partner of Leavens Ranches, overseeing lemon and avocado operations in the Moorpark area.

Fred Van Wingerden
A native of the Netherlands who immigrated to Carpinteria with his family in 1967, Fred came to Ventura County in 1979 to grow flowers after graduating from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. He is the president and chief executive officer of Pyramid Flowers, which grows greenhouse and field flowers for the wholesale trade as well as selling bouquets in the mass market. He began his current tenure on the Farm Bureau Board of Directors in 2002, his previous term on the board having ended in 1996, and currently serves as the organization’s secretary. He and his wife, Edith, have been married since 1982 and have two children, Marcos and Silvia.

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CEO’s Biography

John Krist
John Krist was hired in February 2008 to serve as the chief executive officer of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, the region’s oldest and largest agricultural association. As CEO, he is responsible for managing the nonprofit organization’s staff, daily operations and finances. He recommends policy to the organization’s Board of Directors, implements board directives, and represents the interests of the membership at legislative and regulatory hearings. He also serves as the organization’s liaison with the news media, as well as with numerous community organizations and groups. Before joining the Farm Bureau, Mr. Krist worked for 24 years as a reporter, editor and Opinion-page columnist at the Ventura County Star. During that time, his commentaries on land-use policy, natural resources and environmental issues were distributed by Scripps Howard News Service and published in newspapers throughout the United States. His work has also appeared in California Planning & Development Report, a statewide newsletter for land-use and public-policy experts, and Planning, the magazine of the American Planning Association. The winner of numerous writing awards and journalism fellowships, he is the author of three books about California’s parks and wilderness areas, as well as Voyage of Rediscovery, based on his experiences retracing the Lewis and Clark trail. He also has contributed to books on urban renewal and wildfire policy. His newest book is “Living Legacy: The Story of Ventura County Agriculture.”

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Past Presidents
1914-15 T. A. Rice
1916 E. S. Thacher
1917 Walter Sexton
1918 H. H. Neel
1919 C. E. Hawley

1920’s
1920-21 E. W. Gerry
1922 E. G. Laubacher
1923 D. Felsenthal
1924 J. P. Thille
1925 C. E. Kelsey
1926-27 G. E. Harlan
1928-29 J. N. Thille

1930’s
1930-31 C. A. Pope
1932-34 E. C. Kimball
1935-36 W. P. Daily
1937 P. M. Hendrickson
1938-39 B. D. Laubacher

1940’s
1940-41 R. W. Wright
1942-44 Robert Beardsley
1945-46 B. L. Hawley
1947-48 Ernest R. Nichols
1949 Robert Maulhardt

1950’s
1950 Robert Maulhardt
1951-52 F. R. Jewett
1953-54 Stewart Abercrombie
1955-56 Robert Hardison
1957-58 Frank McGrath
1959 Robert Pinkerton

1960’s
1960 Robert Pinkerton
1961-62 Kenneth Glenn
1963-64 Leonard Warren
1965-66 Robert Dudley
1967-68 Robert Miller
1969 Lawrence Everett

1970’s
1970 Lawrence Everett
1971-72 Paul Leavens
1973-74 Al Cavaletto
1975-76 Charles Schwabauer
1977-78 Donald E. Armstrong
1979 Joe Terry

1980’s
1980-81 Sam McIntyre
1982-83 Tom McGrath
1984-85 Darrell Nelson
1986-87 Link Leavens
1988-89 Randy Axell

1990’s
1990-91 Don Reeder
1992-93 Chris Taylor
1994-95 Tom Pecht
1996-97 Mike Mobley
1998-99 Richard Pidduck

2000’s
2000-01 Bob Pinkerton
2002-03 Edgar Terry
2003-05 David Schwabauer
2006-07 Henry Vega
2008-09 Scott Deardorff

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