Jon DeVaney of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association
A Cosmic Crisp apple research plot in Washington State.
T
he Washington State Tree Fruit Association (WSTFA) is an industry organization that represents all Washington tree fruit growers, packers, and marketers. Its three main areas of activity are collecting and distributing useful data and statistics, educating growers and packers through conferences and training programs, and engaging in advocacy with the Washington State legislature and government to help support the tree fruit industry. In this interview, WSTFA President Jon DeVaney tells Irrigation Leader about the importance of the tree fruit industry for Washington, the critical role that water supply plays in the industry’s success, and the challenges of continuing to provide vital food during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
8 | IRRIGATION LEADER | February 2021
Irrigation Leader: What are your main activities today? Jon DeVaney: We have three main functions. First, we collect statistics and data and report them to the industry so that our irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WSTFA.
Jon DeVaney: I started my career on Capitol Hill, working for former Congressman and House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings, who represented my hometown in Washington State in the U.S. House of Representatives. When he was first elected in 1994, I interned in his office. I was already back in Washington, DC, for graduate school and ended up working for Congressman Hastings for a number of years, both in
DC and in his district office in Yakima. I eventually left his staff to work for the tree fruit industry and, in 2009, took a position with what was then the Yakima Valley Growers and Shippers Association, which represented the fruit packers of the Yakima Valley. In 2014, after a lengthy negotiation process, that organization merged with three other tree-fruit-industry organizations to form the WSTFA. Previously, the industry had had multiple organizations with overlapping memberships and slightly varying missions. There was a packers’ organization in the Yakima Valley; a packers’ organization in the Wenatchee Valley in north-central Washington; a statewide tree fruit growers’ organization called the Growers Clearinghouse; and a broader organization called the Washington State Horticultural Association, which included both growers and packers and was focused more on government affairs than on logistics and reporting. To better coordinate the activities of the industry, we negotiated a merger of those four organizations. It has been successful in improving coordination and reducing overhead operating costs.
