Growing up in rural central California, Art developed an interest in agriculture by working summer jobs on commercial farms and participating in after school programs like Future Farmers of America. He went on to study Ag. Business and Crop Science at Butte College and California State University of Chico. Art has 18 years of work experience which includes time at J.G. Boswell, Monsanto, and the Morning Star Packing Company, the largest global producers of cotton, seed, and tomato paste, respectively. In 2015, he moved to Nigeria to join Tomato Jos, a fully integrated tomato farming and processing company, in hopes of making a positive change on smallholder and commercial farming in Africa through adapted best practices used in California.