MONTEREY — Well-known visionary, entrepreneur and philanthropist Toshikiyo “Andy” Matsui died Friday after living a life of hard work, accomplishment, success and generosity, according to his eldest daughter, Teresa, president of the 53-year-old company her father founded.
Mr. Matsui, 85, was living at the Cottages of Carmel retirement community in Carmel where he died peacefully in his sleep.
Teresa Matsui said that what she will remember most about her father was his enormous heart and that he always wanted to give back. She said she will also remember his drive to succeed for his business and his family.
“Have big dreams” was the lesson Teresa Matsui learned from her father. “That was part of his heart. I don’t think he thought about limitations. Whatever he wanted to do, he achieved.”
Capping many years of success in the flower industry, Mr. Matsui and his wife, Yasuko, created the Matsui Foundation in 2004 to support the educational aspirations of underserved students in the Salinas Valley and throughout Monterey County. The foundation has distributed millions of dollars in college scholarships.
Mr. Matsui was known in the community not only for pioneering the sale of potted orchid plants in grocery stores and becoming one of the world’s largest potted orchid farmers but for his generosity in supporting higher education including being the founding donor to a degree partnership with Hartnell College in Salinas and CSU Monterey Bay in Seaside — the Computer Science in 3 program. The initiative was started in 2013 and is notable for its success in graduating female and minority students who have long been underrepresented in computer science and other science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related fields.
In a Hartnell College statement mourning the loss of Mr. Matsui, interim Superintendent and President Raul Rodriguez said: “Andy Matsui has made an enduring impact, not only at Hartnell, but in so many ways across the Salinas Valley and beyond.”
The Matsui Foundation gifted hundreds of acres of farmland to the Hartnell College Foundation in 2017, contributing to benefit the Computer Science in 3 program students.
Mr. Matsui’s generosity benefited many others through organizations such as the Natividad Foundation in 2018 when the Matsui family made the single largest donation in the hospital’s 30-year history from an individual or family, in order to bring an infusion center to Natividad.
Over the years, Mr. Matsui was lauded for his support and generosity to the community, including receiving an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the California State University and CSU Monterey Bay in 2011, among many others.
Mr. Matsui was born in rural Nara Prefecture, Japan, to a farming family where he gained experience in working the land. He was part of the ministry of agriculture programs as a young student, where he was sent to California as part of his education and introduced to new possibilities. Mr. Matsui, his wife Yasuko, and his first daughter, Teresa, emigrated to the United States in 1964 where the couple found work in Japanese-owned flower nurseries in the San Francisco Bay Area. They were eventually able to start their own business by leasing greenhouses.
By 1969, Mr. Matsui purchased 40 acres of land outside Salinas and established his own nursery. He earned a reputation as a high-quality floriculturist and innovator and became an industry leader. Mr. Matsui guided his company through many transformations over the years as business conditions changed.
In the mid-1990s, Mr. Matsui converted his nursery to potted orchid production, working with national chains such as Trader Joe’s, and pioneered the sale of potted orchids in grocery stores. Today, Matsui Nursery offers the greatest selection of orchid varieties of any large-scale commercial orchid nursery in the U.S.
Teresa Matsui said her father kept a degree of perspective and humility in his life.
“I remember how he would just laugh with delight and surprise at all that he had accomplished. I was never aware that he thought deeply about potential failures,” she said.
Teresa Matsui said her father had a huge persona as a successful flower grower and philanthropist. The family has heard from many reaching out to express how much they appreciated the impact he had on the community.
“Especially scholarship recipients who are working in tech and academia who’ve said this could not have happened without my father’s generosity,” said Teresa Matsui. “It was truly a gift as an example to us.”
The eldest daughter of the Matsui family said that, as in any family, there are conflicted feelings about the man who was her father and the public persona everybody else knew. She is the oldest of four children and took the reigns of the company in 2015 when she became its president.
“I think I will remember him as a complex, sometimes flawed, but a dear man,” said Teresa Matsui. “I think we each have complicated feelings about him as a parent and an example, but in the end, it is the depth of his heart, and the lives he has touched, including ours. We can step back and take pride in what he accomplished.”
Teresa Matsui recognizes that her father’s business was “like his fifth child” and consumed so much of his energy, imagination and time, but she said that “at the end of the day, we turned out pretty well so he must have done something right.”
All the Matsui children graduated from Harvard University, according to the Hartnell College statement.
“I know that while his work was geared towards personal achievement, it was also his way to provide for his family and loved ones,” said Teresa Matsui of her father.
Teresa Matsui said that her father’s background as a small farmer who became a visionary and entrepreneur, made running his successful company a “seat-of-the-pants operation.”
Though she may run the company in a different fashion and enjoy continued success over the long term, Teresa Matsui said she could not have started the business.
Teresa Matsui said she wants people to know that her father loved his life and she loves the fact that one person could make such a huge impact in his industry and community while touching many people’s lives.
Mr. Matsui is survived by his wife of 62 years, Yasuko, daughters Teresa and Kathy, and sons William and Paul, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law and four grandchildren.
The Link LonkDecember 15, 2020 at 05:56AM
https://www.montereyherald.com/2020/12/14/salinas-flower-visionary-andy-matsui-dies-at-85
Salinas flower visionary Andy Matsui dies at 85 - Monterey Herald
https://news.google.com/search?q=Flower&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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