[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 92 (Friday, June 25, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1406]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       CONGRATULATING CALIFORNIA FAMILY BUSINESS AWARD FINALISTS

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                         HON. GEORGE RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 25, 1999

  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the 
Finalists for the first ever California Family Business Award. Ten 
Businesses from Bakersfield to Atwater are among the finalists.
  Alert-O-Lite, Inc. in Fresno, provides traffic control and 
construction supply sales and rentals, and also operates a sign 
division, Signmax! The company has grown rapidly since its founding in 
1971 by Eddie Hunsaker and Jake Jensen. Hunsaker bought out his partner 
in 1979 and brought his four children as partners in 1981. Revenues 
have doubled in the last seven years, and the company currently has 
three locations and 27 full-time employees. Alert-O-Lite was presented 
with the Top 5 Business Award in 1996.
  Droogh Dairy in Lemoore, presently milking 1,100 cows with a herd 
size of 2,200, was founded by Case Droogh and his wife Corrie. They 
started in the dairy business in 1953 with a small farm in Paramount, 
California and several years later built a dairy with a herd size of 
350 in Chino. They moved their dairy from Chino to Lemoore in 1974. In 
1987 they remodeled to accommodate more than 1,000 cows and added a 
state-of-the-art milking system, fully computerized machines, and 5,000 
acres of farmland for growing feed.
  Ennis Homes in Porterville develops and builds single family and 
multifamily residential housing and professional offices and commercial 
complexes in the Central Valley. The company has grown tremendously in 
the past five years, with developments in Porterville, Tulare, Handford 
and Bakersfield. In 1995 it was named ``Builder of the Year'' by the 
Building Industry Association of Tulare and Kings County. Ennis Homes, 
founded in 1979 by Ben Ennis and his wife Roberta, was known as Ennis 
Development Corporation until March 1998.
  Gray Lift, Inc. in Fresno, which provides material handling 
equipment, was established in 1957 by John L. Waugh, Sr. and Will Gray. 
From a single location in Fresno with nine employees and five service 
vehicles, it presently operates throughout 14 counties with 
approximately 160 full-time employees and more than 70 service 
vehicles. It has added branches in Bakersfield, Santa Maria and 
Manteca, California. Three new divisions have been created since 1985; 
Forklift Wholesale Co., Warehouse Systems, and Construction Rental 
Services.
  Grimmway Farms in Bakersfield is a fully integrated carrot and 
processed operation, from planting and growing to packing, processing 
and marketing. Grimmway harvests carrots from a total of 40,000 acres 
annually, with nearly half of the acreage devoted to ``baby'' carrots. 
The cut-and-peeled carrots account for more than half of the total 
dollar volume. To provide their buyers with year-round supplies, the 
company sources carrots from Bakersfield, Lancaster, the Imperial 
Valley and the Cuyama area in California, as well as Colorado.

  Hester Orchard, Inc. in Visalia grows plums, walnuts, and oranges, 
dehydrates walnuts and pecans, and provides compost spreading and truck 
services. The farming operation started in 1940 with John Hester and 
his wife Ruth. In 1980, Hester Farms built a permanent office site to 
meet its growing needs. It is now farming 710 acres of owned and leased 
property in permanent tree crops. Commercial services include walnut 
harvesting; walnut hulling and drying at the rate of 220 tons per day; 
pecan hulling and drying; rental of dry storage space; and trucking.
  Horstmann Financial and Insurance Services in Fresno has been 
providing life insurance services to Valley residents since 1958. John 
E. Horstmann is the founder of the company and is run by two 
generations of the family. In 1990, John Horstmann and seven other 
estate and business planners from across the country founded a national 
resource center for estate and business succession planning, based in 
Dallas. From the original eight members, the group has grown to include 
more than 100 professionals.
  J.D. Heiskell & Co. in Tulare, has been in operation since 1886. They 
recently were named the highest volume single feed production facility 
in the United States, with nearly twice the volume of its nearest 
competitor. It was started by Jefferson Davis Heiskell as a branch of 
the Farmer's Union Warehouse Company of Stockton. Heiskell supervised 
the construction and operation of the Tulare Warehouse and a subsequent 
one in Delano. A decade later he bought the grain storage facility and 
later expanded into grain sales. In 1972, J.D. Heiskell and Co. built a 
modern computer-operated feed mill on its property. The company also 
owns and operates retail farm stores in Tulare, Visalia and 
Porterville. It is in its fourth generation of family operation.
  Joseph Gallo Farms in Atwater operates 12,000 acres of land, raising 
five varieties of wine grapes, dairy cattle, dairy feed and cheese. It 
was founded in 1946 by Joseph Gallo, who owns Joseph Gallo Farms with 
his son Michael, CEO, and daughter Linda Gallo Jelacich. Gallo started 
out growing wine grapes, then cultivated other crops, as well as 
cattle, for market. The farm moved into milking in 1979, built a 
cheese-processing plant in 1982, began generic cheese processing in 
1983, and developed the Joseph Farms brand in 1984. Joseph Farms, which 
processes approximately one million pounds of milk daily into award 
winning cheese, is presently the largest selling, California-brand 
retail cheese. It is sold in more than 20 states and in Mexico, the 
South Pacific, Guam, the Caribbean, and Japan.
  Lyles Diversified, Inc. in Fresno, is involved in shopping center and 
business park developments, real estate rental operations, underground 
pipeline and utility construction, heavy concrete and mechanical 
construction, manufacturing of closed circuit television surveillance 
equipment, and agricultural operations. The business was started as a 
proprietorship in 1945 by W.M. Lyles and Elizabeth V. Lyles, as a 
contractor specializing in oil field underground pipelines. It soon 
expanded into other types of underground construction; added orchard in 
1974; started acquiring apartment complexes in the early 1970's, and 
later added office and hotel properties; and in the mid to late 1970's 
began to develop land for industrial and commercial use. It has grown 
into an organization consisting of Lyles Diversified, Inc., seven 
subsidiary corporations, and numerous partnerships. Three generations 
of Lyles family members currently are involved.
  The winner of the California Family Business Award was J.D. Heiskell 
& Co. These businesses have all shown tremendous growth and 
achievement. I urge my colleagues to join me in wishing J.D. Heiskell & 
Co. along with the finalists, many more years of continued success.

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