Yakima, Wash.-based FirstFruits Farms has announced several staff moves, highlighted by the promotion of Lon Hudson to sales director.
“Promoting from within for the sales director position was an easy task due to our large pool of talented employees here at FirstFruits,” Chuck Zeutenhorst, president of FirstFruits Farms, said in a news release. “Lon Hudson brings extensive experience and key skills to this role.”
“While accepting this position, I understand the responsibilities I am taking on,” Hudson said in the release. “I look forward to the ambitious plans I have for the sales department as well as the whole company.”
In addition to the sales director position, the release said other internal promotions include Aleisha Loveluck, named data science architect, and Emily Autrey, named marketing manager.
In new hires, the company also has added:
- Justin Bos, senior sales account manager;
- Andy Zhu, post-harvest manager; and
- Melissa Hunter, data analyst.
“I look forward to working alongside industry professionals to further expand the sales department,” Bos said in the release. “FirstFruits has strengthened key departments such as sales, data analytics, production, and marketing by promoting hardworking employees from within as well as bringing in additional talent with extensive produce industry experience to draw insights from.”
As a newly appointed data science architect, Loveluck will be driving the company with a goal to maximize the farm’s success as a main initiative, the release said.
“FirstFruits Farms finds it crucial to continuously invest in and prepare its teams,” Loveluck said in the release. “Through the combined experience and skills our sales, data analytics, and marketing teams bring together, we can comprehend the mass amount of data in the market and glean insights to present in an easy-to-read format for our retail partners. We pride ourselves on our ability to marry insights with solutions to grow the apple category. With that said, we are excited to have expanded our data department with the addition of Melissa Hunter to aid in accomplishing our data goals.”
FirstFruits Farms’ marketing department strives to address the growing apple demand through its retailer specific marketing strategies, the release said.
“As a marketer and now rooted in a managerial role, I know just how important a seamless relationship across all our teams is,” Autrey said in the release. “We’re all trying to work as a cohesive unit to uniquely position our fruit using supporting data and quality product.”
