Spirited, trim and energetic, Lynda Resnick could give the impression that success has come easily to her.
But in a keynote address to UCLA Anderson’s 6th annual Velocity Women’s Leadership Summit, Resnick, co-owner and vice-chair of the Wonderful Company, demonstrated the resilience that has made her a powerful force in California agriculture and philanthropy.
Together with her husband Stewart, Resnick co-owns the $4 billion Wonderful Company, whose brands include FIJI Water, POM Wonderful, Teleflora and Halo mandarins. Lynda Resnick is in charge of the Los Angeles-based company’s global marketing and product development.
But she was a young mom when she established her own advertising agency in the 1960s. And in her address to an enthusiastic audience at the 2018 Velocity summit, she made clear that she has her own #MeToo stories to tell from that era. “Anyone here ever see Mad Men?” she asked. “I rest my case.”
Resnick described her efforts to improve health, education and housing options for her company’s Central Valley employees. She has established charter schools and health clinics in in Lost Hills and Delano, along with a community park with state-of-the-art lighted basketball courts and Almond Village, an off-grid, affordable housing complex for some of the agricultural workers her company employs. Resnick, now 74, said, “When most people start thinking about retirement, I started thinking about my second career. I wanted to repay my success by working in the service of others.
“I went to work at age 19 and I persevered,” she told the Velocity audience, which included Girl Scouts from local high schools. “We’re seeing what’s possible when a few resilient women turn into many. There are many people in this world who work harder than I did. I was lucky and privileged. We have to help the ones who aren’t.”
The Wonderful Company owns and operates some 200 square miles of Central Valley orchards. According to Resnick, hurdles to putting that land to use for anything other than growing pistachios, almonds and other crops have included neglectful or corrupt local governments, and an imposing tow company proprietor she once thought she would have to stand down when she discovered that 13 acres she donated for a community center were being used as an impound lot.
Education and college scholarships are among Resnick’s key priorities, and she offered statistics showing high success rates among students attending her charter schools: 100 percent of graduates go on to college; 76 percent of those enter four-year programs and achieve a 75 percent college retention rate. But, she said, it’s crucial to provide follow-through. “Before we took a victory lap, we realized all this good work could turn to dust if we didn’t mobilize the community to be active. In short, we stalk ’em,” she said of the promising students her schools encourage to move on to higher ed.
Resnick has made a commitment to addressing the upstream problems that contribute to shorter life expectancy, compromised health and prison rates among residents of what she called “America’s salad bowl” (12 percent of Wonderful employees have diabetes, which is above the national average of 9.5 percent). Wonderful Health & Wellness operates clinics in Lost Hills and Delano staffed with full-time doctors, nurses and social workers. “Stewart and I are obsessed with health and wellness,” she said, drawing laughter as she displayed split-screen shots of herself in an acrobatic yoga pose and her husband riding a bicycle. “We have a holistic approach that puts personal empowerment at the heart of it all.”
success has come easily to her.
very interested
Posted by: طراحی سایت در قزوین | 03/05/2018 at 11:12 PM