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Joseph Miles Reiter (born circa 1950) is an American farmer and entrepreneur, and the outgoing CEO of Driscoll's, Inc., a global agribusiness specializing in fresh year-round berry production. [1]
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Joseph Miles Reiter (born circa 1950) is an American farmer and entrepreneur, and the outgoing CEO of Driscoll's, Inc., a global agribusiness specializing in fresh year-round berry production. [1]
Miles Reiter is the grandson of Joseph "Ed" Reiter, co-founder along with R.O. Driscoll of the Driscoll's berry company. [2] [3] The Reiter family owns around 70 percent of the company, which - aside from berry production - develops and licenses the fruits’ proprietary breeds. [4] Following the family tradition, after graduation from Princeton University, he became a strawberry farmer in around 1970 in the Pajaro Valley, and became the chairman of Driscoll's in 1998, becoming CEO in 2000. [5] Reiter works at Driscoll's corporate office in Watsonville, California at the mouth of the Pajaro Valley. His daughter, Brie Reiter Smith, is following family tradition, farming blueberries in Chile, and his son is farming strawberries in Santa Maria, California. [6]
Under Reiter's stewardship, Driscoll's has become the largest berry supplier in the United States. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] He has served as chairman of the board of the California Strawberry Commission and of the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. He serves on the boards of the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) and has been a director of the Western Growers Association since November 2006. He served as a director of Produce Marketing Association from October 2008 to October 2011. [12]
In April 2015, Reiter announced that Kevin Murphy, the company's then president and COO, would assume the CEO role. [13] J. Miles Reiter continues as chairman of the board. [14]
In November 2018, Reiter reassumed the position of CEO. [15]
In October 2023, Driscolls Board of Directors announced Soren Bjorn would elevate to the CEO position and succeed Reiter who is set to retire in January 2024. [16]
Reiter has worked to improve strawberry varieties, expanding on the original Sweet Briar strawberries variety.[ third-party source needed ] Additional innovations in the industry have resulted in year-round production of fruit, making a steady presence of fruit in the supermarkets. [17] In 2009, under Reiter's stewardship, growers for the Driscoll's berry company opened three low-cost medical clinics that serve their 18,000 seasonal farm workers and family members in Watsonville, Santa Maria, and Oxnard. [18] In 2007, Reiter put a conservation easement on 103 acres of farmland to help save the Pajaro Valley from citification. [19]
Reiter has spoken publicly about the need for groundwater reform in California agriculture. He has written an editorial statement published in 2015.
In addition, Reiter plays an active role in support of CERES. [21]
Santa Cruz County, officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Santa Cruz–Watsonville, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area. The county is on the California Central Coast, south of the San Francisco Bay Area region. The county forms the northern coast of the Monterey Bay, with Monterey County forming the southern coast.
Pajaro is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Monterey County, California. It is located on the south bank of the Pajaro River 5 miles (8 km) northeast of its mouth, at an elevation of 26 feet (7.9 m). The population was 2,882 at the 2020 census, down from 3,070 in 2010. The school district is in Santa Cruz County.
Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, in the Monterey Bay Area of the Central Coast of California. The population was 52,590 at the 2020 census. Predominantly Latino and Democratic, Watsonville is a self-designated sanctuary city.
Adolph Claus J. Spreckels was a major industrialist in Hawai'i during the kingdom, republican, and territorial periods of the islands' history. He also involved himself in several California enterprises, most notably the company that bears his name, Spreckels Sugar Company.
The Santa Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific Railway is operated as a seasonal tourist attraction in Northern California, also referred to as the "Beach Train". Its partner line, the Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad, is a heritage railroad.
The Rancho San Andrés Castro Adobe is a historically and architecturally significant house located in the Pájaro Valley, California. The two-story Rancho San Andrés Castro Adobe is a historic rancho hacienda that was built between 1848 and 1849.
The Pajaro River is a U.S. river in the Central Coast region of California, forming part of the border between San Benito and Santa Clara Counties, the entire border between San Benito and Santa Cruz County, and the entire border between Santa Cruz and Monterey County. Flowing roughly east to west, the river empties into Monterey Bay, west of Watsonville, California.
Jason Jessee is an American professional skateboarder and automotive designer best known for his stint with Santa Cruz Skateboards in the late 1980s. He was identified as the 24th most influential skateboarder of all time by TransWorld SKATEboarding magazine in 2011. The feature documentary Pray for Me: The Jason Jessee Film was released in 2007.
Driscoll's is a California-based seller of fresh strawberries and other berries. It is a fourth-generation family business that has been in the Reiter and Driscoll families since the late 1800s. In 2017, it controlled roughly one-third of the $6 billion U.S. berry market. Headquartered in Watsonville, California, Driscoll's develops proprietary breeds of berries and then licenses them exclusively through approved growers.
Luis Angel Alejo is an American politician who served in the California State Assembly representing the 30th Assembly District, encompassing the Pajaro and Salinas valleys. He currently serves as a County Supervisor for the County of Monterey.
Rancho Bolsa del Pajaro was a 5,496-acre (22.24 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Cruz County, California given in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Sebastian Rodríguez. The name means "pocket of the Pajaro". Pocket usually refers to land surrounded by slough - in this case the Watsonville Slough. The grant extended from Monterey Bay to present-day Watsonville with the Pajaro River as its southern boundary.
Jim Cochran is an organic strawberry farmer, who was the first person to grow strawberries organically on a commercial scale in California.
The Watsonville riots was a period of racial violence that took place in Watsonville, California, from January 19 to 23, 1930. Involving violent assaults on Filipino American farm workers by local white residents opposed to immigration, the riots highlighted the racial and socioeconomic tensions in California's agricultural communities.
John C. "Bud" Colligan is a community activist, social entrepreneur, investor and company builder. He was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom as his senior advisor for international affairs and trade in March, 2019. He is co-founder of the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEP), co-founder of the non-profit community-development organization Pacific Community Ventures, former partner at Accel Partners, a global venture capital firm, and former chairman and CEO of Macromedia, a multimedia software company.
The Santa Cruz Railroad was a narrow gauge railroad that ran 21 miles from Santa Cruz to Pajaro, California. It started operation in 1874, running from the east bank of the San Lorenzo River to Soquel, California. With completion of a bridge over the San Lorenzo, it began operation over its full length in 1876 and was sold in foreclosure in 1881.
The Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay Railroad (SCMB), or Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line (SCBRL), is a historic railway running through Santa Cruz County, California. It once ran operationally from Davenport to the Watsonville Junction where it connected to the Union Pacific Coast Line. Over the years it has had many splays and connections to other local railroads over, through, and around the Santa Cruz Mountains. It is still active today, including a connection with the Roaring Camp Railroads line that makes regular trips between Felton and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The Suntan Special was a summer excursion train service operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California, from 1927 to 1959.
The Monterey County Rail Extension is a planned commuter rail extension that would bring Caltrain passenger service south of its existing Gilroy, California terminus to Salinas in Monterey County, using the existing Coast Line owned by Union Pacific (UPRR). Implementation of the rail extension will occur over three phases, starting from Salinas and moving north. When construction is complete, there will be four trains operated over the extended line per weekday: two northbound trains that depart from Salinas and travel to San Francisco in the morning, and two southbound trains that return to Salinas in the afternoon.
Strawberries in the United States are almost entirely grown in California – 86% of fresh and 98% of frozen in 2017 – with Florida a distant second. Of that 30.0% was from Monterey, 28.6% from Ventura, 20.0% from Santa Barbara, 10.0% from San Luis Obispo, and 9.2% from Santa Cruz. The Watsonville/Salinas strawberry zone in Santa Cruz/Monterey, and the Oxnard zone in Ventura, contribute heavily to those concentrations.