It was Thomas Edison who refused to see more than 10,000 attempts toward making a light bulb as a failure. Famously, Edison said he had not failed 10,000 times—he had not failed even once.
In his words, “I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work.” The father of the electric light would have enjoyed Paul Newstead.
When I ask Paul, Director of Business Development for Superfresh Growers®, to sift through more than 30 years of his fresh produce life for what was most pivotal, he does not hesitate.
“Failure,” he begins. Like Edison, choosing his career path was based on Paul finding what didn’t fit and showcasing spectacular perseverance. “Having zero self-awareness, I left for college thinking about the family business: medicine. If my previous demonstrations of scientific ineptitude did little to quiet my confidence, college was a powerful—dare I say, transformative—experience. It did not take long for me to understand with finality and for the sake of humanity that I should never, under any circumstances, be near anything math- or science-related.”
Paul reflects on this point, emphasizing with fervor the magnitude with which this should never have been attempted: “If you’ve ever seen hydrochloric acid meet raw flesh, this is a dramatically less violent illustration of what I was to math. Had I somehow managed medical school, the patient would have fared better dodging freeway traffic than suffering at the hands of my guidance.”
Paul’s explanation is more colorful than I can report, but so is his assuredness that it was a necessary fiasco, as were a few other missteps along the way.
“I had a brief dalliance with a career in finance—who would have guessed you needed to enjoy math for all that finance work,” he jokes. “The only place I could find refuge was the Political Science department which, thankfully, had nothing to do with science.”
Paul navigated a future in law until a candid interview with a passionate member of the field got him thinking this path might lead back to a known failure for himself.
“I knew the smell of a math test coming,” he says with a proverbial nose-tap, sharing how this swiftly ended yet another professional prospect. “In need of money, I called a family friend who put me in touch with who ended up being my first real boss.”
That job was as a buyer in produce.
“To my surprise, I loved it and was not entirely deficient. That was 33 years ago, and I have yet to take a calculus test since I began. Should they require one, I’m retiring on the spot,” he promises.
This winding way yielded more than Paul’s successful field; it taught him the lesson he now imparts to anyone who might find themselves at a transition.
“Know yourself. It’s easier said than done, but it will help you. If not in an immediately tangible way as you might hope, in ways that will profoundly help you and those around you,” he shares. When it comes to such an understanding, Paul himself reaches toward the relationships that have shaped him, both professionally and personally.
“The powerful lessons are the ones that bring to life or reinforce the fundamental elements of a good life: truth, clarity, honesty, tolerance, and love—the last being two sides of the same coin.”
Paul Newstead, Director of Business Development, Superfresh Growers®
“My first boss, Wally Stauffer, was a forcefully principled businessman who practiced fairness and honesty—even when no one was looking, as they say. A retired Lt. Col in the Army with multiple combat tours in Vietnam, Wally was very disciplined, and he honored his role, whatever that may be at the time, to the truest version of that ideal. Generous with his time and attention to my development, he enhanced my confidence and made me believe I was joining an elite breed in the ranks of produce. One of my chief takeaways was to trust in the value of precision to simplify problems. Additionally, we spent time discussing shared interests like politics and history,” Paul remembers.
Supplemental to Wally was Dirk Winkelmann of Vanguard Trading, with whom Paul worked in a couple of different capacities in styles that first sound to me like oil and water.
“Dirk’s organized and academic approach to business served as a guiding light then and now. Dirk’s discipline and deep authenticity are qualities we all should strive to emulate,” he recalls.
Another influencing voice was Pat Miller of Russ Davis Wholesale/Crazy Fresh.
Having sold to Pat for years, Paul shares how even today the buyer’s collaborative style still inspires his own approach and philosophy.
“I have not met a buyer with a greater natural capacity to build value onto a product, instead of merely extracting it,” he says. “Last, but not least, I will cherish my years working at Superfresh Growers with the late Mike Harmon. Mike was the consummate family man and a true sales professional. Mike was trained at Scott Paper in the 1960s working out of Chicago. So much of what we did and what I aspire to was a derivative of Mike’s experience and guidance.”
When it comes to finding such guidance, Paul’s advice is simple once you’ve managed that first step toward self-actualization.
“I believe the voices to follow are the ones based in common sense. The powerful lessons are the ones that bring to life or reinforce the fundamental elements of a good life: truth, clarity, honesty, tolerance, and love—the last being two sides of the same coin. My mom was an emotional tonic for me as a kid. As early as I can remember I was fascinated by her cooking. She would sit me on the counter and sing to me in Italian. Unsurprisingly, cooking and food have always remained a source of comfort and love for me,” he reflects.
Today, the Newstead home and family build on that foundation—Paul tells me his wife is a lights-out good cook.
“...the simple honesty and authenticity our family has in its love of food is an example of how something so seemingly simple, even benign, has become a force of comfort and remembering for me.”
“We successfully passed our love of food and family to our three kids. I think the simple honesty and authenticity our family has in its love of food is an example of how something so seemingly simple, even benign, has become a force of comfort and remembering for me. It’s a touchstone; a voice made up of a composite of important people in my past, stretching beyond the generations toward a pure ideal. What I’m trying to say is my Mount Rushmore is a bowl of macaroni with my grandmother’s ‘fried sauce’—our family nomenclature for marinara—on it. The biggest influences are people I never worked with but remain giants in my book of heroes: my grandfather, Frank LiPuma, and my dad, Robert Newstead.”
While both these greats have passed, Paul assures me he is himself because of them. An immigrant from Sicily, his grandfather endured unbearable loss to be one of those to arrive in the United States through Ellis Island.
“When my grandfather went to enroll at New York University, he didn’t have enough money for tuition, so he read the class syllabus and bought all the books for four years. He spoke six languages and continued going to college classes until his mid-80s. When I was in college, he’d always ask me what I was reading. Once, I tried a light little number from Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. Zero chance Grandpa had read this one. As soon as I mentioned it, he began citing entire passages verbatim. I could never stump him,” Paul shares with me.
As he remembers key moments, I can see the fingerprints left on Paul’s own personality.
“If he had an opinion, you knew about it. And it was often framed more as a fact you were not necessarily invited to contest,” Paul smiles. “But he was warm and dispensed advice freely as he smoked his pipe or cigar. ‘Don Quixote is the greatest book ever written; only a bastard and a poor host would serve a Beaujolais; everyone in Congress should be hung except for three people, but no one knows who those three people are.’ Printed in my To-Do book I carry with me everywhere is his admonition to me many years ago: ‘Whatever you do, be an expert at it.’”
Paul’s descriptions of both his parents are just as detailed, reverent, and warm. If you have the chance to call, or run into him on the show floor, you should ask about how his father battled Parkinson’s, and how his mother helped him find success in failure.
“At the end of the day, if nothing else was to go well in life, I had the best parents a kid could have hoped for, and they made all the difference,” he concludes.
Failure, while the catalyst, is not what I would say has been Paul’s greatest impactor. Rather, it was the vehicle for what to me is his greatest lesson: self-actualization.
Paul, to me, is confident and unafraid of almost anything. While he insists, even as our article winds down, that he’d give it all up should any math come up on the job, he concedes that apples could be the answer to even this.
“Eat more apples. They are good for you,” he tells me in parting. “Apple eaters live happier, longer, fuller lives. I’m 1,000 percent sure if I eat more apples, I will be good at calculus.”
