SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.-Milk sales are making a turnaround in California, as they are nationwide, and  nobody is more excited about this news than the California Milk Processor Board’s new Executive Director, Steve James.


James


“This is an exciting time for Got Milk?,” says James.  “To take over a campaign that continues to be at the forefront of innovative marketing is really an honor.”

Since February all strategic marketing decisions are made from the CMPB’s new home in the Southern California seaside town of San Clemente.  The CMPB relocated its headquarters from Berkeley after 14 years in the Bay Area.  It’s a move James says will allow the CMPB to streamline operations and to continue to focus dollars on marketing instead of infrastructure.

James is no stranger to the CMPB.  Before taking over as executive director this month, he served as chairman of the board since 1999. Over the past seven years, James played an active role bringing Got Milk?’s famous TV commercials to the nation’s living rooms and helped forge strategic alliances with some of the world’s largest food companies like Nabisco, Pillsbury and Dole.

Before joining the CMPB, James co-founded Ronnybrook Farm Dairy from his home in upstate New York.  What started out as a small bottling plant on a farm turned into one of the most popular and recognizable dairy companies in the New York City metropolitan area.  From New York, James joined Dallas-based Suiza Foods (now Dean Foods) and began running its subsidiary, Swiss Dairy, in Riverside, Calif., in the late 1990s.