“My dad gave me advice 60 years ago: The day that you think you’re any better than the lowest man on the job is the day you start going backwards.”
Bill Coleman represents the fifth of seven generations of the Coleman hop-growing family in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Health concerns may have “retired” him from leadership in Coleman Agriculture, but he’s still active on the farm. Max Coleman, seventh-generation director of farm operations, jokes that Bill is now “the old fart who keeps us in line.”
Family members like Bill aren’t the only venerated elders at Coleman. Several seasonal part-timers for this year’s harvest were first hired (by Bill) as teenagers in the 1970s. “They’ll come 2-3 days a week,” Bill says. “And they’re just part of the crew, and I enjoy that. … This becomes their home, and so they’ve always been welcome, no matter who they were.”…