Neal Palmer “Pal” Brooks, president of J.R. Brooks and Son, Inc., a $60 million business that is the nation’s leading producer of tropical fruit, went into the family business in 1961 and bought the business from his father in 1967. Peers described the Miami native as someone who runs his tropical fruit business with “the mind of a true businessman, but the heart of a grower.” Brooks was the first to use the hydro-cooler on avocados, an innovation that radically changed the avocado business by allowing growers and retailers to sell a better quality product with a longer shelf life. Within the mango industry, he was the first to use a hot water treatment for anthracnose.
Snead Young Mathews Davis and her husband, Thomas Mathews, established the first herd of registered Hereford cattle in Florida near Alachua. Davis led efforts to modernize the Florida livestock industry through the use of purebred cattle, universal health practices and state-of-the-art breeding programs. Davis has served on the University of Florida Foundation’s Board of Directors and as vice chairman of the UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences’ SHARE Council. Her major gifts to UF/IFAS are helping to develop educational programs for young people and to advance research on Florida’s cattle and agriculture industries. Following her first husband’s death in 1947, she married A.D. Davis, the founder and president of Winn Dixie Stores, and they further developed the purebred cattle business at Santa Fe River Ranch. When she dispersed her herd in 1990, it was recognized as one of the leading foundation herds of Polled Hereford in the nation. Davis was the first woman to be inducted into the American Polled Hereford Association’s Hall of Fame and the first woman to judge at the American Royal in Kansas City.
The late Henry Gatrell was the son of the town doctor in Fairfield and might have pursued a career in medicine. Instead, he went into agriculture and became the largest swine exporter in the United States. He was the owner and operator of a 200-acre general farm in Fairfield, where he raised purebred Duroc swine. In the early 1940s, Gatrell began a thriving swine export business by shipping purebred stock to Central and South America by air. Gatrell is credited with the donations that started the swine breeding herds at the University of Florida and Florida A&M University, and he was instrumental in the development of the Swine Evaluation Center in Live Oak. Throughout his career, he was devoted to agricultural youth programs. Gatrell was active in many civic and agricultural organizations, including the Florida Swine Association and Southeastern Duroc Congress.
As president of Greene’s Citrus Management, Inc., and owner of Bar-G-Bar Ranch, Inc., Barnette E. “Barney” Green, Jr., is a well-known cattle rancher and citrus grower in Vero Beach and served as the first chairman of the board of what became the Orange Avenue Citrus Growers, Inc. He is also credited with introducing a new cattle breed, the Romana Red, to Florida, and expanding the Florida grapefruit market by involving Ocean Spray, Inc., in the Indian River citrus production area. He is a founding member of the Florida Limousin Breeders Association. He serves on the President’s Council of the University of Florida and Florida Southern College and has been a generous supporter of agricultural youth organizations and of his community and church. Greene also established the Greene Academy, a high school on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, where agricultural fundamentals are taught to help the islanders become self-sufficient.
Gov. Wayne Mixson
Gov. Wayne Mixson’s leadership ability was recognized early and as president of his local county Farm Bureau, he worked tirelessly to get telephones installed in rural areas and to eradicate hog cholera from Florida. Mixson’s career as a statesman began with his election to the Florida House of Representatives in 1967. As chairman of the House Agriculture Committee for eight years, he passed hundreds of measures affecting every segment of agriculture. He served as Lt. Governor under Gov. Bob Grahman from 1979 through 1986. Following Graham’s resignation upon his election to the U.S. Senate, Mixson served briefly as Florida’s governor in 1987. Mixson was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to serve as a Special Ambassador to Ecuador, and he is a founder of the Florida Association of Voluntary Agencies for Caribbean Action.
