SEQUIM — Mary Lou Jendrucko, one of the old hands in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley lavender business, is the new executive director of the Sequim Lavender Growers Association.
Jendrucko, a lavender grower since 2000 with her husband, Paul, was hired this week to succeed Scott Nagel, who bolted to the new Sequim Lavender Farmers Association last month after its members broke away from the growers group over philosophical and administrative differences.
Jendrucko, who served as the lavender growers’ board president for three years, will manage this year’s 15th Sequim Lavender Festival, which for the first time is running up against a rival festival — Lavender in the Park, about a mile east near the end of Fir Street at Carrie Blake Park.
“They were interviewing three people,” Jendrucko said, “and they said, ‘Why are we looking elsewhere when we have someone involved in the business?’
“It was kind of dumped in my lap, but what the heck.”
The Jendruckos own Sequim Lavender Co., selling their lavender stock at the Port Townsend Farmers Market, where master gardener and lavender expert Paul Jendrucko is fondly known as “Dr. Lavender.”
“Everyone in the group has offered to step up and help,” Mary Lou Jendrucko said of the Sequim Lavender Growers Association’s 19 members.
“We’ve got a lot of the original [lavender festival] founders, too.”
Jendrucko said she has assembled “Team Lavender” from the association’s growers and others, which will manage the lavender festival.
Anna Minaldi, former executive director of the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts in Port Angeles, and Leslie Babbitt-Hamlin have joined the team, she said.
Paul Jendrucko will act as media liaison.
Minaldi will handle music performances for the festival and work with sponsors, and Babbitt-Hamlin will be Jendrucko’s assistant and also work with sponsors.
The festival’s theme this year, which can be seen on its promotional poster: “U-Pick, U-Tour, U-Free.”
The festival will offer shuttle buses to downtown, and Graysmarsh Farm has been added again to the self-guided tours of farms that will also include Lavender Connection, Lost Mountain Lavender, Martha Lane Lavender, Nelson’s Duck Pond and Peninsula Nurseries.
The farms are owner-member lavender operations that have developed over the years from the ground up into successful lavender businesses, according to Jendrucko.
“It has been clearly shown that small farming on 1 to 3 acres can be efficient and profitable, as demonstrated by the popularity and success of local farmers markets and inclusion of locally grown vegetables on supermarket shelves,” she said.
“For anyone considering small-scale farming, this is a great opportunity to see what works firsthand and visit with the people who make it work.
“And it’s free.”
Jendrucko said the team was out to draw top-notch entertainment and has already booked Chantilly Lace, an oldies band, for the Sequim Lavender Festival’s Sunday show.
Before moving to Sequim, Jendrucko worked in the aerospace and electronics industries in office management and accounting for more than 20 years.
While raising two daughters with her husband, Paul, she was an officer on local Parent-Teacher Association boards and active in local fundraising events and with nonprofit groups.
As a long-term member of the growers association, she has served on all of its major committees and on the board of directors.
Commensurate with these positions, Jendrucko has many years of hands-on experience with producing prior lavender festivals with its contracted staff, said Terry Stolz, Sequim Lavender Growers Association board president.
He said Jendrucko’s talents and varied background “make her a perfect fit for the director’s position. I don’t believe our opportunities for success are always clear until we look to our own members for their entrepreneurial spirit and success stories.”
Stolz called Jendrucko an “entrepreneur, inventor, businessperson and festival vendor in her own right.”
“She created and holds two U.S. patents for the only known lavender product — a lavender-filled pet bandanna under the DogdotCalm trademark and the No. 1 festival favorite in pet fashion,” he said.
“Mary has a great understanding of what’s important for good festival management, its festival visitors and the entire community.”
A popular antique car club will be partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of the Olympic Peninsula in Sequim, and the festival’s “charity through commerce” theme is a huge added attraction, Stolz said.
While Jendrucko and Stolz’s original lavender festival organization, Sequim Lavender Growers Association, will operate its street fair on Fir Street, the newly formed Sequim Lavender Farmers Association will base its separate July 15-17 event at Carrie Blake Park and the James Center for the Performing Arts, christening the event as Lavender in the Park.
While Carrie Blake Park’s parking lot will be the central hub for bus tours to six lavender farms, Nagel said, Guy Cole Community Center’s space would be used for management and other needs during that event.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.