Jeanne Coen worked as an International Customer Service Representative for the almond company, Blue Diamond Growers, in Sacramento, California. She had worked at Blue Diamond for 15 years.

Blue Diamond had been created in 1910 as a “cooperative” of 230 California almond growers. That is, the growers shared management and ownership responsibility for the company. Before 1910, almond growers sold their crops to independent dealers and had to negotiate on their own for a price. They didn’t feel they were treated fairly, so they united to form a bargaining organization called CAGE, for California Almond Growers Exchange, which later became Blue Diamond.

By the late 1990s, Blue Diamond had 4,000 growers as members. The company helped these growers market their almonds to all 50 states and over 90 foreign countries, making almonds California’s largest food export. In 1997, the state of California’s growers had harvested a record 744 million-pound crop of almonds.

Jeanne’s job was to coordinate almond shipments to other countries. Whenever a buyer in India or China or Japan wanted to purchase almonds, Jeanne got involved. She made sure Blue Diamond’s processing plant could fill the order and then arranged to have it shipped to the customer. September, harvest time, was particularly busy, so Jeanne knew she’d have to be very organized.