Tag Archives: Jose Cruz-Soto

Work anniversaries!

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This month, we celebrate work milestones for two of our team members: Carlos Baez and Jose Cruz-Soto, better known to all of us as Blondie!

Carlos has been back with us full-time for ten years now, but he’s actually been around for what seems like forever, first starting out as a seasonal worker and eventually moving up to Equipment Supervisor. “It’s great to have someone knowledgeable and capable backing me up when I’m not here,” says his manager, Louis Cantafio. “There can’t be interruptions in the service that the shop provides, so it’s important we have someone here to place orders, schedule jobs, and to make sure service calls in the field don’t go unanswered. We have to do what we do every day, and when I’m not here, we can count on Carlos for that. I never have to worry that things won’t get done.” Carlos enjoys being here, as well, Louis says. “I know he likes it here. And he’s here for us, there’s no doubt about that.”

Fellow equipment team member Ernie Waszkiewicz agrees: “He gets done what we need to get done; he’s a good guy.”

CEO Bill Haines also has high praise for Carlos. “Carlos started here I don’t know how many years ago as a seasonal employee with the harvest crew. He came on board as a full time employee helping Mike Guest on facilities, and then when we were kind of in a pinch and shorthanded at the old shop, he stepped in and held the fort for a long time. I’ve always appreciated that. He’ll do anything you ask him to do, even if it’s outside of his duties at the shop. He’ll make trips to the airport to pick up seasonal employees, he’ll come to work in the middle of the night if we need him. He’s always a guy you can count on.”

Blondie’s been with us now for twenty years and is the team early bird! “If I’m not the first one here in the morning, it’s because Blondie is,” Louis says. “He’s here and he’s out back, cleaning out the bus from the day before, or scrubbing out his water jug, getting the ice and the water for his crew set up for the day. While everyone else is getting here and settling in he’s already got 20 minutes in getting stuff ready for his crew. He really looks after his people; he makes sure they have their water, they have their tools, they have ice. He’s good.”

“Blondie also known as Smiley for good reason,” says Matt Giberson. “He’s always ready to work. He usually beats me to the shop by 6:15 and is the first one to greet me in the morning. His great enthusiasm,and ‘whatever it takes’ attitude is exactly what you get every morning no matter what the conditions outside. He never complains, and is always willing to ask questions to make things better here at Pine Island.”

“Blondie is one of those quiet guys that does a lot of thankless work, but it never occurs to me to ask if he’s here or not, because Blondie is always there and always has been, ” Bill says. “I couldn’t ask for a more loyal employee.”

“Pine Island is lucky to have those two on our team,” Bill says. “I’m glad they’ve been here for so long, and I hope it says something about what a good workplace we have here that we have employees like them who commit to us for decades.”

Orange Harvest Team

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Harvest is drawing to a close, and our Orange Harvest Team is helping us get everything in as quickly as possible! Toward the end of this week, they were working roadside, which made a lovely photo op for anyone traveling along Route 563.

Gathering crew leader Jose Cruz-Soto, better known as Blondie, is a long-time team member who has always shown the willingness to do whatever it takes to get tasks finished and is pleased with the work his crew has been doing. “They’re fast,” he says. “I have two new guys and they’re doing a really good job.” GM Fred Torres agrees: “Blondie’s crew is quick, because he knows how to delegate. He keeps an eye on everything. He’ll pitch in any time he has to, nobody’s too good for that. But he tells his guys what to do and then he makes sure it gets done. You can’t make sure everyone’s doing what they need to do if you’re only doing one task yourself.” It also helps Blondie keep track of the crop; when asked how many boxes have gone from a bog to the packing house, he can answer without even needing to think about it.

The ability to delegate is also one of the top abilities of Orange Team supervisor Gerardo Ortiz. The team supervisor’s job is a busy one; they are not only the top of the chain of command for both the picking and gathering crews, but they also have to constantly monitor the water for the bogs being picked, the bogs being gathered, the bogs that are being drained, and the bogs that are next in line. Most days, Gerardo won’t necessarily need to get into the water with his crew, but this week, it was all hands on deck as he jumped into the water and got behind a machine.

We mentioned last week that the gathering team has a tough job; corralling the berries can be more difficult in some places than others, depending on terrain. But uneven ground as well as ditch placement can also be a problem for the picking crews. Each bog is picked in a specific pattern according to topography, and the picking crew has to carefully move their harvesters around stakes which have been arranged by their team supervisor for maximum operational efficiency. (Following this pattern allows for minimal damage to the vines.) The crew leader also needs to stay ahead of his crew and check for ditches, for everyone’s safety. This is a little easier on newer bogs; they’re more uniform. But after a while our picking crew leaders get to know their sections and know which ones need a little more help. That’s where Gerardo came in.

“These are older bogs,” Gerardo explains, “and some of them are really oddly shaped or have unusual ditch patterns. Caesar [Colon, the Orange Team picking crew leader] is a pro, but with these bogs sometimes an extra hand helps.”

It is this willingness of every single team member to pitch in wherever it’s necessary that makes Pine Island Cranberry nothing but the best!

Hand Ditching

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Ditching is often mentioned as a usual part of the spring/summer maintenance routine on a cranberry farm, but at Pine Island Cranberry we also do some late autumn cleaning after the harvest is in. The ditches surrounding every bog must be kept free of debris in order to ensure adequate water flow for both flooding and drainage.

Our spring and summer routines take care of all the main ditches; our autumn/winter ditching covers the smaller ditches in the middle of the bogs. Unlike the main ditches, which we clean annually, we clean the smaller ditches on a rotating basis. Newly renovated bogs are designed differently, without smaller ditches running through the middle, so as bogs are redesigned we can re-allocate our resources toward other post-harvest activities such as sanding, raking, reservoir and pond cleaning, planting, and the winter flood.

Jose Cruz-Soto, better known to us as Blondie, has been with Pine Island full-time for almost fifteen years. He was a member of our highly efficient fairy-ring crew, has run the Orange Team’s gathering crew for the past few years, and runs our weed control, so is well-suited to work with a crew of over a dozen team members to make sure the hand ditching goes smoothly.

The process starts with hand-trimming the ditches: often vines start to grow across, so it’s necessary to cut them back and clean up the edges of the ditch. This can be done with either a trimmer or a brush cutter.

The rest of the crew follows along behind the trimmers. Each member of the first group will use a large hoe to gather the debris (vines, berries, weeds, etc) together; the second group has each member using a pitchfork to scoop up it up and deposit it on the side of the ditch.

Some bogs are easier to work in than others; as it turns out, berry variety can make a difference. Stevens vines are thicker than Early Blacks (which are a thinner, lighter vine), so it’s harder to cut them back, especially when using the brush cutter, since mature cranberry vines grow densely.

Finally, another crew, led by Mickey Mercado, comes along to pick up the debris using handheld beds, or carriers. The bogs are usually too wet to be able to use a Gator, so it needs to be done by hand. The debris is then loaded onto a truck and taken away.

Hand ditching is an unglamorous but necessary task that we perform each year. It is part of the care and attention that Pine Island Cranberry pays to our land and our environment, and it is leaders like Blondie who help us get it done.

Efficiency in action

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One annual spring job here at Pine Island Cranberry is dealing with a disease that affects cranberry vines called fairy ring. With the assistance of Dr. Peter Oudemans of the Rutgers Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research, we have developed a treatment which needs to be applied in May. After two years, early indications are it’s working.

Our team, consisting of Jose Cruz-Soto, Brandon Morales, Alberto Torres, and Jose Cruz-Rodriguez, had a target date of June 1st to get the project done; instead, they finished eight days ahead of schedule. Because of their dedication, energy, and effort, we have, for the first time ever, been able to treat every ring at Pine Island, a total of 23 acres.

Jose Cruz-Soto

Brandon Morales

Alberto Torres

Jose Cruz-Rodriguez

In addition to the above team members, our intern Christen Stroehlein (a Rutgers student majoring in nutritional sciences) mapped out and measured fairy rings with help of aerial photographs. This greatly increased our team’s efficiency and ability to reach their targeted goal ahead of schedule.

Thanks to everyone’s exemplary demonstration of our core values, chief among them protecting the environment, continuous improvement, and doing whatever it takes, Pine Island Cranberry steadily maintains our mission and vision: to continue our tradition of excellence and to be the most efficient producer in the world.