Ron Detwiler

After high school in San Diego, Ron Detwiler began a career in manufacturing at a local maker of window shades . He moved on to better jobs at bigger companies around the US from Seattle to the East Coast and back to California. In 1988, after four years in Memphis, he and his wife Stephanie, a loan officer, quit their jobs to look for a new life in Eugene. They bought and ran the Mirabel Café for three years, then sold it in '91 when he answered an ad for warehouse manager at FOOD for Lane County. "When I joined, I was the seventh or eighth employee," he says. "Now we have 32 employees, and I am the old-timer." In his current position as operations manager, Detwiler is responsible for the collection and distribution of six to seven million tons of food this year. "Over 50 per cent of our food is perishable today," he says. "We've developed a system to gather that food and redistribute it quickly." In recognition of the food rescue program he created, the Oregon Food Bank Network honored Detwiler last month with its Ron Cease award for regional food bank staff excellence.