HATTIE: (Voiceover) Steve Kniss is in charge of maintenance. What do you do around here, Steve?

STEVE KNISS: You name it. If it's broke, I fix it.

HATTIE: The machines?

STEVE: Right.

HATTIE: And the machinery that goes into the fields?

STEVE: Right. All the machinery that goes in the field. Those harvesters you saw earlier are a little bit my specialty.

HATTIE: You've been here a long time?

STEVE: About 10 years.

HATTIE: Bob has been instrumental in bringing ideas into production such as the tires?

STEVE: Yes.

HATTIE: Have you ever seen anything like this?

STEVE: Yes. It's all common sense. This man has more common sense than anybody I've ever seen.

HATTIE: We were at the field earlier today and saw the machines harvesting. BOB: Harvesting mechanically.

HATTIE: ...and dumping--so they come here.

BOB: Right.

HATTIE: Now what happens when they get here?

BOB: Well, you saw...

HATTIE: ...and did you invent all that?

BOB: I don't know whether you could say I invented all that, but I drew it out and had this shop build it. The semi backs up against and unloads into the apron conveyor, which I call the big conveyor. And the girl that's sitting on top controls it all, and it gets dumped. It's just an efficient distribution system. But the most common distribution system is just the belt that goes around and around and around, and the girls pick it out of there. That's what I had the first one I built. There were always maybe the front 10 girls, always had the best, and the last 10 girls got the picking out. But in this distribution system that I made, everything goes in equal and it dumps.

HATTIE: 'Cause it comes down the trough and down to each worker.

BOB: Comes onto the belt. Right. One of the biggest labor-saving items up there, as you saw, our saw line and the dehusker. That is really something.

HATTIE: Did you invent those?

BOB: It was a company in Portland, Oregon, that made dehusking equipment for canning corn. So I flew up there and saw it. But for canning corn, it could be too severe and it could bruise the kernels, and it would get by because they cut the kernel off the cob and put it in the can. But for what we're doing, we cannot have any bruising at all. So I told them to put 40 durometer rubber, just plain rubber, nothing that rolled.

HATTIE: Did that solve the problem?

BOB: No. We put it in through there and it wouldn't husk anything. So the engineer over there says, `See, Mr. Sakata, I told you it won't work.' So I said, `Wait. Wait just a minute.' I said, `Do you have an air hose somewhere in here?' And he said, `Yep.' So I stood up on the machine and I put this air hose and put air on the husks. And soon as I put air on the husks, it opened the husk up and the rollers grabbed the husk and just husked it right off.

HATTIE: Wow!

BOB: So all it took was air.

HATTIE: So you're proof that it's the small-business owners that are bringing the ideas to the forefront.

BOB: Yes. I grew up on a 10-acre farm and learned from the bottom up.

HATTIE: You listen to the people who are doing the work.

BOB: Yes, because I understand it because I started from there. All my employees here know that I'm the cheapest-paid man on the staff because I don't want to be owning yachts and airplanes and so forth. I have a greater pleasure of having a new John Deere tractor or having something that is more productive and more challenging.

HATTIE: So instead of buying a fancy car for yourself, you put the money into a tractor that's more comfortable, that's better for one of your employees to work with to make their life a little better?

BOB: That's right. I think the main thing is there are two things in this business that you have to be sensitive of. Number one, your employees, because they're the ones that make your company. And you have to try to make the workplace a pleasant workplace and try to make everything as easy as possible, and that is a ongoing challenge.

HATTIE: You have a lot of people who've been here a long time.

BOB: Yes. We're proud to tell you that we have third-generation people working here. That's rather unique on the farm because everybody wants to leave the farm, you know and get a city job. The second thing that we have to be cognizant of is the quality of our product. We are not satisfied by our product leaving here and backing up in the produce warehouse, whether it's Safeway or wherever it is. If they accept it there, we're not satisfied yet. We still scout inside the stores to make sure our product is the best of any.