Pine Island Team Profile: Junior Colon

While the majority of our team is working hard on all the different processes during our harvest, it’s not the entire story. Pine Island Cranberry has some long time team members who truly embody our core values, who believe in who we are and what we do, and work hard to make it happen.

One such employee is Domiciano Colon, better known as Junior. Junior is a second generation employee who has been with Pine Island since he was just out of high school. “I started out picking cranberries,” he says. “Picking, gathering…I did all that stuff.” Bill Sr. started him working with heavy equipment back in ’82 or ’83, and he just went on from there. “I did a lot of maintenance, then I started with the mowers. Then the excavators…little by little. I worked on them all. Now whatever there is to do, I do!” He also started working on the bog renovation team back in 1985 with Howard Sprague and Joe Colon, and then in 1988, he says, he worked his first one on his own. “Osborne Spung was my first bog by myself,” he recalls. “It was the first one we did with the laser, too. Grading, stripping, leveling; I did all that.”

Junior’s versatility is what makes him an especially valuable team member during the busy harvest season. (Bill agrees: “Everyone wants Junior when they need an extra hand.”) When the Green Team was harvesting Sim Place, Junior ran the forklift at the transfer station, loading flatbeds that other utility team members Wilfredo Pagan and Ivan Torres would haul to the packing house. “I’m all over the place at this time of year!” Junior says. “We got the flat beds and used them to haul; it’s easier than bringing all those smaller trucks back and forth. That distance will put a lot of wear and tear on a truck.” If we’ve covered it in a blog entry, he’s done it. He’ll be on frost watch in the fall, he’ll watch for heat damage on weekends. Yesterday he hauled for Jorge Morales’ gathering crew (“…and helped pull out someone who got stuck!” he says, laughing).

Today, he’s scraping (smoothing) the dams. Scraping the dams is something that Junior tries to stay ahead of during the harvest. He’ll take the scraper out and make sure the dams are level before one of our harvest teams starts picking, and then he comes along after they are done with a bog and makes sure that they are smoothed out again. As you have read in our storm entries, proper dam maintenance is important for our water management as well as safety and equipment.

“It actually needs to be very precise,” Junior says. “I need to drive slowly; if I go too fast the road doesn’t level the way it should.” He doesn’t only keep up; he needs to stay ahead. “I smooth them ahead of time and when they’re done, I smooth them again.” It’s slow going, but necessary.

Junior was also a key team member during the post-Isaac cleanup. He did a lot of our dam repairs and helped install the lift pumps. Once the harvest is over he will be back on bog renovations, assisting with the planting, and pitching in anywhere else he is needed. It’s people like Junior who make Pine Island Cranberry nothing but the best!