Warren Bernard Itz Agriculture, Horticulture, and Environmental Studies

Green industry careers may span many categories, such as:

• wholesale nursery and greenhouse growers
• garden cultivation and management for food, fiber, and fuel
• landscape contractors
• retail garden centers
• plant conservation
• landscape restoration
• soil management
• landscape and garden design
• landscape construction
• landscape maintenance
• arboriculture
• floriculture
• turf
• irrigation
• landscape lighting

WARREN BERNARD ITZ was born in 1921 in San Antonio, TX, and passed away in Houston in 2018 at age 96. After graduating high school in 1939 from the Texas Military Institute (TMI) in San Antonio, he attended The University of Texas at Austin until December, 1941 when his college education was interrupted by World War II. Joining the U.S. Army Air Corps in January, 1942, he trained as a dive bomber pilot and later was a Senior Air Controller and Command Air Operations Officer, setting up front line air bases (known as Advanced Landing Grounds or ALGs) as the Allies moved from Normandy across France and into Germany. Mr. Itz received the Bronze Star among other medals, was honorably discharged with the rank of Major in 1946, and remained in the Reserves until 1955. In 1947 he finished his Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration specializing in International Trade and Finance and was married to his loving wife Nancy on August 10 of that year.

Mr. Itz began his post-war career ranching with his father-in-law in South Texas, but the drought of the early 1950s forced them out of business and he joined the National Bank of Commerce in San Antonio in 1952 for the next few years. However, he never lost the desire to be involved in agriculture and resumed ranching and farming around 1960, first building and operating a feed lot for cattle in South Texas where he experimented with grinding and feeding mesquite brush mixed with grain and molasses. For a few years he imported cattle from Mexico, pasturing them near the border and then selling them into the San Antonio market.  With investment from several San Antonio businessmen he also started farming peanuts and vegetables near Pearsall, Texas.  He loved what he was doing, but what also became obvious in all these ventures was the volatility of ranching and farming.  Although he tried at times to hedge those up and downs in the agricultural commodities markets, there were always many moving parts to manage.

By the early 1970’s, Mr. Itz decided to sell his land and businesses and apply his expertise with a local Texas corporation selling vegetable seeds on a wholesale basis to large farmers and marketing the resulting produce. One interesting project took him back into Mexico to try to better utilize strawberry freezer plants that operated only a few months a year by freezing vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts during the other months. In doing so he had to reconcile the Mexican farmers’ desire to maximize production by waiting to harvest larger vegetables with the demand of the U.S. market for small and tender frozen vegetables.

In the late 1970’s, Mr. Itz was offered employment with Union Carbide’s agricultural division to sell wholesale seeds of all kinds on a worldwide basis.  With his two sons grown by this time, he and Nancy moved to California and he began calling on foreign corporations and governments worldwide, eventually finishing his career with the agricultural division of Royal Dutch Shell, which brought him to Houston in the same kind of role.

As a service-oriented person, Mr. Itz always found ways to take part in the communities in which he lived.  He served as a Deacon and as an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, was a member of the Board of Directors of Morningside Manor, a non-denominational retirement and nursing home in San Antonio, served two terms on the Board of Directors of the San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo, served on the Board of Directors and several committees of the Alamo Kiwanis Club, was a member of the President's Committee at Trinity University, and served as Division Chairman for the San Antonio United Way on several occasions. He also volunteered at Operation ID, Channel 8 Membership Drives and Ben Taub Hospital in Houston.

Workforce Development for Urban Landscape and Lawn Care (WFD-Houston)

Proposed project goal: To improve and expand two TNLA landscape certifications that are attainable only through independent study of manuals and online testing by offering them in-person in English and Spanish with ample hands-on laboratory and field learning experiences from the Houston Community College- Katy Campus (HCC) and expand the model to six Texas urban counties.

HSI Academy for Urban Food, Health, and Environmental Security (HSI FANH Academy)

Proposed project goal: To develop a model food, health, and environmental academy that will link target high schools with a Hispanic-Serving community college and university through an action-oriented recruitment, retention, graduation, and placement program that will include curriculum development, faculty enhancement, experiential learning, leadership development, and inclusion of the social sciences with an URBAN EMPHASIS.