“I was like everyone else,” Rodney Chow told me over the phone last week. Even two minutes into our conversation, he was being humble. “We all worked in the daytime, and went to school at night to earn our engineering degree.” The time he refers to was 70 years ago, when Chow, a proud Army veteran, used his G.I. Bill towards a bachelor’s and master’s in civil engineering from USC. Establishing himself in a racial climate that others said would be too inhospitable, he founded his own company, partnered in a residential development firm, and even enjoyed success as a realtor in Ventura and Oxnard. This was all before Chow moved to Carpinteria and, ignoring the advice of others, planted five acres of apple trees, becoming a sort of Mr. Hooper at local farmers markets.