Gabe Mills, Irrigation Crew
You could call Gabe Mills a Sequim native, except that he was born in Bremerton. In 2009, he heard that Nash’s was hiring and came down to check the place out and apply. He has become one of those flexible and versatile people who has acquired experience in several important areas of the farm, like the harvest crew and packing crew, and now he is the lead for the irrigation crew.
“I was raised in town and never had any connection with the farms in the area,” he says. “I never thought about what I was eating, and I figured organic food was something ‘new age’ people did.”
But working at Nash’s gave Mills a different perspective. “You change how you think about food when you see it come out of the ground. Everyone that works here talks about food, how it is produced, and how it affects your body. I think about it more now than I did before.”
Gabe admits that growing food is hard work, but that it has its perks. “The people at the farm are like a family or community,” Mills comments. “This is the first time I’ve encountered that in a work environment.”
In his spare time, Gabe likes to play guitar and any other instrument that comes his way. When he started at Nash’s, he was still the drummer for a progressive rock band in Port Angeles called Govinda, and also wrote songs.
Several years ago, he started going to a retreat center in Santa Fe, NM, to train in meditation. He does work for the center in exchange for the training. “I work in the kitchen, on the grounds, and with the housekeeping staff,” he says. “Santa Fe is very beautiful and a very special place to practice meditation.” Gabe will return there to spend the winter.
But if he really wants to unwind, he’s happy playing video games, or picking up his beloved guitar.