The first was the realization that we weren’t going to be successful as a breeding company unless we also had the capabilities of doing production and sales. This meant building a production facility in a foreign country at a very early stage of development of the company. My parents started the company in 1962, and we started our first production company in Guatemala in 1966.

The next major change was deciding to concentrate solely on flowers. We started vegetable breeding in the late 60’s, and it had grown to be a sizeable part of our business. In the mid 80’s, we came to the conclusion that in order to build our vegetable business we needed to commit many more resources than we had. This contrasted greatly with our position in flowers, where we were one of the big names. It was at that time that we made the decision to divest ourselves of the vegetable seed business and we ended up selling that part of the company to NK in 1985.

It was this concentration of efforts back onto flowers that allowed us to begin the transition from the first generation of leadership to the second. My brothers and I were much more comfortable with flowers, and it also simplified the business itself. My parents started taking extended trips, which allowed for a slow, steady and very smooth transition. It also helped that the company was now big enough that each of us had our areas of interest for which we could take responsibility.