CALIFORNIA DIRECTOR PROFILE
Neill Callis Sales & General Management Turlock Fruit Company Turlock, CA
Director Since 2019 | Member Since 1944
From NASA to the Farm
By Tim Linden N ew Western Growers Board Member Neill Callis isn’t a rocket scientist, but he rubbed shoulders with plenty of them during a 17-year career at NASA prior to joining Turlock Fruit Company a half a dozen years ago. Callis’ story begins on the East Coast, where he was raised, educated and began his career at the Universities Space Research Association, a longtime National Aeronautics and Space Administration contractor. He grew up in Roanoke, VA, where his dad enjoyed a 27-year career with the Kroger Company in store operations. Both of his parents hailed from North Carolina, which is where the family spent many summer vacations and where Neill went off to college. He graduated from Elon University in 1997 with a degree in political science and an interest in working on Capitol Hill in some capacity. But the young man exhibited some economic savvy and decided to join NASA as a systems engineer, which had a brighter future than becoming an overworked and underpaid congressional staffer. “I worked in Washington D.C. for six years before I had the opportunity to transfer to the Bay Area in 2003,” he said. That proved to be another fortuitous decision as it was at NASA’s Universities Ames Research Center in Mountain View (about an hour south of San Francisco) where Neill met Hilary Smith, granddaughter of Don Smith, daughter of Steve Smith…and great granddaughter of the legendary Cantaloupe Smith, who started Turlock Fruit a century ago in 1918. “Hilary and I worked together on the SOFIA Mission for 10 years,” Neill said, explaining that the mission uses an airborne telescope mounted on a Boeing 747 to take pictures of the outer reaches of the universe. “Three to five times a week, the telescope uses infrared technology, 44,000 feet in the air to study the origins of the universe. It does phenomenal science,” he said, noting that SOFIA is an acronym for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.
Callis reiterated that he was not a scientist but rather a project manager and a systems engineer that processed the data and worked on the design of the project. Hilary also worked in the operations end of the effort becoming a project manager in her own right. And most importantly, Hilary and Neill clicked personally. They were married in 2006 and welcomed their first child into the world, Daniel, in 2011. Since then, in 2014, daughter Elin joined the family pod. But it was Daniel’s birth that had Hilary and Neill considering options for a different life. Living in San Francisco was great for a young couple, but with a family to think about and traffic congestion becoming more of a problem, the two of them started to explore other potential work sites around the country. “We were looking
for an exit,” said Neill. “Out of the blue, my father-in-law (Steve Smith) asked me if I’d consider joining the family farming operation. And so I did consider it. I am a methodical thinker. I analyzed the opportunity from every angle.” In 2012, just as the Jensen Farms’ Listeria outbreak put cantaloupes in a tailspin, Neill began what he calls “an internship” at
8 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com MARCH | APRIL 2019
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online