RIO RICO, AZ — While Rio Rico and nearby Nogales are surrounded by beautiful, wild, mountainous landscapes, the Nogales industry has had challenges recruiting professionals because it is somewhat isolated.

Tricar Sales Inc., took advantage of its offices in Tucson, and on Sept. 1 hired Jason Kanis, a commercial real estate veteran from Tucson.

Rod Sbragia, sales and marketing director of Tricar, and new salesman Jason Kanis.Rod Sbragia, sales and marketing director for Tricar, said incorporating fresh blood into the produce business can be a valuable asset and he deliberately looked for a young professional who had no experience in the fruit and vegetable industry.

Kanis arrived with no preconceptions of how fresh produce sales worked. He was attracted to Tricar because of its operating dual sales offices, one here in Rio Rico, which is about 45 minutes south of the firm’s Tucson sales office.

The dynamics of the job were a lot more in-depth than Kanis expected. However, after a couple of months on the job, he had begun to understand the ins-and-outs. “There are a lot of variables and moving pieces,” he said.

Learning the vocabulary of the fresh produce industry was also a bigger challenge than he anticipated. “My first day, I asked ‘What is a lot?’” He also needed definitions of a “load” and “wirebound.”

Sbragia has assigned 12 accounts to Kanis to maintain.

Kanis said there is very little in common between commercial real estate and fresh produce: “This is supply and demand. The other is dollars and cents and projections,” Kanis.

Kanis wasn’t Sbragia’s first hire outside the industry. Tricar salesman Kyle McGrath now has seven years of experience at the firm.

“I don’t see enough young talent that is college-educated,” Sbragia said. “This industry is getting more sophisticated and we need more and more sophisticated people in the industry. That’s one reason we opened the office in Tucson.’