SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Food Bank has reached outside the nonprofit sector for its latest executive director, hiring a longtime San Diego banker whose family has deep roots in the area.

J. Scofield Hage, a retired banker who served on a number of nonprofit boards, is transitioning from part-time volunteer board director to full-time manager of the struggling hunger-relief charity.

Hage, 61, began work Monday. He replaced James Jackson, who resigned April 30 after eight months on the job.

Known as “Scody,” Hage is the food bank's ninth leader in just over three years and the first with no experience in food banking or nonprofit administration. He said he looks forward to the challenge.

“I've worked so closely with a number of nonprofits over a period of time,” Hage said. “I can see the perspective from both the volunteer side as well as the professional side.”

Hage is a native San Diegan whose family history in the area dates back to the 1890s, when his great-grandfather migrated south from the Bay Area and established a creamery.

Hage, who lives in Point Loma, said his ancestors donated milk to San Diego schoolchildren for decades. “The family has gone full circle,” he said.

The new food bank director spent almost 40 years with a number of financial institutions before retiring from San Diego Trust Bank as a commercial lending expert last year.

He has also been active in charities as a board member, serving the Kiwanis Club of San Diego, the local Boys Scouts of America council, Rady Children's Hospital, the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce and other organizations.

Hage said Tuesday he plans to spend the next five years rebuilding the food bank and would soon be hitting up contacts for donations.

Food bank Chairman Eugene “Mitch” Mitchell said in a statement that Hage will help the food bank “be well-positioned for generations of San Diegans to come.”

The food bank has struggled in recent years with high turnover in its managerial ranks and the loss of millions of pounds of donations it received every year as a member of the national America's Second Harvest network.

In late 2006, eight of nine board members quit in protest against the Neighborhood House Association of San Diego, which established the program in 1977 and tolerated a major theft ring for years until it was exposed by The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2005.

Since then, the food bank has operated as an independent charity with a new board. Many former board members opened a separate food bank called the Second Harvest Food Bank for San Diego, which distributes food from the national network.

According to the leader of one small nonprofit that collects food donations from both charities, the San Diego Food Bank is still in the shadow of the theft scandal.

“There's a credibility (issue) there,” said Sandy Maynes, who runs the San Diego Coalition for the Homeless.

Maynes said food banks are needed more than ever. Donations go fast at her distributions, held three times a week.

“People are really struggling,” she said.

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