Friday, 02 November 2012 02:00 J.P. SQUIRE Kelowna Daily Courier:
The new board of directors at Okanagan Tree Fruit Co-op didn't waste any time Thursday canning the CEO and the operations manager. In its first meeting, the 10-member board terminated CEO Gary Schieck and operations manager Rod Vint effective immediately. And the board named Alan Tyabji to start right away as the new CEO of the co-op and its marketing arm, B.C. Tree Fruits. A replacement for Vint was not named. Tyabji, the father of former Kelowna-area MLA Judi Tyabji, began working for the Okanagan Similkameen Co-operative in December 1985. He held various positions in the co-operative, including the top post of general manager from 1995 to 2008.
When the co-operatives amalgamated, Tyabji was appointed the co-op's joint chief executive officer. He left shortly after to pursue other ventures. A major shakeup in the Okanagan's largest packinghouse and marketing organization was expected by many in the fruit industry who have been frustrated by low apple returns for the past four years. Between 200 and 300 growers attending the co-op's annual general meeting on Oct. 23 tossed out incumbent director/vice-president Jack Machial and director Sam DiMaria who had served since 2009. They elected Gordon Hann of Oliver and Kamlesh Parmar of Kelowna, which evenly split the board between Indo-Canadians and non-Indo-Canadians. During Thursday's board meeting, Rob Dawson of Cawston was re-elected to a second one-year term as board chair/president. The north vice-president is Colin Pritchard and the south vice-president Nirmal Dhaliwal. The other board members are Karmjit Gill, Darshan Jassar, Malcolm Mitchell, Phil Patara and Ron Vollo.
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