TORRANCE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16,
2004--Farmer Brothers Co. (Nasdaq:FARM) today announced that its
Chairman, Roy F. Farmer, who guided the Company for more than 50 years
and led its growth into the West's largest regional coffee roaster, died
Tuesday at home after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 87.
Mr. Farmer served as Chief Executive
Officer from 1951 until March 20, 2003, when he was succeeded by his
son, Roy E. Farmer, who had served for more than nine years as the
Company's President and Chief Operating Officer. A new Chairman has yet
to be named by the Board.
He was born July 26, 1916, and was a
life-long resident of the Los Angeles area. With the exception of
service in the U.S. Army during World War II from 1941 to 1945, Mr.
Farmer spent his entire working life with Farmer Bros., the company
founded in 1912 by his father, Roy E. Farmer.
Mr. Farmer began his full-time employment
at Farmer Bros. in 1935, after working for the Company while attending
Manual Arts High School. He worked in every aspect of the business,
serving as a truck driver, coffee roaster and plant foreman. In 1951,
after the death of his father, the Board of Directors chose him to
assume the Company's executive leadership. In 1952, he led the efforts
to take the Company public, raising the $2 million in cash that helped
ignite the Company's regional expansion and growth.
Under his leadership, Farmer Bros. Co.
grew from 380 employees and revenues of about $15 million to over 1,100
employees and about $190 million in revenue today. He helped spur the
Company's growth by building an aggressive sales organization that
applied standardized methods of selling to institutional coffee
customers such as restaurants, hotels and hospitals. It was this
approach, coupled with his emphasis on customer-focused and
relationship-oriented selling, that made Farmer Bros. into a force in
its industry.
In addition, Mr. Farmer championed the
use of high-speed "form & fill" packaging machines and huge "continuous
roasters," providing the Company with cost advantages from its efficient
manufacturing processes. The Company, under Mr. Farmer's direction,
operates its own long-haul fleet, thus gaining greater control over its
distribution and transportation costs.
Under Mr. Farmer's leadership, the
Company accelerated its growth through carefully crafted acquisitions.
The companies that were acquired included Mello-Cup Coffee in Seattle,
Wood Coffee in Tacoma, Davies Coffee in Seattle, Dale Bros. Coffee in
Fresno, Defiance Coffee Company in Portland, McClintock-Stern Spice
Company in San Francisco and James J. O'Connor Coffee in St. Louis.
"Farmer Bros. was Roy's life's work. And
what a job he did!" said Lew Coffman, a member of the Board of Directors
since 1983 and a 39-year employee of the Company who retired as Vice
President of Sales. "He and I didn't agree on some things, but he had
his own way of balancing all the demands of a Company that grew beyond
anyone's expectations. He tried to put the right people in the right
jobs, and let them do their work. His legacy is more than the Company's
assets, or even its people -- it is the hard work, adherence to the path
and customer service that will always be at the center of the Farmer
Brothers way of operating. In spite of his success, he lived modestly
and was a devoted family man."
Mr. Farmer is survived by his wife of 58
years, Emily; four children, Carol Farmer-Waite, Jeanne Farmer-Grossman,
Roy E. Farmer and Richard Farmer; and four grandchildren, Jonathan Waite
and Brett, Scott and Brynn Grossman.
Farmer Bros. Co. is an institutional
coffee roaster that sells a variety of coffee and allied products to the
food service industry. The Company's signature trucks and vans bearing
the "Consistently Good" logo are seen throughout Farmer Brothers'
28-state service area. Farmer Brothers has paid a dividend for 50
consecutive years, increased the dividend in each of the last seven
consecutive years, and its stock price has grown from $18 in 1980 to
over $300 a share before a recently announced 10-for-one stock split.
Contact:
The Abernathy MacGregor Group
James Lucas, 213-630-6550
Source: Farmer Brothers Co.