PRESIDENT OF PBH FOUNDATION RESIGNS TO JOIN MARKETING FIRM

RALPH RAIOLA

NEWARK, Del. -- Mike Gretz has resigned as president of the Produce for Better Health Foundation here.

The resignation is effective Jan. 1, 1997. Gretz has accepted a position as managing partner with a Sonoma, Calif., marketing firm specializing in produce, according to an official with PBH.

The PBH organization, which administers the national Five a Day For Better Health produce promotion campaign in concert with the National Cancer Institute, will begin to conduct an executive search for a successor for Gretz during the coming weeks, the official said. Gretz will stay until Dec. 31 to help with the selection.

Beginning Jan. 1, 1997, Elizabeth Pivonka, the current PBH vice president, will assume the president's duties until a new president is put in place. Pivonka has been with PBH since its inception. The PBH official said the organization expects a new president will be selected some time early next year.

Gretz said that in his new job -- at U.S. Marketing Services -- he will work hands-on in the produce marketing industry. "I'm mostly a marketing person, more than a [fund-raising] person."

He said his main contribution to PBH was his ability to sell the health-driven campaign to the industry, by appealing to their business sense. "It was not just [about] feeling good, but that you could sell more produce," he said.