Western Grower & Shipper 2019 Jan-Feb

McInerney Set to Retire after 43 Years with Western Growers

By Tim Linden A fter 43 years with Western Growers—the last 25 as the number two person—Western Growers Senior Executive Vice President Matt McInerney is retiring in March of 2019, after the association’s first board meeting of the year. McInerney grew up in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley, the youngest of five kids. His mother was a registered nurse and his father worked as a sales manager in the Keds shoe division of U.S. Rubber, and were very much believers in higher education. McInerney followed the lead of one older brother and went to the University of Southern California. He majored in Business Administration with an emphasis in marketing, but upon graduation didn’t have a clear idea of what career path he would take. “I graduated in 1975, which coincided with a dip in the economy,” he said. “I sent out a multitude of applications but I was finding it difficult to find full time employment.” A family friend with Belridge Farms in Bakersfield, CA, paved the way for an interview with WGA President Daryl Arnold, who was also an alumnus of USC and had a great affinity for the school. There was a position open at the association for a field representative. “Mr. Arnold encouraged me to give it a try for a few months at a salary of $900 per month,” Matt recalls. He spent the next two years on the road visiting members and pushing association products, such as the WGA Claims Service. “In those days, lots of freight moved in refrigerated rail cars through the Southern Pacific,” he said, noting that the department was busy helping shippers with claims. McInerney attempted to “sell” the service to members during his visits. “I spent two full weeks of every month on the road and half of the days the other two weeks. My territory was all of California and Arizona,” he said. He learned the produce business from the ground up from the top minds in the industry…and loved it. “I called on some incredible people. They welcomed me into their businesses and answered any questions I had with patience.” He recalls meeting industry veteran Paul Fleming of Admiral Packing many years ago wearing a coat and tie on a hot desert day. “It was mid-June and I was in the Imperial Valley during the cantaloupe season… and it was very hot. I was wearing a sports

coat and tie. Paul said to me ‘You must be new. Farmers don’t wear ties.’” He also recalls meeting Bill Ramsey of Mann Packing Company who gave the young WG employee a sense of the high regard in which farmers held their workers. “That has stuck with me all these years.” In 1977, McInerney had an opportunity to move to the

claims department, an area he worked in or oversaw for the entirety of his career from that point forward. He became fully immersed in the nuances of the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. In fact, he became one of the industry’s foremost experts on the subject, often participating in panel discussions from coast to coast, as well as conducting regular seminars for WG members and their sales teams. Discussing the

highlights of his career, it is work with the PACA that he lists first, recalling the extremely important passage of the PACA Trust amendment in 1984. He remembers the charge was led by John Norton, a politically active Arizona grower-shippers and cattleman, who was also a former WG chairman of the board. Patterned after a similar amendment in the livestock business, Norton advocated for the trust provision, which put produce suppliers in a priority position in the event of a bankruptcy by a firm on the buy side of the equation. Over the past 30 years, that provisions has helped the produce industry recoup hundreds of millions of dollars.

10   Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com   JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2019

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