Pine Island Team Profiles: Caesar Colon

Long time team member Caesar Colon has been with us for over thirty years, has done just about everything there is to do, and has done it well!

Caesar is hearing impaired and can read lips in both in English and Spanish. Not too many people here have enough knowledge to speak with him in ASL, but he is always willing to meet people more than halfway when communicating. “He’ll write everything down if people can’t understand,” says GM Fred Torres. “He’ll draw diagrams, whatever he needs to do. He’s a really, really smart guy; way back when he asked me for a map with the names of all the bogs. I wrote them all down, he memorized the map, and now he knows his way around the place better than just about anybody.” This, plus his extensive knowledge of the equipment, makes Caesar one of our best truck drivers.

“Back when he first started, we were both working on the gathering crew during harvest,” Fred says. “We had to figure out a way to signal to him when to move the truck while it was being loaded, because the usual signals we use are calling to the driver or thumping the roof. What he did instead was watch the mirror, and when I was ready to move, I told him to watch my shovel. When I would put it in front of the mirror, Caesar’d pull forward. When I lifted it back up, that meant the truck had to stop.” He laughs. “None of the guys could figure out how we were doing it! But that’s Caesar. You work it out with him and he’ll get it done, whatever it takes.”

Caesar is a natural leader and is now the picking crew leader on the Orange harvest team under the supervision of his brother-in-law Gerardo Ortiz. “He’s a hard worker,” Gerardo says. “And I’m not just saying that because he’s family. He can work any job you tell him to and whatever it is, he gets it right away. Tractor, truck, machine…he’s flexible and really, really smart.”

“He’s a good operator and a good guy,” says Fred. “It’s always fun to work with Caesar.”