The Growers Co. President and CEO Sonny Rodriguez is set to receive Western Growers’ 2024 Award of Honor at the organization’s 98th annual meeting in November.
Western Growers says the award is its highest recognition of achievement and is given to individuals who have contributed extensively to the agricultural community.
The Growers Co. has offered custom produce harvesting since 1950 and is a third-generation family business, according to a news release. The Yuma, Ariz.-based company, with offices in California, harvests lettuce, mix lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli and other commodities.
Rodriguez joined the company in 1975, and under his leadership, it thrived on its mission to serve customers’ needs while providing fair, equitable and opportunistic employment for all of their workers, the release said.
Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia said the award is typically bestowed on the growers for whom the association was created in 1926, but this year the organization is with that practice to honor Rodriguez.
“As president and CEO of The Growers Co., Sonny ensures that his customers — growers of fresh produce — can be confident that their crops will be expertly tended and harvested by skilled farm employees, and he does this with the highest commitment to integrity, ethical conduct and compassion for all,” Puglia said in the release.
“Sonny started working in the fields as a teenager and has never strayed from the values his father inculcated in him, none more important than treating every worker with dignity and respect,” Puglia continued. “Few in our industry have done as much to educate elected leaders and government officials about the many positive contributions — and the many challenges confronting — America’s fresh produce industry. He is a respected and well-known advocate for agricultural labor reform that would honor the work of our farm employees and bring rationality to the industry.
“In everything he does for the industry, Sonny’s lifelong commitments to his faith and his family, starting with his wife, Cynthia, are always paramount,” Puglia added. “It is entirely fitting that we will honor Sonny this November as the Western Growers Annual Meeting returns to his home state of Arizona.”
Rodriguez was first elected to the Western Growers board of directors in 1998, the release said.
“I have no words to describe how grateful I am to be chosen this year for the Award of Honor,” Rodriguez said. “I am truly humbled to be recognized by my peers and to stand among the great men and women who were honored before me. The real honor is being able to serve our industry by being on the board of Western Growers.”
Rodriguez is a graduate of Project CENTRL Arizona Leadership Program’s Class XII and served on the Agricultural Employment Relations Board from 1995 to 2005. He was active in the Yuma Vegetable Shippers Association for 15 years.
In addition, Rodriguez is one of the founders of Yuma Catholic High School, the release said. He served on the Diocese of Tucson charity and ministry board for six years, was chairman of the St. Francis Parish board for three years and Hospice of Yuma board for two years of his six-year term.
Rodriguez’s achievements will be celebrated at the Award of Honor Dinner Gala at the Western Growers 2024 Annual Meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., Nov. 3-6.
