The county of Ventura has found its next agricultural commissioner by looking a few hundred miles north to a coastal county with an even bigger farm industry.

Henry Gonzales, chief deputy agricultural commissioner in Monterey County, will take over in the first week of August as Ventura County agricultural commissioner. He will head a 38-employee, $2 million-per-year department that enforces state and local regulations on the county's farm industry.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted in a closed session on Tuesday to hire Gonzales and announced the decision later in the afternoon.

Gonzales said he knew beforehand that County Executive Officer Marty Robinson would recommend him for the job, but he didn't find out he was hired until just before the announcement was made on Tuesday.

"I'm thrilled," he said by phone from Monterey on Tuesday evening. "Ventura is such a beautiful area, and I know agriculture is a big industry there, just as it is here."

Ventura County's agricultural industry produces about $1.5 billion in crops a year; Monterey County's is even bigger, at $3.8 billion a year.

Gonzales said he expects to pick up his new job quickly, because many of the crops he'll be dealing with are the same. Strawberries, for example, are the top crop in Ventura County and No. 2 in Monterey County, so Gonzales is already well-versed in the controversy over the use of fumigants on strawberry fields.

Gonzales, 53, has been Monterey County's chief deputy agricultural commissioner for the past seven years. He's been working in agriculture since age 13, when he worked in the fields of the Salinas Valley.

He was recently offered the job of agricultural commissioner for the County of San Francisco, but he didn't accept the offer so that he could keep his options open in Ventura County.

"This is a much better fit for me," he said, because San Francisco is an urban county. "I've always worked in the fields, and I want to stay close to that."

Ventura County's current agricultural commissioner, Earl McPhail, has held the job for the past 29 years. He was supposed to retire in March but agreed to stay on until the county could find his replacement.

That search took months because there are only about 140 people in the state who have all of the licenses and certifications necessary to be a county agricultural commissioner, officials said.

County officials interviewed seven applicants, and Robinson told the Board of Supervisors that Gonzales would be the best choice. He will be paid $125,000 a year, about $6,000 less than McPhail made in his last year on the job.

Gonzales said his biggest job now is finding a place for his family to live in the county. He is married and has four children, from 9 to 16.

He also plans to meet with McPhail and talk with him about the work that needs to be done in the county agricultural commissioner's office. Gonzales said one of his top priorities will be automating the county's permit system. Keeping up McPhail's good relationships with growers is also high on the list, he said.

"The success of the office is going to be based on those relationships."