AWARD OF HONOR Stephen Patricio Exemplifies the Best of Ag
By Stephanie Metzinger I t’s 5:00 am on August 18, 1962, and the City of Los Banos is already buzzing with excitement in anticipation of President John F. Kennedy’s visit to their little community for the groundbreaking ceremony of the San Luis Dam. Nine-year- old Stephen Patricio is getting ready to hop on his bicycle to make the 15-mile trek with his cousins up to the site to see this monumental event. Just as he was about to put pedal to the metal, his mother stopped him, notifying him that he had to be at least 10 years old to bike to the dam. He was two months shy. “I was madder than a hornet,” Patricio said, and throughout the ceremony (which he traveled to by car), he stuck to his guns and remained passionately upset about not being able to bike up with his cousins. “It was out of principle, considering I was almost 10,” he laughed. This is the same grit and passion that has propelled Patricio to help advance the agriculture industry by leaps and bounds. Almost everyone who knows him mentions his dedication to the ag community—especially when it comes to water rights and food safety. One thing that might surprise people, given his influential leadership in the industry, is that Patricio’s roots are not ag-based. Though he was born and raised in the farming-rich town of Los Banos, Patricio still considers himself a “city boy.” His grandfather opened a small grocery store in 1922, and eventually, his parents took over the store. The family was not one of farmers. “I had a lot of farming around me and many friends who farmed dairy, but we owned and operated the store.” Patricio left his hometown for Santa Clara University, where he graduated with an accounting degree in 1974. He immediately headed to San Jose to work for Arthur Young and Company, a national CPA firm, specializing in accounting for high-tech electronics. Not long after, family friend Jess Telles reached out looking for a young CPA for his large-scale farm. Patricio was not sure that getting into ag was something he wanted to do but agreed to take the position on a trial basis. The young accountant spent 99 percent of his day inside the TRI Produce office as a “bean counter,” learning all aspects of the business from the ground up. After 15 years as the chief financial officer, he was asked to also become the general manager of the melon operation, which is when he started working closely with growers on a daily basis. Patricio quickly learned that the key to success was to work with growers, not just for them. “They are proud of what they do, and they become farmers because they want to make their own choices. Whatever decision they made, I tried to support them,” he said. “This became the mantra of my life.”
In 1993, the TRI entities were split and sold, and Telles and Patricio launched a different type of venture. Their idea was to have a company act as a true resource for growers. Westside Produce was created to be, and still is, fully dedicated to acting as the liaison for growers to bring product from field to marketplace in the most efficient way possible. At no point in time would the company start growing their own melons. Westside Produce is a place where growers know their product does not have to compete for sales with the owner’s crop. Between streamlining TRI Produce’s melon business and launching Westside Produce, Patricio experienced his first melon food safety crisis. In 1992, the Centers for Disease Control announced that people were getting sick from eating cantaloupe. The news spread like wildfire and all sales stopped. New orders were not being taken and stores were pulling existing orders. “It was my job to go tell six to seven hundred people to stop picking, pack up their stuff and go home. The crews looked at me asking ‘how long’ and it made me sick to my stomach that I just really didn’t know,” said Patricio. “This was an epiphany point for me. I vowed to make food safety a priority in my life.” Not being able to respond to workers, consumers and media with scientifically-based research and knowledge about food safety and melons was a huge mistake for the industry, according to Patricio. He started working with University of California, Davis to conduct a food safety analysis of melons. The research, which was funded by industry, resulted in the development of the first “Commodity Specific Food Safety Guidance for Cantaloupes.”
Stephen Patricio with other members of theWG Executive Committee inWashington, D.C. during a lobbying trip.
6 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com JULY | AUGUST 2018
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