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William Grabemeyer Organic leadership H arold Ostenson, who has been a leader in the organic tree fruit indus- try in Washington for more than 25 years, received the Washington State Horticul- tural Association's second annual Organic Industry Service Award. After earning a bachelor's degree in psychology from Michigan State Univer- sity and a master's degree in psychology from the University of Michigan, Osten- son served with the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. In 1976, he bought a conventional orchard in Entiat, which he soon transi- tioned to organic, and several years later planted one of the first orchards on the Frenchman Hills, near George. He estab- lished an organic packing facility in George in 1997, and helped other organic growers to grow quality fruit so they could get the best returns. He pioneered the use of fish oil and lime sulfur as an organic fruit thinner, which has become a wide- spread practice. In 2005, Ostenson closed the packing house and went to work for Stemilt Grow- ers, Inc., Wenatchee, as its organic pro- gram coordinator. He retired from Stemilt in 2010 and now works as an organic consultant. s Distinguished service service awards by the Michigan State Hor- ticultural Society during the awards ban- quet at the Great Lakes Fruit, Vegetable, and Farm Market Expo in Grand Rapids December 7. Grabemeyer is most noted as a juice W grape grower, but he is part of a diversi- fied, 2,500-acre family farm that also raises field crops, vegetables, and apples. The farm's grapes are sold through the National Grape Cooperative and become Welch's grape products. Grabemeyer's farm near Dowagiac is in its 151st year in the Grabemeyer family. He was a director of the Michigan Grape Society and currently works with its win- ter and summer viticultural educational programs. He served on the Michigan State Horticultural Society's board and was president in 2001, the year the hort society and the Michigan Vegetable Coun- cil combined their efforts to create the Great Lakes Expo. He chairs the hort society's scholarship program. Hanson is Michigan State University's small fruit Extension specialist and is also in his 18th year as the coordinator of fruit educational programming for the Great Lakes Expo. www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER JANUARY 1, 2012 7 illiam Grabemeyer and Dr. Eric Hanson were given distinguished Dr. Eric Hanson Andy Sietsema Skip Sietsema Jim Engelsma Wally Heuser