Food inspector loved the job, retires at 83


By DEBORAH A. MILES If you ask Melvin Horowitz why he


worked for 44 years, he will tell you the prime motivators were the opportunity to contribute to community and the satisfaction of accomplishment. He is also blessed with stamina, a sense


of humor and a desire to make a difference. Those qualities emerged at an early age, as Horowitz is a veteran of the Korean War. Horowitz recently


retired from the state Department of Agriculture and Markets at the age of 83. As a PEF retiree, he may be off the state payroll, but it is highly unlikely he will remain idle. Horowitz landed a job


with Agriculture and Markets after working for a wholesale meat company at the, now defunct, 14th Street Market in New York City. “I put in 15 years at the meat company


HOROWITZ


and had decent jobs. I worked my way up. Then my wife said those famous words, ‘Why don’t you get a good civil service job?’ And, I did. “I was a meat inspector for many years,


and around 1975, the department dismantled the meat inspection program and gave those responsibilities to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I was offered a federal job, but I didn’t want to leave the state. I then became a poultry inspector,” Horowitz said. He checked upstate chicken slaughter


houses, and later became a food inspector covering hundreds of establishments from the tip of Manhattan up to Baker’s Field at Columbia University. From 1975 to 1990, his office was located at the World Trade Center. He was promoted to senior food inspector and retired from that position in 1999. Horowitz saw many things during this


time, situations that he referred to as “battles,” and many won with the help of his top-notch crew. “We stopped harmful products from


entering the food chain. We did some great work,” Horowitz said. “We saw some awful stuff going on and we stopped it. One of the biggest was a quarter-of-a-million pounds of insect-infested raisins at a


www.pef.org


commercial freezer. I was inspecting the freezer space, which was about a block- and-a-half long, and I saw bugs coming out. The managers thought they could freeze the bugs to death and still would have tried to sell the raisins. There are a million stories over the years. One place adulterated the chopped meat, and put all kinds of stuff into it. “The standards for food safety have


improved throughout the years. We educate food inspectors. You have to be a Renaissance person, someone who can work with cultural changes and also know all about bakeries, retail stores, markets, butchers, manufacturers, factories and importers. “I had a nice job. I was the supervisor of


the boroughs of New York City. I was 69 years old and thought it was time to retire. But in the interim, I had been working for the department’s plant industry, too. It didn’t have enough staff, so food inspectors were recruited to work as volunteers,” Horowitz said. The Asian long-horned beetle prompted


the need for more staff. These destructive wood-boring pests became a big problem for homeowners in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood and the Amityville area in Suffolk County. “The Town of Amityville put in a bid for sewer pipe,” Horowitz said. “It gave the


the pipes on green wood, where the bugs lived. After it was unloaded, we started getting phone calls from people about the bugs in their yards.


Eventually, we


eradicated all the beetles. “The department liked the


work I did, so after I retired, I was offered a part-time position in the plant industry.” For the past 14 years, Horowitz has


worked in the field, walking and inspecting trees and plants in woods and forests. From both positions, he earned several achievement and productivity awards. He credits his former co-workers as caring about consumer safety, and described them as “heroic.” He said young people should consider


civil service jobs such as in agriculture, especially if they care about nutrition and protecting the consumer. He said a job at Agriculture and Markets remains a “coming thing.” “At this stage of the game and having


worked in the field, I wasn’t going to take a chance and slip on a rock. So, I figured it was time to say good-bye. I retired knowing they loved me in Amityville,” Horowitz said. “I have made many good, lasting friends


and experienced many memorable adventures in the last 40 years. It’s been a blast.”


PEFVeteran’s Identification (Please print clearly)


Name: ___________________________________________________________________________ Address: ________________________________ City:_________________________ State:_____ Phone Number: ( ____ ) ____________ Date: ________________ PEF Region: ____________


E-Mail: ____________________ Branch of Service: _________________Years Served: ____ For those NON-Veterans willing to help with the PEF Veterans Committee legislative efforts, Send to: Jerry Jobson, Co-Chair PEF Veterans Committee 9176 Townline Road Springwater, NY 14560


Send to: David L. Krobe, Co-Chair PEF Veterans Committee PO Box 215 Gainesville, N.Y. 14066-0215


The Communicator May 2013—Page 15


contract to China. The sewer pipe came in on freighters to Greenpoint. There is an international law that says anything coming in must be on dried-wood pallets. But China didn’t care. It put


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