I’ve been a full-time Christmas tree farmer in Oregon since 1983 and we operate a large retail Christmas tree lot in Los Angeles, one of the two biggest media centers in America. We have the advantage of hearing first-hand all of the messages that have come through the media about Christmas trees, good and bad. I know for certain that our recent media efforts are working to help control and tailor our image to the public because I hear it directly from the lips of our customers, and I think it is dangerous and cavalier to leave that image to chance, or even worse, to leave it to our competitors. Why would we even consider abandoning our best chance ever to have one voice as an industry? For what, $.15 a tree? On the farm just about everything we do cost more than $.15 per tree. And the very fact that participation is compulsory is what makes the check-off program fair and is what gives it the strength to sustain the kind of ongoing effort it’s going to take in today’s world to shape our own image and have a say in our own future.
Mark Rohlfs
Santa & Sons Christmas Trees