Matsui Nursery innovated the floral industry, and now has a mission of giving back.

When Andy Matsui came to Northern California from Japan in 1961, as part of a one-year training program with the Farm Bureau, he was struck not just by its expansive beauty, but also by the possibilities.

Two years later, he moved permanently to the U.S. with his wife, Mary, and infant daughter, Teresa, and in 1967, he opened Matsui Nursery in the Salinas Valley and started growing flowers in greenhouses. Initially those flowers were chrysanthemums, then roses, and in the 1990s, orchids.

In 1998, all the Matsui greenhouses were converted to orchids, and that same year, the nursery started the nation’s first orchid grocery retail program.

“[My dad] decided that orchids would not be subject to the ravages of competition that roses had been,” says Teresa Matsui, who became the company’s president a few years ago after a career in hotel management. Today, the nursery has close to 3 million square feet of greenhouse space on 70 acres.

Teresa ascribes an “aspirational” quality to orchids, and notes they often end up in media photos of fine interior settings. For that reason, she says, growing orchids “for the next five to 10 years, it’s something that’s got legs.”

The nursery currently employs about 200 people, and unlike many businesses in the ag industry, Teresa says the company has had no problem finding workers.

“I want you to think about coming to Matusi because it’s a good place to work,” she says.

That has meant paying workers overtime after eight hours, even when the law didn’t require it, and reducing the standard ag workweek from six days to five, a change that went into effect Jan. 1 of this year. In doing that, Teresa says, the company increased wages so that no one lost any pay.

It’s also meant education: The company has sent employees to ag mechanic classes at Hartnell College, orchid plant pathology classes with UC Extension – “so they could have a better understanding of the plants working with” – and English-as-a-second-language classes.

“My dad developed a reputation for being a prominent philanthropist,” Teresa says, adding that the company’s workforce is about 98-percent Latino. “A lot of the nonprofits in the community, this is the population they’re trying to help, so why go through intermediaries?

“This is a community with such profound needs – if we can help make 200 lives a little better, that’s what we’re going to do.”