Louie Mendoza, Jr. was appointed as Yuba County's new Agricultural Commissioner and began his post on August 6, 2007.

He was born and raised in the Durham-Dayton area of Butte County. Like most people that live in this area, he has been involved with agriculture, either directly or indirectly his entire life. As a youth, he grew up on a small family-owned almond ranch, which taught him the importance and role of agriculture. He still lives in the small town of Dayton, with his wife Maggie and two young sons.

Mendoza attended Durham Elementary and High schools and then attended Chico State University. He graduated from Chico State in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biological Sciences.

He served as an agricultural biologist with the Glenn County Agricultural Commissioner's Office from 1987 to 1994. He was appointed as the Assistant Agricultural Commissioner for Butte County in 1994, and held that position for 13 years until recently accepting the position as Yuba County Agricultural Commissioner.

His responsibilities include enforcing laws and regulations pertaining to pesticide use; plant quarantine; pest manage-ment, detection & eradication; nursery and seed programs; fruit and vegetable and standardization and weights and meas-ures. The goals for the department are "to promote and protect agriculture and to assure that equity prevails in the market-place."