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ALMOND COMMUNITY Almond Board of California 16 First to Arrive, Last to Leave: Remembering Martin Pohl Martin Pohl, former president and co-founder of Hughson Nut, Inc., is being remembered across the almond community for his unique brand of leadership, humble spirit and strong dedication to the industry and people he so loved. Pohl passed peacefully on June 3, 2020, at his Hughson home following a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 82 years old. "I had the fortune to know Martin for the past 19 years and grew to learn many industry lessons from him," said Richard Waycott, president and CEO of the Almond Board of California (ABC). "I greatly admire Martin for the outstanding human being that he was and feel so appreciative of his constant willingness to share his knowledge. It saddens all of us here at ABC that we will no longer have Martin walking our halls, sharing his humor and experience with anyone who asked." Pohl was born October 8, 1937, in Modesto and raised on his family's ranch in Hughson where he lived all his life. Prior to developing his vast, diverse and respected experience in the almond business, he worked on his family's dairy farm – a short-lived experience that sparked a different career path for the young Pohl. According to those close to Pohl, he discovered early on that he didn't like milking cows, which led to his entry into the almond industry in 1961 operating harvesters. Driven by an ethic of hard work and a philosophy of "there has to be a better way" (as he put it in a leadership column from a past issue of How We Grow 1 ), Pohl spent the next couple decades improving efficiencies as a grower and huller/sheller and, eventually, as a processor. In 1985, along with founding partners Ham Cunningham and Cleo Barth, he started Hughson Nut, Inc., where he helped engineer the construction of a state-of-the-art facility located next to his family's hulling and shelling operation. Lori Coburn worked at Hughson Nut from 1986 to March 2020, collaborating daily with Pohl. "He had a passion for his employees," Coburn said. "Martin was non-pretentious and always took the approach of collaborating with his employees as a team member, rather than one of the owners of the company. He treated us like we were an extension of his family, constantly checking- up on how our families were doing, as well. He was the most humble, thoughtful and caring man one could know and work for, full of integrity and always ready to greet you with a warm smile. He was kind almost to a fault." Coburn also said Pohl was "a quiet warrior for the industry," noting that he did not seek the limelight but was always very engaged in new ideas and technologies to advance the almond industry's environmental and food safety performance. "He was quick to host a tour of the plant or orchards, always open to educating visitors as well as a multitude of legislators on all points of the globe including almond varieties, processing, food safety, sustainability and all of the challenges in between. "Martin was never ostentatious. He never introduced himself as one of the owners or the president of the company. Often, I'd have to let people know that Martin was the president and he'd say, 'I'm just a farmer.' He was diligent and hardworking; he'd often be the first in the office and one of the last to leave," Coburn said. Patriarch of the pasteurization program Friends and colleagues alike noted that while Pohl left behind a plethora of valuable, lasting contributions to the almond industry, one of his greatest achievements and acts of leadership centered on the creation and launch of the industry's groundbreaking mandatory pasteurization program. For Pohl, it was a deeply personal crusade. In 2001, Salmonella-tainted nuts from an orchard were processed at his facility 1 To read the full column, check out ABC's May/June 2019 issue of How We Grow: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1123864-2019-may-june-how-we-grow/1? "He was the most humble, thoughtful and caring man one could know and work for, full of integrity and always ready to greet you with a warm smile," remembers Coburn. Photo courtesy of Cindy Broughton "Over the years, Martin always made time for any of our technical requests, even if they 'came out of left field' and were focused on innovative options of 'what could be' for the California almond industry of the future." — Karen Lapsley, Ph.D. Continue on page 17