Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/717894
54 SEPTEMBER 2016 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com LAST BITE More Young Growers at goodfruit.com/yg Jared Gidley grower / Parkdale, Oregon age / 31 crops / Pears and cherries business / Orchard View Inc., Gidley Ag Management family background / Jared is a fi rst-generation farmer who worked several orchard jobs growing up in Parkdale, Oregon. He has a daughter, Kate, is the son of Jim and Joyce Gidley, and his wife, Kathryn, grew up in a farming family. " " " How did you get your start? I got my taste of farming when I was about 15 years old, thinning Bartlett pears. I think it would take me about a day to thin one tree. I hated it, but I made it through the summer. Years later, I started working for a cherry orchard planting trees in the spring, did irrigation work, weed spraying and mowing — just about everything — and I found myself loving the pace of it. I ended up doing it every summer from high school through college and it helped me get through school. How did you make the transition to agriculture? When I was in college, I pursued economics. I thought I'd have it made and there were jobs everywhere. It didn't happen that way. My fi rst job out of college was not in fi nance, it was for a roofi ng company. I ended up getting laid off right before cherry harvest, so I jumped right back into harvest. It was something I could just jump in and do. When the season was over, I started looking for a "real job" and I found one at a bank. When I realized that banking wasn't for me, a job opened up at a packing house in Hood River as a fi eld representa- tive. I've been working as a fi eld representative for about six harvests now. What can other young growers learn from being a fi eld representative? As a fi eld representative, I'm a liai- son between the packing house and the grower. So I am always working through issues with the market, fruit quality, scheduling of the fruit. Basically I'm that person on the front line of relay- ing all the information from one cen- tral source to 20 to 30 sources. One thing I didn't expect when I took the job was how personal relation- ships can get between grower and representative. There are intense periods of the year, and sometimes you are with them every day, sometimes mul- tiple times a day checking on them. You really get to know the people you work with on a very in-depth, professional level. " There are plenty of challenges starting out so you need to be pretty determined. PLAY goodfruit.com/yg scan to watch the interview www.gslong.com SPONSORED BY by TJ Mullinax More from this interview and other Young Growers at goodfruit.com/yg.