Rick Slager, owner of Produce with a Purpose in Kaukauna, grew up growing food. He would sit with his father, Don, every year and pick out seeds to be used at the family farm.
That love of growing produce remained with him as he pursued his first business, Slager Lawn and Landscape, a business that he operated from 1997 to 2010. Then, what he describes as a midlife crisis, struck.
Slager said, “I wanted to do something else. I thought of doing mission work in Africa; I had spent time in West Africa years earlier and was contemplating working with small farmers and helping them in the agricultural sector. But my kids were still young, and I didn’t think it would be a good thing to spend a lot of time overseas.”…