John Patrick was born in California, but the family moved back to his father's home state of Iowa to live on a farm when John was two years old. He started doing farm chores at 8 and by age 10 was driving the tractor. When John was 14 the family moved back to Marin County, but farming had taken root in John's life.

His junior year in high school, John took flying lessons, and planes became his second lifelong interest. When he graduated from college with a marketing degree, there was a nationwide slump in the demand for pilots, so he moved to Chico in the northern Sacramento Valley and bought an aircraft supply store.

He liked Chico and in 1970 he invested in 50 acres of farmland. "There were already five or six acres of walnuts on the property when I bought it," he recalls. "I liked everything about he walnut trees. I was attracted to the beauty of the trees themselves, and I loved the harvest in the fall. It reminded me of harvest on the farm back in Iowa when the whole family was involved, and my father would get a bunch of folks together to help out." Continued

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