Nan Tucker McEvoy, Founder and CEO, did not originally intend to recreate a Tuscan olive grove in Northern California, she was simply looking for a country retreat, a place where her three grandchildren could run free, just like she had as a child. No sooner were her sights set upon a 550-acre ranch in the hills of Petaluma that she discovered it was strictly zoned for agriculture. Having spent childhood summers on a cattle ranch in Oregon, Nan had developed a taste for the rigors of ranching, for a time even raising her own purebred Herefords. Despite this, she opted against livestock. Instead, at the suggestion of her son Nion, she read Feast of the Olive by Maggie Klein and was inspired to plant olive trees.

Nan McEvoy’s grandfather, Michael de Young, founded the San Francisco Chronicle in 1865. The only child of Phyllis de Young Tucker, Nan inherited one-third ownership of the Chronicle Publishing Company and headed the board from 1981 to 1995. Her life of public service included serving as a founding staff member of the original Peace Corps as well as participating in John D. Rockefeller’s Population Council.

True to her pioneering spirit, it was in Nan’s retirement from the Chronicle at the age of 72 that McEvoy Ranch came to be—now the nation’s largest purveyor of estate-grown-and-produced olive oil, with 18,000 organically farmed trees and a state-of-the-art Rapanelli mill, the only one of its kind in the United States. Today the indefatigable Nan Tucker McEvoy offers tours, tastings, and other special events at her ranch as well as at her store located in the San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace.

Nion McEvoy is Chairman and CEO of Chronicle Books LLC, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, California. Chronicle Books is known for its excellence in design and production, and the strong popular appeal of its titles, including such best-sellers as The Beatles Anthology, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, and Weber’s Art of the Grill. In addition, Chronicle Books creates notecards, calendars, and stationery products ranging from the works of William Wegman and the menus of Chez Panisse to Goth teen icon Emily the Strange. Nion McEvoy joined Chronicle Books in 1986, and served as the Editor in Chief of the adult trade division until the acquisition of the company by the McEvoy Group in February 2000.

He worked previously in the business affairs departments of the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills and of Wescom Productions, and is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Hastings College of the Law. He currently serves on the boards of SFJAZZ, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He has two sons and a daughter, and plays drums in an elusive rock band Rough Draft.

Maurizio Castelli, McEvoy Ranch Consultant Consultant at Castello di Volpaia winery in Central Chianti Classico, Tuscany, Maurizio Castelli has been advising Nan McEvoy on the purchase of olive trees and the production of oil since the inception of McEvoy Ranch. Considered one of Italy’s finest experts on both olive oil and wine production, he was instrumental in importing the revolutionary Italian frantoio, used to crush and mill olives at McEvoy Ranch, and travels to California several times a year to monitor the progress of the operation.