Bartosik Announces Retirement From California State Fair

Just prior to his trip this month to Korea to talk about how the California Exposition and State Fair in Sacramento works, Norb Bartosik, general manager of the event since 1994, announced his plans to retire effective Dec. 26.

The fair board of directors has appointed a two-person committee to work with Bartosik to review applicants for the job.

For Bartosik, it’s on to the next adventure. “I’m waiting to see what happens,” he said of his future plans. “I’ve never looked for a job. The next one just comes along.”

He and his wife, Joan, like living in Sacramento and bought a home in Loomis seven years ago. He doesn’t anticipate moving.

Bartosik, 62, has been in the fair business for 42 years, including stints as the general manager of the Orange County Fair, Costa Mesa, Calif.; Antelope Valley Fair, Lancaster, Calif.; and Du Quoin (Ill.) State Fair. He is a member of the International Association of Fairs & Expositions and Western Fairs Halls of Fame and a 2010 inductee into the Venues Today Hall of Headlines for his efforts to control food prices at the fair.

Bartosik will be in Las Vegas for the IAFE convention Nov. 24-29, during which he will join a panel on Tuesday discussing fairs and festivals in Korea. At the Horizon Festival, which is all about rice and which he attended while in Korea, they have a kids' activity that involves going into a half-harvested rice field and catching grasshoppers, he noted. The kids love it. The one who catches the most wins a prize. The Horizon Festival is highly educational.

After 20 years and 19 fairs in Sacramento, Bartosik said he is ready for “the next chapter.”