Tresch Family’s environmental stewardship recognized with Sonoma County Farm Bureau’s Luther Burbank Conservation Award
By Tim Tesconi
The Tresch family of Petaluma takes the pursuit of excellence very seriously in the care and management of their 2,600 acres of pristine grazing land, which they consider the bread-and-butter of their organic milk production.
It’s part of the family’s Old-World philosophy that if you take care of the land, it will take care of you and the cows that graze upon it. It’s a philosophy of environmental stewardship that has served the Tresch family well during the 120 years – and six generations – they have been on the Petaluma ranch. The original 320-acre home ranch has been expanded to 2,600 acres of contiguous pastureland using profits from milk to acquire neighboring ranches that became available.
“This land is who we are,” said Joe Tresch, 77, who has lived his entire life on the ranch settled in 1905 by his great grandparents. He seldom ventures beyond the ranch driveway, content to live and work on land he loves.
“I get my news talking over a barbed wire fence,” said Tresch, a true remnant of the Old West.
Tresch and his wife Kathy and their grown children Lindsay and twins Joey and Lydia work together to run the organic dairy and the family’s other agricultural enterprises. All family members are deeply connected to the land and a way-of-life that they work hard to preserve – every day – for future generations.
The Tresch family’s dairy farming model is pasture-based, utilizing lush grasslands in west Petaluma for the 750 Holstein, Jersey and Jersey-Holstein cross cows that produce organic milk for Straus Family Creamery. The cows are milked in parlors on two adjoining ranches, one ranch is predominately Holsteins and other predominately Jerseys.
The bountiful pastures make for happy cows and a better bottom line because the Tresches don’t have to buy as much grain and hay.
The Tresch family is the largest milk supplier for Straus Family Creamery, which has earned a golden reputation throughout California and beyond for its top-quality organic milk and dairy products.
Albert Straus, owner of Straus Family Creamery, said the Tresch Family, dedicated milk producers and land stewards, has been a perfect partner in building his dairy business.
“Among California’s first dairy farms to become certified organic, Tresch Family Farms has been at the forefront of environmental and sustainable practices,” Straus said. “Supplying organic milk to Straus Family Creamery for close to 30 years, Joe and Kathy Tresch have been thought leaders, true partners, and good friends to myself and the Creamery — in line with our mission and values.”
Indeed, the Tresch Dairy was the second dairy in California, behind Straus, to earn organic certification for its cows. But even before they became organically certified in 1996, the Tresch family, adhering to the farming practices of their dairy farming ancestors in Switzerland, treaded lightly on the land. They disdained pesticides and herbicides while building the soil’s tilth and fertility with their recycled cow manure, maintaining a closed system of reuse and rejuvenation on their pastures.
To preserve and enhance waterways on the property, they’ve planted thousands of trees and native plants, like red twig dogwood, willows and poplars, to stabilize stream banks while providing habitat for fish and wildlife. The culture of care on their ranch has created what looks like a park dotted with cows.
In 2023 the Tresch Family partnered with the Sonoma Resource Conservation and Carbon Cycle Institute to finalize their Carbon Farm Plan. They are using the Carbon Farm Plan to guide them in implementing even more regenerative practices on their farms.
To protect their land, the Tresches, in true pioneer spirit, have waged epic battles to save it. Most recently, they were on the front lines of the fight to oppose Measure J, the initiative on last November’s ballot, that would have eliminated dairy and poultry production in Sonoma County. The measure was soundly defeated when voters heard the voices of ranchers like the Tresch family who produce food for the region while keeping land in open space.
“During the campaign against Measure J, I kept thinking what would happen to all this land if there were no cows grazing on it,” said Joe Tresch.
Their other major battle began in 1988 when the City of Santa Rosa proposed building a huge wastewater reservoir in the area, taking pastureland that was then leased but now owned by the Tresch family. After a six-year legal battle, the Tresches, other area ranchers and environmental groups succeeded in saving the valley for agriculture.
That effort and the Tresches’ other conservation work earned them the Sierra Club’s Environmentalists of the Year Award in 1996.
Now, the Tresch family’s land stewardship, conservation and environmental ethic have earned them Sonoma County Farm Bureau’s 2025 Luther Burbank Conservation Award. The award annually recognizes an individual, business or family making extraordinary efforts to balance economic viability with environmental stewardship as part of the county’s multi-billion-dollar farming industry. Farm Bureau leaders said the Tresch family epitomizes the spirit of the Luther Burbank Conservation Award.
“For as long as I’ve known the Tresch Family, which has been since my childhood, they have put nature first. Joe and Kathy have always been exemplary stewards of the land, implementing restoration projects and management practices based on the needs of their land, its natural resources, and what is beneficial for the environment,” said Dayna Ghirardelli, executive director of Sonoma County Farm Bureau.
She said they are a farming family to be admired and respected for their steadfast commitment to doing the right thing.
“Popular trends do not influence the Tresch Family, it is integrity that defines and guides them,” Ghirardelli added. “They are so deserving of this award.”
The Tresch Family, along with other Stewards of the Land award winners, will be honored at Farm Bureau’s Love of the Land celebration on July 10 at Richard’s Grove and Saralee’s Vineyard, the Windsor wine estate created by the late Richard and Saralee Kunde that is now part of Jackson Family Wines. It will be a night to celebrate the land and people who are part of Sonoma County’s agricultural industry and its rich farming heritage.
Heritage is important to Joe and Kathy Tresch who honor the legacy of those who have become before them on the ranch while positioning the business to carry on to the next generation.
Kathy, who is 70, was not born into ranch life but has taken to it with passion and purpose – traits that came through in her efforts to defeat Measure J. Kathy grew up in Marin County’s Homestead Valley of Mill Valley, an area that at the time was dotted with farms and apple orchards.
“I always wanted to be a farmer,” she said. “I remember riding my horse and smelling the apple blossoms in spring and eating the apples in the fall at the farms around me.”
That dream became a reality when she met and married Joe Tresch, a strapping fourth generation Petaluma dairy rancher known for his work ethic, bullseye business acumen and reverence for the cowboy way. Now Kathy has her own apple orchard on the family’s Olympia Valley Estate, named for Joe’s grandmother Olympia Nonella Tresch.
Kathy grows more than 50 varieties of apples, old time favorites like Spitzenburg, Gold Rush and Cinnamon Spice, in what she calls a “full time hobby.” She sells the apples seasonally at a farmstand at Olympia Valley Estate, a rural event center she oversees with the help of her daughters, Lydia and Lindsay. The farmstand is open year-round, offering daughter Lydia’s Olympia Valley Farmstead eggs that she produces with her two sons. Son Joey and his wife Samantha sell their grass-fed beef, which they market under their Deer Valley Daughters label.
Meanwhile, Joe Tresch always knew he wanted to milk cows on the 320-acre ranch where his great grandparents’ Swiss immigrants Julio and Maria Nonella – accompanied by their six children – settled in 1905. After leaving Switzerland in the 1870’s they first landed in Cayucas on the Central Coast where they had a dairy. In 1898 they moved to Rio Vista and then in 1905 came to Petaluma where they first leased and then purchased the home ranch that continues today as the centerpiece of the Tresch dairy farming operation.
Olympia Nonella, one of the six children of Julio and Maria Nonella, would continue the family dairy after falling in love with a ranch hand named Robert Tresch. They married and eventually took over the ranch where they raised their three sons, Albert, Lawrence and Robert Jr.
Robert Jr. bought the business from his mother Olympia in 1965. That was the same year Robert’s son Joe Tresch, the current owner of the family ranch, graduated from Petaluma High School where he played tackle on the Trojan’s championship football team. Strong and athletic, Tresch in 1967 muscled his way to winning the lightweight division championship at the World’s Wrist Wrestling competition in Petaluma.
Joe studied at Santa Rosa Junior College and Chico State University before returning to the ranch. After his father died he purchased the ranch from his stepmother in 1988, launching himself into the dairy business with a steely determination to succeed. And succeed he did during his more than 50 years producing milk and, then, strategically investing his profits to expand the family holdings.
The Tresch Family Dairy is well positioned to continue into the next generation, producing organic milk and other food products for the San Francisco Bay Area Food Shed. Son Joey, 34, runs the dairy and loves ranch life. He is married to Samantha Spaletta who also comes from a Petaluma dairy ranching family. They have two daughters, Elena and Noelle.
Joey’s twin sister, Lydia, and older sister Lindsay oversee the family’s Olympia Valley Estate where weddings and other events are held throughout the year. The centerpiece of the Olympia Valley property is a beautifully restored two-story farm house that was used in filming the 2003 version of Cheaper by the Dozen starring Steve Martin.
Lydia has two sons, Ben, and Henry. She is engaged to Ed Irizarry, a Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputy.
In addition to helping at Olympia Valley Estate, oldest daughter Lindsay is the office manager and bookkeeper for the family ranches and investments. She uses the skills she learned as an award-winning member of Petaluma FFA’s Farm Business Management team coached by Jill Martin, an accountant who lives on a Two Rock ranch with her husband Paul.
Under Jill Martin’s mentorship, Linday Tresch won high individual in farm business management at the state FFA finals, channeling a career path that would put her in a key position at the family ranch.
Lindsay and her husband Tyler O’Hara have three sons, Parker, Charlie and Beau.
Joe and Kathy Tresch still work every day, helping out on the ranch and continuing to enhance the beauty and sustainability of their land. Joe is particularly fond of poplar trees and their spectacular yellow color in the fall. This spring he is planting poplars all over the ranch, looking to the future for his children and grandchildren. And beyond.
“When I die, I want the trees on this ranch to put out fall colors like the ranches you see in pictures of New Zealand,” said Tresch.
The trees will be a fitting tribute to his time as caretaker of the family land as it continues to pass through the generations.
