He is a west Fresno County native, who grew up in this farm country where his parents moved in 1958 from Ireland.

CLEAN-AIR ACTIVISTS: Kevin Hall, center left, local air quality activist who instigated lawsuits challenging a farm exemption, meets with Dallas Blanchard, left, Louis Ruud and George "Elfie" Ballis at Courthouse Park to discuss transportation and air quality issues that affect Fresno. (Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee)

Hall, who once owned a farm-related business, says he loves farmers and never intends to leave the Valley.

But now he works full time at cleaning up the Valley's air. In the process, he publicly says farming needs to be closely regulated.

"I think farming is the best industry in the world," Hall says. "But agriculture doesn't own this Valley."

Talk about whiplash.

Says farmer and newly elected Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson: "I don't know where he crossed the line to being crazy. He understands all the work we're doing [to cut down on pollution]. I don't understand where he's coming from."

From Larson's point of view, Hall seemed like an unequivocal farm supporter. Hall's company, Far West Expositions Inc., put on farm shows. For three years in the mid-1990s, he managed the AgFresno Farm Equipment Exposition in Fresno.

Yet, just 18 months after his last farm show, Hall stood in the San Francisco board room of Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, pitching the idea of a campaign for clean air. Within months, Earthjustice filed several lawsuits, including a challenge to the state air permit exemption for farmers.

But Hall's transformation didn't jar Paul Cruikshank, a marketing expert who worked for Hall at one point. He says Hall always has been thoughtful, progressive and committed to what he believes.

"Kevin is that guy," Cruikshank says of Hall's full-time commitment to air quality. "I have a lot of respect for him. I'm not sure there was a big transformation."

Hall's life-altering decisions didn't come overnight.

The change started more than four years ago when Hall, 43, and his family began discussing the idea of leaving Fresno. He and his wife, Anne Mosgrove, 53, have one child, Joey, 11, and they worried about his health in the Valley.

The Halls don't have lung problems, but they don't want to develop them.

"We wanted to stay here," Hall says. "We have roots and family here. But we knew we had a problem with the air here."

How could he fight for a Valleywide air cleanup while running his own company? Should he attempt it without a regular job? He wasn't sure.

So he and his wife read a book called "Your Money or Your Life," written by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, which encourages people to learn about their own passions and not let them be stifled by the quest for more money.

The Halls were inspired to cut down on spending and pursue the goals that mattered most to them. Hall decided to set his business aside, at least for a few years, and become a community activist.

Hall says most of his family's modest income is interest earned on investments. He also earns some money as an Irish dance teacher and performer along with his mother, Maureen McTeggart Hall.

Mosgrove, a third generation Fresnan, is a retired dental hygienist. She focuses on their son's home schooling.

With his financial plan in hand, Hall studied air pollution for six months in 1999. He concluded that urban sprawl was the biggest enemy of the air and his son's future health. To Hall, agriculture was simply another pollution source that needed to be controlled along with everything else.

Hall joined the Tehipite Chapter of the Sierra Club in Fresno. He became chairman of the local chapter's transportation, air quality and global warming efforts. Then in late 1999 he contacted Earthjustice about the Valley's air problem.

Few people listened to Hall in early 2000 when he announced his war on air pollution to the Fresno County Farm Bureau's executive committee. The farm industry would be on the list of sources that needed to be addressed, he told them.

"All they wanted to talk was dollars and cents," says Hall. "I wanted to talk lives."

They're listening and watching Hall work on many fronts now. Hall, who later became a Fresno County planning commissioner, worked tirelessly to defeat Measure C, the county's transportation sales tax. He contended the measure should dedicate more money for mass transit and other clean-air tools.

On a statewide level, Hall's work led Earthjustice to file a lawsuit that has forced the federal government to enforce an air permit program on large farms, which had not been regulated.

Hall says he will pursue many other angles, including fees for developers whose subdivisions add more pollution to the air basin. He doesn't intend to let up until he achieves his goal:

"It's simple. I want clean air."