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New chef’s work ethic a family tradition
BY KRISTINE CANNON
Progress Staff Writer
As a teen, Scottsdale resident Jeremy Pacheco spent his summers with his brother working on his father’s cotton farm in Marana.
As early as 4 a.m. they would walk up and down the fields and pull morning glories and weeds.
“We were called ‘hoe hands,’” Jeremy recalled, adding with a laugh, “It was very long, boring and hot.”
The Pacheco family’s Arizona roots go back 10 generations and since spending his summers pulling weeds and driving the tractor to the field and spraying weeds – “we broke a lot of stuff,” Jeremy admits – Jeremy has traded his weeding gloves for a white, crisp chef’s jacket emand Miss Arizona Teen USA Molly Schwanz, a Scottsdale resident, want to make a difference amid the pandemic. To help those in need of food and financial assistance, Vidales and Molly have partnered with Phoenix Rescue Mission and its Hope For Hunger Food Bank to host a Valley-wide food drive.
“We knew how much Phoenix Rescue has done for others, so there was no other charity we wanted to team up with,” Schwanz said.
The Valley-wide food drive continues through the June and includes several drop-off locations, including four in Scottsdale.
The public can donate non-perishable
Four generations of the Pacheco family include, from left, grandfather Art Pacheco Jr., father Lyall Pacheco, and Jeremy Pacheco and his sons, Tyler and Nathan. (Debby Wolvos) broidered with the title “Executive Chef.”
Having worked for several renowned establishments throughout the Valley, including the Phoenician and LON’s at the Hermosa Inn, Jeremy’s quick to attribute his successes to his father, Lyall Pacheco.
“I remember him being a really hard worker and working all the time, and a lot of what I got from my dad from farming was a work ethic that’s carried through with me today,” Jeremy said.
It’s this same work ethic that Lyall learned from his own father, Art Pacheco Jr., who farmed as much as 3,000 acres.
“He taught integrity,” Lyall said. “He taught me how to have a good work ethic, just like Jeremy said. And that’s what
Scottsdale teen helping families in need
BY KRISTINE CANNON
Progress Staff Writer
Miss Arizona USA Yesenia Vidales
seePACHECO page 18
Glow Blow Bar owner Lynette Louissia, flanked by Miss Arizona USA Yesenia Vidales, left, and Miss Arizona Teen USA Molly Schwanz is helping the two pageant queens with a drive to help needy families. (Pablo Robles/Progress Staff Photographer) food items to the following locations: Glam Squad Couture in Scottsdale, Scotts Training Systems in Chandler, Cryoworld Drip & Spa in Phoenix, AZ Fit Pro in Scottsdale, Spray Tan Queen Studio in Scottsdale, Hard Knocks Gym in Phoenix, Face Therapy in Scottsdale, Glow Blow Bar in Scottsdale, Regina Valenzuela Hair and Makeup in Phoenix, and Francisco Adame Dance Arts Modeling Academy in Phoenix.
Suggested donations include cereal, soup, rice, beans, pasta, pasta sauce, canned vegetables, canned meat, peanut butter, ramen noodles, mac and cheese, and crackers.
“We are so grateful to provide North Phoenix/Scottsdale a convenient drop-off location for their Valley-wide food drive and help fight hunger here in the Valley,” said Lynette Louissa, Glow Blow Bar owner.
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the main thing was, is to stick it out and work hard and do your job.”
Jeremy is now the executive chef and culinary director for Genuine Concepts.
Previously, he spent seven years as executive chef at LON’s at the Hermosa Inn, and also worked at the Phoenician before working at Society Café at Encore and SW Steakhouse at the Wynn.
“What he’s done is overwhelming. It’s unbelievable,” Lyall proudly, yet incredulously said of Jeremy’s culinary career. “I don’t know how he does it.”
At Genuine Concepts – the neighborhood-focused restaurant group behind the Vig, the Little Woody, The Womack, Ladera Taverna y Cocina, and The McMillan – Jeremy will oversee all brands and menus.
His goal while reworking said menus, he said, is to evolve the restaurants into culinary destinations.
For example, “the Vig’s been known for being a great bar with food and we really want to push it to being great food with a cool bar, too,” Jeremy said.
In addition to revamping the menus,
DRIVE ���� page 22
“Both our Glow Blow Bar staff and customers have been asking how they can be more involved, and they can help during pandemic. No one should go hungry,” Louissa added.
This partnership is a personal one for Vidales, whose family relied on Hope for Hunger Food Bank to make ends meet.
“I can’t tell you what it means to me that there are organizations like Phoenix Rescue Mission that have a sole focus of helping families like mine — families that don’t know when or how they’re going to get their next meal,” Vidales said.
Vidales earned the crown of Miss Arizona USA earlier this year and chose to use her platform to give back to those experiencing the same struggles she and her family endured during her childhood. “It means the world to us to know that Hope for Hunger played a part in Yesenia’s life, and we are so happy to see her succeed,” said Phoenix Rescue Mission CEO Ken Brissa.
Brissa added: “Yesenia is a prime example of why it’s so important for communities to come together in support of their struggling neighbors. She is a blessing to Jeremy plans to gradually integrate as much local product as possible – as he did at LON’s, where he used durum wheat from his father’s farm for the restaurant’s house-made gnocchi.
The wheat from his family’s farm was milled by Hayden Flour Mills in Queen Creek specifically for use at LON’S.
“We’ve already started,” Jeremy said of incorporating local product into the Genuine Concepts’ restaurants’ dishes. “I’m actually using Sonoran Pasta Co. on our menus now, which they’re using Hayden Flour Mills and local wheat for their pasta.”
Jeremy said working the family farm helped emphasized just how important local products are and how important it is to use local ingredients in his dishes.
“I know how much work goes into growing it, even just the cotton, the wheat. I know how much those farmers are going through to get it to our employees, and I really appreciate what they’re doing,” Jeremy said, adding,
us and the entire community as a whole, and we wish her the best as she goes on to compete for Miss USA later this year.”
According to Brissa, the number of families Phoenix Rescue Mission has served has nearly doubled since last year at this time.
However, the most shocking statistic, he said, is that the number of new families is five-times what it was last year.
“[It] shows us that while we continue serving the people who regularly receive food from us, we are seeing a major increase in new families who are receiving help for the first time,” Brissa explained.
“At our Mobile Food Pantries, the line to receive food has been long even before we open, and we often give away everything we have within the first hour of opening,” he added.
Hope for Hunger Food Bank is the largest food bank in Glendale and serves families across the entire Valley.
Since the pandemic, Phoenix Rescue Mission has served more than 11,000 households between their food bank and their mobile food pantries. “That represents over 32,000 people here in the Valley of the Sun,” Brissa said.
With such an urgent need for food and
“I know how much work goes into growing it, even just the cotton, the wheat. I know how much those farmers are going through to get it to our employees, and I really appreciate what they’re doing. It’s the appreciation I have for the hard work that goes into it that I want my kids to understand — that tomatoes don’t just come from the store.”
Jeremy and his wife, Vicki, have two sons: Nathan, 9, and Tyler, 6.
They not only made baby food for Nathan and Tyler, but Jeremy and Vicki also, more recently, built and planted a garden in their backyard to teach them to have an appreciation of food.
Since they started the garden in February, they’ve grown all sorts of fruits and veggies, such as watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchini.
“They come out and help me pick tomatoes in the morning,” Jeremy said.
Of course, their backyard garden isn’t nearly as sprawling as the family farm,
the need for social distancing, Phoenix Rescue Mission changed their food distribution to a drive-thru style.
“Though we could not provide many other services during that time, we put new procedures in place and reopened our food bank building to clients at the beginning of June,” Brissa said.
“With this new system,” he added, “we can finally get back to assisting people with other programs and resources that will help them move out of their needy situation, which is the heart of what we do.”
In addition to non-perishable items, Phoenix Rescue Mission is also in need of cases of water and toiletries for their summer heat relief initiative, Code:Red.
“Our street outreach case managers are out there finding the homeless where they are at and using water, toiletries, and sack meals to begin a relationship so that they can provide case management and the assistance to get these folks off the streets for good,” Brissa said.
So far, Molly said, the Miss Arizona food drive is going well.
She and Vidales estimate all 10 boxes will be “half or completely full” by the end of the month. which consists of 1,000 acres of cotton and 750 acres of wheat.
“They really enjoy coming out and seeing how huge it is and how huge the operation is,” Lyall said, adding that Nathan and Tyler visit the farm a couple times a year. “It’s just beautiful to see. Like when the cotton’s ready to pick, it’s beautiful.”
While Jeremy doesn’t anticipate his sons will pursue the same career he did, he does hope to influence his kids the way his own father did.
“I just hope to be able to instill in them the same work ethic that I learned from my family and my father,” Jeremy said.
“Coming together as a community is going to be most important at this time,” Molly said. “We need to be supporting local businesses, lifting each other up and, most importantly, staying healthy. This time really made me and almost everyone I know appreciate the small things in life.”
In addition to helping organize the food drive, Schwanz has put an emphasis on mental health during the pandemic through her hashtag #becausekindnessmatters.
“Many people feel lost with no work [and] businesses closing, but I was an outlet to let people know that many others are feeling this way and it is completely normal. Our country will recover from this,” Molly explained, adding:
“My hashtag #becausekindnessmatters has been extremely important for me and many others. You don’t know what someone else might be going through so always be kind and do random acts of kindness when you can.”
Those interested in getting involved in the food drive can visit Miss Arizona USA on Instagram at @MissAZUSA or Facebook at @MissArizonaUSA.
Information: phoenixrescuemission. org, hopeforhunger.org
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COVID-19 inspires Scottsdale inventor
BY KRISTINE CANNON
Progress Staff Writer
This time last year, northern Scottsdale resident Ron Laikind began selling the ExtremeMist Personal Cooling System, a hands-free, professional misting system designed to keep outdoor enthusiasts refreshed, hydrated and safe.
His invention caught the attend of retailer REI, who began selling the product in October.
Of course, a lot has changed in one year.
Now, to help businesses and residents swiftly and frequently sanitize their work and living spaces in response to the coronavirus, Laikind repurposed the ExtremeMist PCS to ExtremeMist Portable Sanitizing System.
The product launched mid-April, and since, Laikind has sold more than 1,000 units.
“The feedback I’ve received has been 100 percent positive,” Laikind said.
“Not only can they frequently spray/ disinfect, but it allows people to feel more comfortable knowing the location is being sanitized and disinfected frequently. The result is peace of mind,” he added.
It took Laikind just a few minutes to convert the PCS into the PSS.
The portable, lightweight and easy-touse eight-speed mist system disperses antimicrobial solutions and other chemical disinfectants to sanitize areas of all sizes.
The PSS backpack not only makes sanitizing solutions last up to three-times longer than trigger-spray bottles but also gets the job done in one-third the time.
Plus, the entire cord-free system weighs under six pounds when �illed with two liters of solution.
“It was the simplest part of my inventing process,” he said, adding that all he had to do was remove the drink hose from the drinking/misting system and extend the chest-level mist line to arm’s length.
Jonathan Cottor and Ron Laikind are the COO and founder of ExtremeMist PCS, respectively. (ExtremeMist)
The ExtremeMist PSS Portable Sanitizing System is a mobile, light-weight backpack system that allows you to sanitize large or small areas quickly and effi ciently with the touch of a button. (ExtremeMist)
Now, businesses of all kinds, from doctor’s of�ices and hospitals to gyms, restaurants, airlines, yachting companies, timeshares as well as homes can be protected. Elmhurst Hospital, Northwell Health and Metropolitan Transportation Authority — all in New York — use the portable sanitizing system, as does Jani-King Commercial Cleaning in Texas.
And more locally, Acoya Senior Living in Mesa, Freedom Fitness in Scottsdale and Ledesma Foot & Ankle, also in Scottsdale, have purchased the ExtremeMist product.
“The portability of the Extreme Mist Portable Sanitizing System and, most of all, the ef�iciency of delivering disinfectant solution was particularly attractive,” said Dr. Paul Ledesma of Ledesma Foot & Ankle.
He said it was “crucial” to have a device that would “cover common surfaces that patients would potentially come in contact with quickly and ef�iciently.”
Moreover, he noted, “It was particularly attractive that the Extreme Mist system could do so while conserving disinfectant solution, which is in signi�icant demand and hard to come by.”
Ledesma uses the PSS at least three to four times an hour at his practice — “each and every time a patient leaves a treatment room,” he said.
Ledesma calls the PSS “far superior” than any other cleaning tool he’s used and that it’s “perfect” for his medical practice.
“The Extreme Mist Portable Sanitizing System has become an integral part of daily operations to ensure that we are providing the cleanest and healthiest environment not only for our patients but also for our staff,” he said, adding:
“I have no doubt that this piece of equipment will remain a part of our disinfecting routine from now on and well beyond the time comes when we are less worried about a pandemic.”
The idea for the PSS came to Laikind when his gym was about to shut its doors.
“My gym was going to close before the shut-down order, since the clients were not secure in the knowledge that the gym wasn’t being properly sanitized,” Laikind said, explaining:
“When I learned that the gym was having a meeting to close down, I asked them to wait and that I may have a solution.” Laikind walked back to his of�ice, quickly retro�itted the PCS, and headed back to the gym to show them a new way to disinfect.
“Since it is in a hiking/running backpack, ExtremeMist Portable Sanitizing System is the most comfortable backpack spraying system in the world,” Laikind said. “Establishments can keep it on their employees all day long without major fatigue.”
Following the success of the PSS, Laikind said he is inventing more items for the system to be released in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, Laikind continues to use the PSS every day at his own home.
“My other half has an immune system de- �iciency, so I spray everything in the garage before I come into the house — groceries, mail, everything. Even my shoes!” he said.
The PSS backpack costs $239 and comes with a two-liter reservoir, and the whole system weighs approximately six pounds fully loaded.
The complete pack comes with an extra solution reservoir for quick-change extended use.
Laikind said dealers interested in stocking either the PSS or PCS are invited to reach out to him at 602-368-9625 or info@ extrememist.com.
Information: portablesanitizingsystem.com
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