Sonoma County Farm Bureau executive director to retire

The executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau is retiring from her post after five years with the farmer and rancher advocacy group.

Tawny Tesconi, 60, confirmed via email Thursday that she would be leaving the organization.

A request seeking her final day on the job, as well as details about who would fill the executive director role after her departure, was not immediately returned.

Tesconi cited a number of reasons for her decision to retire, among them a desire to spend more time with her husband, who lives in Washington six months out of the year for work, as well as to pursue her passion for travel.

Jennifer Beretta, the farm bureau board’s president, was informed of her intent to retire weeks before the bureau’s two-day water summit in early May, Tesconi said.

Though she will no longer helm the farm bureau, Tesconi will continue to run her event consulting business, which mainly serves agriculture fairs, she said.

“Like many industries, there have been huge changes in leadership in the fair industry,” she added. “I want to help.”

Tesconi, a Sonoma County native, was initially hired in December 2017 as the agency’s interim executive director. She was made the permanent head three months later.

During her tenure, Tesconi has helped elevate the 105-year-old nonprofit’s political profile. Under her watch, it also generated annual revenue of nearly $1.6 million for 2019-20, public tax documents show.

The farm bureau made at least $153,000 in political donations during the 2020 election cycle, more than double the organization’s combined spending from 2014 to 2019, The Press Democrat found.

Of that money, $113,000 was used to defeat Proposition 15, which would have raised taxes on commercial and agriculture properties. It was defeated by a slim margin.

The farm bureau also contributed $20,000 to defeat Measure P, which sought to boost oversight of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

It spent another $20,000 to defeat eight local tax measures, including countywide sales tax increases that would be used to pay for services benefiting the mentally ill and those experiencing homelessness.

The initiatives, Measure O and Measure P, were approved by voters.

Besides weighing in on local political issues, the farm bureau also runs the Sonoma County Farm Bureau Foundation, which gives scholarships to local students pursuing agriculture-related fields. It distributed a total of $164,000 among 45 students last year, according to the foundation’s website.

Herman J. Hernandez, the president of the Sonoma County Latino leadership group Los Cien, said Tesconi told him of her upcoming departure several weeks ago. Saying he was sorry to hear the news, he described her as a bridge between the local agriculture industry and the greater community.

He added that her skillful communication with local groups, including Los Cien, was an example of her beneficial contributions.

“Maybe at times we didn’t agree politically, but the bottom line was that she really worked for her community and I’m very thankful for that,” Hernandez said.

The bureau touted Tesconi’s deep-seated ties to the county’s agricultural community upon her hiring.

Raised on a west county farm with five siblings, her brother, Tim Tesconi, a former Press Democrat reporter, retired as the farm bureau’s previous executive director in 2015.

Her professional career includes 29 years in fair management, eight of which she spent as the manager of the Sonoma County Fair. In 2015, she stepped down as the director of Sonoma County’s general services department and started her fair services company.

A University of California, Davis graduate with a bachelor’s degree in managerial economics, Tesconi said she paid for her college education using the money she earned selling animals in the Sonoma County Fair Junior Livestock Auction.

“So many folks helped me as a youngster, that as an adult it was instilled in me to give back to my community,” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.

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