MEET JOHN O'BRIEN
Come Explore
ABOUT
Throughout my life, I’ve approached every challenge with enthusiasm, creativity, and ceaseless desire to achieve success. This passion and drive paved the way to countless opportunities, unique experiences and exceptional relationships, both personally and professionally. If you’re interested in learning more about me or have potential opportunities, keep reading or get in touch.
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BIOGRAPHY
Born in Peoria, Illinois, the oldest of three sons of John and Maxine O’Brien, John graduated from Bradley University in 1956, majoring in economics and liberal arts. He was a member of Alpha Kappa Psi and Honorary Scholastic Society Zati Phi. At the age of 14, John began working part time. John worked for the Kroger Company while in school. He worked in all areas of the store and became assistant manager while attending high school. John worked forty hours a week while attending college and graduated in three years. After graduating from college, John became a grocery buyer for Kroger. His next step was a promotion to methods engineer, building and opening Kroger stores. Following that, he managed his first Kroger store in Peoria, Illinois. At the age of 24, John was offered a promotion to take over management of one of Kroger's largest stores in Springfield, Illinois. This store was experiencing operation issues. Under his management, the store became profitable and very successful. John worked at Kroger for ten years.
While John was advancing in his career at Kroger, his cousin, Bob Rutledge, recruited him to the citrus industry. In 1962, Bob represented all of the Florida citrus growers as president of Florida Citrus Mutual. John joined Lykes Pasco Corporation in Dade City, Florida as a program manager for a new orange juice program called Vitality. He worked with 70 exclusive food service distributers, many of which later became the foundation of the Sysco food service company. The Vitality program was designed to utilize high quality frozen concentrate from Valencia oranges to be dispensed by a special machine. John worked with Minneapolis Honeywell to develop a positive displacement pump and machine that revolutionized the methods of dispensing orange and other juice products.
In 1967 Jack Hume asked that I join American Potato and move to California for two specific assignments. First, I was to execute a food service operation. Second, I was to create a French fry from potato granules; in the form of either frozen or regular French fries. I was confident that I could accomplish both of these assignments and I agreed to join the company.
It was a difficult decision to leave Florida because of the outstanding opportunities in front of me. However, when I joined the American Potato Company, I found great cooperation and an outstanding research operation that was even better than what I anticipated. As is always the case, there were some surprises. One branch of the company, Basic Vegetable, was managed by Jerry Hume, Jack’s son. In the second year of my time at the company there was a major crises that threatened it’s very existence. I was asked to give Jerry a major amount of my time and experience to assist the company from failing. I assisted him in causing the company to be able to overcome the severe threats and to make it not only survive, but to become stronger through creating new customers and become strong and viable once again. This experience resulted in my getting to know Jerry and the onion and garlic business very well. Jerry was a great partner to work with. I built long-term friendships with the people in the company that always endured between us, especially with Jerry.
The other factor that has occurred throughout my experience in my business career is I have surmounted failures. For example, the Savings and Loan breakup of 1986 caused my company to suffer great financial losses and have to completely rebuild. I learned a very valuable lesson; you learn more from failures than from any success that you might achieve, and that is you can go forward to become an even better leader and manager for the future.
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John left the citrus industry in 1968 to join the American Potato Company in San Francisco, California as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Over the next 18 years, he served as President of the American Potato Company, manager of the onion and garlic company, Basic Vegetable which was an industrial company, and the combined company, Basic American Foods.
Under John’s leadership, the companies changed from industrial supply companies with five customers, to a mainly potato food service company with new products, which developed an 80% market share on all products sold. The onion and garlic business remained in the industrial channel and was sold separately to those industrial accounts. John and his team took the potato business from modest sales to revenues in the millions, with high percentage profits. John and his team created two new concepts for dehydrated food service products. The first was co-branding, which was achieved by partnering their invented potato products, i.e. dehydrated mashed potatoes and hash brown potatoes, with large national companies. These products were only available at American Potato because they were the only company that had the technology to offer high quality dehydrated potato products. This caused large companies such a Kraft, Heinz, General Mills, McCormick, and others, to be able to sell these unique products under our co-brand concept. He also introduced the use of milk carton gallon Pure Packs for the food service of dehydrated potatoes. Both concepts revolutionized the food service industry. John left Basic American foods in the late 1980’s after working with the two sons of the principle owner, Jack Hume.
John attributes much of his potato career to the vision and direction of Jack Hume. He brought John to California and the west. He and his brother had accomplished the reintroduction of dehydrated garlic, after the process had been forgotten and lost for 2,000 years, originally invented in Egypt. Mr. Hume’s company, American Potato, had a superb technical group made up of former nuclear engineers. Many were recent top university chemical engineers, along with others who brought innovative potato products to the market. This is what made American Potato and created its future, people who represented the best in the world of dehydration, and did things no one had ever succeeded in accomplishing. Those people included Joe Rainwater, Jerry Beck, Deno Shatila, Sam Huffman, and Lyle Parks, among others. In management, Keith Erdman, Jack Hume, and later, John, hired these people and kept them together as highly competitive individuals and as a team. In marketing and sales management, John, John McCardle, John Caple, Jim Walters, Ed Werth, Pete Mays, Harold Archibald, and others. These people had to introduce the company to the industry and create lines of distribution. John regards this as a wonderful pioneering experience.
Next, John was a partner in commercial real estate and purchased a ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he owned a legendary Arabian stallion named *Padron, which he syndicated for $11 million. In late 1992, John, wishing to return to the food business, joined Winnemucca Farms as President with an option to purchase the company. John and Ron Offutt purchased the company in November of 1999. Winnemucca Farms/US Foods is notable for tripling its sales, and developing technology to become the low cost producer in the industry. The introduction of the Paradise Valley® Creamy Mash® product line garnered a market share as it is the only all-natural mashed potato in the retail market. Winnemucca Farms was the largest supplier for Procter and Gambles® Pringles potato chips. John retired from active management in 2012. He retained a portion of his ownership of the farming company and is still active in other business ventures.
EDUCATION
My Studies
BS BRADLEYÂ UNIVERSITY
1954Â - 1956
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL
1974-1975
MBA PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY
1980-1981
MY EXPERIENCE
Roles & Responsibilities
PRESIDENT, WINNEMUCCA FARMS
1992 - 2012
John joined Winnemucca Farms/US Foods in 1992 and is notable for tripling its sales, and developing technology to become the lowest cost producer in the industry. During his time as President he introduced the Paradise Valley® Creamy Mash® product line which garnered a market share as the only all-natural mashed potato in the retail market. Additionally, Winnemucca Farms was the largest supplier for Procter and Gambles® Pringles potato chips. John retired from active management in 2012. He retained a portion of his ownership of the farming company and is still active in other business ventures.
Becoming president of Winnemucca Farms was a major challenge. The reason is there was no management group, no infrastructure, and the accounting was almost non-existent, the company was losing money. The founder, Claire Krakaw had died, and the two sons concentrated on growing potatoes and running the fresh business. The processing part was in total disarray and had no goals, was losing money, it was a shell of an operation. My first position was to bring in two people who could be the core of my management team. First, my operations manager, Sam Huffman, who had been one of the key research people at American Potato and Basic American, and went on to run his families cheese operation. He is a chemical engineer and an outstanding person. The second manager I sought was a lawyer from Boise who had worked in the White House, and a veteran from Viet Nam, a person I got to know and was very impressed with. He joined me to handle the personnel and to interface with all the government activities we would have to work with to manage the company. Those two people were the core I would use to manage Winnemucca Farms. That took me to the beginning to building the nucleus to move forward. Then our task was to build the business in processing and to get the farm to be the source of our raw material, using the potatoes we needed. It was obvious we needed a large customer. I had a long term relationship with Proctor & Gamble. I began building that relationship where we had a goal of being the lowest cost producer to take care of P & G and to be profitable in servicing them. The processing plant had no direction and was making 4 different products in the frozen, potato granule, flake, and hash brown businesses. We immediately decided to focus only on potato flakes, to make them better and simpler, with the fewest possible additives, and to go forward as a low cost producer. Sam focused on the work force, where immediately many of our work force had no focus. We set about picking the best people, and those that were not desirable. Those who not desirable and did not have the potential to be trained were eliminated. Those we felt who had a future and wanted to work with the company, we chose those and many of them could not speak English. We sent up English classes after work with a teacher and set about giving instruction in English where everyone had the opportunity to learn English. So, we had a program for our workers and in addition to that, a strong instruction program on how to conduct themselves in being the best employees at the company. Sam Huffman went about doing that and at the same time began innovating the equipment and making it more efficient and requiring fewer people while increasing the throughput in a major way that we didn’t believe any of the other people in the industry were doing. That became the pattern for the company. In a few years our capacity and our production per person and per drum was, according to P&G, the greatest throughput in the industry and our costs reflected that. Then we went forward to invent an all -natural mashed potato that was unique, where we were able to have the first all-natural mashed potato in the world. It was very successful. Then we joined up with Ron Offutt and Al Knowl, our company was able to flourish. The fact that we had been very limited on funds as a company, then our hands were untied and the company was able to expand even further, the future was very bright for Winnemucca Farms as it went forward. It allowed our team to combine all of the experience we had jointly in our years of working in all facets of the processing business. That was reflected in us being awarded the most outstanding company in Nevada by the governor in 1994.
PRESIDENT, AMERICAN POTATO, BASIC VEGETABLE, & BASIC AMERICAN FOODS
1968 - 1987
John joined the American Potato Company in San Francisco, California as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He went on to become President of the American Potato Company and manager of the Onion and Garlic Company, Basic Vegetable, and the combined company, Basic American Foods. Under John’s leadership, the companies changed from an industrial supply companies with five customers, to a food service company with new products which developed a large market share on all products sold. John took the company from modest sales to revenues in the millions, with high percentage profits.
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PROGRAMÂ MANAGER, LYKES PASCO CORPORATION
1962 - 1968
John joined Lykes Pasco Corporation in Dade City, Florida as a program manager for a new orange juice program called Vitality. He worked with 70 exclusive food service distributers, many of which later became the foundation of the Sysco food service company. The Vitality program was designed to utilize high quality frozen concentrate from Valencia oranges to be dispensed by a special machine. During this time, John worked with Minneapolis Honeywell to develop a positive displacement pump that revolutionized the methods of dispensing orange and other juice products.
MANAGER, KROGER
1952 - 1962
Manager of one of the Kroger company’s largest store in Springfield, Illinois. Under his management, the store became profitable and very successful. John worked at Kroger for ten years.
RECOGNITIONS & AWARDS
NEVADA MAN OF THE YEAR
1986
Awarded by Governor Bob Miller
BREAKTHROUGH
1968
Developed the use of milk carton for dry matter i.e. dehydrated hash browns and mashed potatoes.
CITRUS WORLD MAN OF THE YEAR
1966
Awarded for invention of the positive citrus pump and dispenser.
NEVADA MAN OF THE YEAR
1986
This is a brief and concise description of your personal/professional award or recognition. Take the opportunity to explain why you were selected, and any other helpful details to showcase your talents.
BREAKTHROUGH
1995
Developed first all-natural potato in the retail market: Creamy Mash/Honest Earth dehydrated mashed potatoes.
PATENT
2004
Awarded for "On the Go" food device to consume finger food with a flexible pouch or container with an attached spoon. The invention has an application in the food and drug industry for items such as baby food, soups, yogurt, jams, peanut butter, desserts, and many others.
ORGANIZATIONS
YOUNG PRESIDENT'S ORGANIZATION
Member
DOMINICAN COLLEGE
Former Trustee
VICTORIA STATION RESTAURANT COMPANY
Former Board of Directors
WINNEMUCCA FARMS INC.
Retired Board of Directors
MENTORS
To give you a bit more background on who I am, I’m happy to share some of the individuals who have had a major effect on my life.
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​There are many people who have served as mentors to me and contributed greatly to who I am. In particular, there are six people who have been the main ingredients and account for the progress in my professional life. These mentors have no responsibility for my failures, from which I have also learned much. I have made brief comments on my mentors, there is so much more to each of them. My life would not be what it is without their help and belief in me. It was not always peaches and cream, but I would want it no other way.
WADE GARDNER, KROGER
"Dream your dream. Anything is possible. Never give up."
Wade was the store manager at Kroger who John first met when he was 14 years old, and beginning his professional work career while attending Spalding All Boys High School in Peoria, Illinois, taught by the Benedictine priests and brothers. The Kroger Supermarket was only three blocks away from the school. Wade taught many things to this impressionable young man. First and foremost was: to dream your dream and that anything is possible. Second, to never give up no matter how many setbacks and disappointments you may have. Wade should know. He was part of the Bataan Death March in the Philippines when he was captured he weighed over 200 pounds and when he was freed by the Americans (one of the few that hadn’t died), he weighed less than 100 pounds. He was a personal hero to John and his example is something he never forgot. This encouraged John to always follow his dream, and he was very enthusiastic and learned many lessons from Wade as a mentor.
BOB SAFFRON, KROGER
"Be the best and achieve excellence at all times."
Bob had many managerial assignments at the Kroger division John worked at over the years, and took a personal interest in him. He monitored John's working program as he learned the various assignments in the store over the years. During this time, John went through high school and became an assistant manager and oversaw that store as a supervisor. Bob was meticulous in his standards for John and his philosophy was: be the best you can be. Your performance should be second to none in whatever assignment that you have. Through Bob's guidance John was promoted to methods engineer to build new Kroger stores throughout the territory. John then became assistant grocery buyer for the division and finally managed his own store after he graduated from college where he had been an assistant manager while going to college. And finally, in John's early twenties he ran one of the largest Kroger stores in America during which he had the opportunity to host a Russian delegation who came to see a supermarket for the first time. Shortly after this Bob Saffron was promoted to the headquarters of Kroger in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later became Executive Vice President of Kroger. John has said that he was among the most demanding managers that he ever worked for in his desire to be the best and to achieve excellence at all times. Bob held that standard to others and accepted no excuses regardless of the circumstances. John believes his experience working for Bob kept him in very good stead for the rest of his career.
BOB RUTLEDGE, FLORIDA CITRUS MUTUAL
"Promote and create new ideas. Be a uniter."
Bob was Executive Vice President for Florida Citrus Mutual. He was also John's cousin and a person he always admired. John attributed his transition from the grocery business to the citrus industry to him. Bob consolidated all of the citrus growers in Florida into an association that worked with the processors so that together they could be mutually profitable in the frozen citrus market, which made up the majority of the orange juice business in Florida. He thought that was an outstanding opportunity for John at the time. After a great deal of soul searching and guidance from Bob, John joined Lykes Pasco to take part in the development of an orange juice machine program. John saw this as great opportunity and had creative control and freedom over the program. John developed an entirely new technology working with Minneapolis Honeywell, a positive displacement pump which was the first of its kind for an orange juice dispenser product. This machine was able to provide an outstanding product to the restaurant, hotel, and hospital industries which truly revolutionized how marketing orange juice changed the industry. John's entrance into the citrus business allowed him to initiate and create excitement on all levels of the business that he was involved with. John will never forget the successes and friendships that he made with the growers, producers, and industries of products and the people that consume them – so began many life-long friendships. This experience and mentorship gave John the opportunity to rethink opportunities, and ultimately led him to the potato business.
JACK HUME, THE AMERICAN POTATO COMPANY & BASIC VEGETABLE PRODUCTS
"Think big. To succeed, hire the best people. Use new technology to achieve a competitive advantage. Never give up."
Jack Hume and his brother Bill, graduates of Harvard Business School 1928 and 1929, had a dream to reinvent dehydrated garlic which had not been done for 2,000 years since the Egyptians. It turned out to be quite a difficult chore and after working throughout Western America, Texas, California, etc., it was late in the 1930’s before they found a possible seed variety that would dehydrate. Jack and his brother had an inheritance from their father, who was a well-to-do gentleman from Indianapolis, Indiana, and they secured a line of credit from A.P. Giannini of the Bank of America to build a plant in 1938 and 1939 in Vacaville, California. One problem developed after ten years they had been working: they reached out to the market and no one wanted to buy the product. They went back to Mr. Giannini and told him they couldn’t repay his loan. He told them he still had confidence and to just to keep working at it and things would work out. The war came, and the government bought everything they could make. The product was greatly successful, and the company had a wonderful business and a great future--and a long-time association with the Bank of America.
Later, Jack Hume started The American Potato Company. Over the course of two years John received several calls from Jack Hume who was interested in his experience in the citrus and food business. He wanted John to come to California and join his company. This served as a major turning point in John's life and John made the decision to leave his citrus career in Florida and move to San Francisco to work for American Potato. John spent 17 years with him.
Jack Hume was also responsible as one of those who encouraged Ronald Reagan to run for Governor and also for President. He was quite an individual and truly a great man. When Jack made up his mind, he followed through, no matter what obstacles he faced. Over the years John worked with Jack, they had many productive and lively discussions that were not always easy, but Jack was a great mentor, and this relationship was maintained until Jack’s passing.
RON OFFUTT AND AL KNOLL, R.D. OFFUTT
"Pick the best parts of small businesses and bring them together for optimum performance. Soulmates"
Soulmates. Pick the best parts of small businesses and bring them together for optimum performance—farms, Idahoan, and John Deere distributors. John became a partner with Ron Offutt in Winnemucca Farms and it was quite an experience to work with him and Al Knoll. Unlike any of John's other associates, Ron had many opportunities for acquisitions. Many times we would explore the potato dehydrated opportunities before Ronnie met the people and did the background work and then the final discussion would be made after the analysis when Al and Ronnie would personally make the final decision. So unique and special was the professional chemistry between Ron and Al that John never saw or has since seen anything quite like it. It’s not like that of two brothers, two partners, one working for the other, or such. It was beyond friendship, deeper than that, rather business soulmates. In watching these things happen as John did many times, it impressed him that the two of them communicated in such a way that was free of worry about hurting somebody’s feelings—just trying to do the right thing and get a correct answer as if they were almost one. It was inexplicable. The way the two of them worked together left a significant impression on John. John recalls when he worked in Florida with Bill Edwards and his brother Mark at Lykes Pasco, who were pioneer innovators in the frozen orange juice industry. But even as brothers, their overviews didn’t necessarily come together. Whereas with Ronnie and Al, they could manage conflict in a way that the right answers still came forward and their views eventually fused. John often wondered if he could ever achieve anything like it. It was a working arrangement--not something that extended to all periods of their lives. It was very special and natural—it just happened. It’s not something that would make the management books, but in John's opinion without that chemistry there could not have been such a great success at the RDO company as the sum of those two individuals is far greater than any one of them. John feels so lucky to know the two of them as a team, and see their symbiosis in action. They are truly great men and John can best identify them as soulmates in business.
PHOTO GALLERY
MY SKILLS
Tricks of the Trade
PATENT INNOVATION
Creativity and Foresight
MANUFACTURE AND PROCESS DESIGN
Raising the Bar
CORPORATE CONSULTING
A Valuable Skill
"Unto yourself be true, and never give up"
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"You learn more from your failures than your successes"