Longtime stalwart Tanimura & Antle builds success, one employee at a time.

The property owned by Tanimura & Antle in Spreckels is so vast that if you don’t know where you’re going, it’s easy to get lost. But what a trip it is.

First turn the wrong way and pass through the neatly appointed apartment development the company opened in 2016 to house some of its field workers. Wend your way back through the development and pass the baseball diamond and field where company employees can play soccer. Pass the historic brick buildings of the former Spreckels Sugar factory. Trucks. So many trucks on the property. Finally, find the way you should have turned into the first place, meet the friendly guard who asks your name and why you’re there and make your way to the plantation-style headquarters, complete with rocking chairs on the front porch.

It’s where you meet Scott Grabau, who in May this year the T&A board tapped to become CEO of the 36-year-old company, following the way-too-soon death of founding CEO Rick Antle, who died last April following a short battle with cancer. When Grabau, who Antle hired in 2002 as a corporate controller, speaks about the company he now helms, he frequently injects the words “team” and “culture” into the conversation.

“What the Tanimuras and Antles have always done is treated their employees like family and like their number-one asset,” Grabau says. “Employees here are given responsibility at an early stage, and the company builds loyalty and trust that continues on. I’m an example of that.”

T&A builds that loyalty with employees (800 full-timers, plus 2,000 seasonal) – and customers – in any number of ways. It appears to be working: More than 400 employees have been with T&A for 20-plus years.

The employee housing, which means field workers have safe, secure and comfortable housing while in Salinas. The employee stock option plan, launched in 2017 under Rick Antle’s leadership, which allows workers – everyone from harvest crews to management – to own shares of the company. And of course, there’s the lettuce, onions, cabbage, broccoli, celery, cauliflower and other crops grown and sold across the country that appear on family tables and in restaurants every day.

It all goes back to the Golden Rule, and to what the Tanimuras and Antles had in mind when they partnered.

“Treat our employees, our suppliers and customers as we want to be treated and avail ourselves of new thoughts and ideas,” Grabau says.