Longtime Co-op Board member, owner of The Growing Garden, and Whatcom County community member Brent Harrison passed away in March. To commemorate his contributions to our community and to organic gardening, Cordata Produce Assistant Manager Dave Straub has written a tribute. Dave worked for Brent at The Growing Garden for five years and has been with the Co-op for 12. Thank you to Dave for sharing his stories of Brent for us all to remember.
I met Brent in the summer of 2008 after answering a Craigslist post for a job at The Growing Garden. He was wiry and spry, and his eyes never stopped smiling even if he was frustrated. I can picture him in a straw hat, beard, and a thin cotton shirt with the elbows torn to shreds. On cold days, he wore an ancient puffy jacket patched with duct tape. On hot days, he wore short shorts and a thin graphic tee depicting a Tyrannosaurus Rex eating a carrot. I loved Brent’s style.
He had a sense of calm that came easy to him, as if at any given moment he’d just finished meditating, but those eyes betrayed a boyish enthusiasm. One day, after I’d climbed a poplar tree on the edge of his property, he asked, “What did you see from up there?” The question was filled with wonder, as if I had just returned from Narnia. That sense of wonder directed his life, both spiritually and pragmatically, for the better.
We spent our first day together harvesting chives, dill, mint, sage, rosemary, thyme, and basil. At one point, we both knelt in the dirt trimming basil and a little frog hopped up next to him. He greeted it and petted its head before it continued on unperturbed. I remember thinking, not for the last time, “I want to be like Brent when I grow up.”
Brent in Brief
As a young man, he sailed across the Pacific with a small group of friends. He joined a Sufi community that remained an important part of his life until the end. I don’t know much about his spirituality, but Brent had a mind that seemed grounded, focused, and full of poetry. He was a man who sang to his basil as he harvested it.
He and his wife Diana bought a modest farmhouse with walls so thin that the winter wind passed right through. They fixed it up, had two children, and started a garden which would eventually expand into a business — The Growing Garden. Along the way, Brent narrowly survived cancer and the numerous complications that come along with it. The borrowed time of his continued life after each health scare was a gift that he filled with potential, hard work, and love.
Brent approached the Co-op in the early 80s to see if there was anything he could grow for them. They told him basil, so he grew some in his garden and before he knew it, his business cornered the market on culinary herbs in Whatcom County. Brent was a leader of the small movement back toward stewardship of the land — his farm was one of the first in Washington state to be certified organic in 1988.
His slower, more thoughtful approach to farming was passed on to the next generation through his mentorship and generosity. Aurora Linquist and Chris Gonzales worked under him for a decade before taking over the business when he retired.
If you’ve ever bought organic garden starts in Bellingham, you probably appreciate the value of Sunseed Farm; its founder, Nick Guilford, started his company with Brent’s land and knowledge.
Shortly after establishing a relationship with the Co-op, Brent served on the Community Food Cooperative’s Board of Directors for 30 years. For perspective, when Brent joined the Board, the Co-op didn’t own a computer, had roughly 2,000 members, and it would be another five years before cashiers could scan items at checkout. Brent was still serving on the Board of Directors in 2014 when we purchased and renovated the 405 E Holly Street offices and wholesale bakery. He sat at the table and helped guide us during decades of rapid growth: the move to Forest Street, the building of the Cordata location, and countless revisions of bylaws, articles of incorporation, and strategic plans were all guided by his values. His fingerprints are on the very DNA of our democratic cooperative.
Even if you never met him, there’s still a good chance Brent had a positive influence on your life. If you’ve nourished yourself on local, organic produce or if you, like me, have carved out a pleasant life for yourself with one of the countless jobs he helped create in agriculture or at the Co-op, then please take a moment to remember Brent Harrison. In my memory, Brent will forever be kneeling in the soil between rows of basil, humming a song to the ladybugs.
On August 24, Brent’s family is hosting a celebration of life that will be open to the public. We will post additional details as they become available to Facebook, Instagram, and this blog post.
