Costco Wholesale CEO Craig Jelinek announced he will step down from his role, effective Jan. 1. Ron Vachris has been tapped as Jelinek’s replacement. Vachris has been with Costco for the last 40 years and currently serves as the president and COO, a position he has been in since February 2022.
Pacific Trellis Fruit/Dulcinea Farms has added Mike Walsh and Seymur Ashumov to its sales team. Walsh will be the East Coast sales manager, bringing over 11 years of experience to the role. He previously worked as a grape sales executive at Giumarra Vineyards. Ashumov will be a sales executive, bringing 18 years of experience in procurement, merchandising and sales. He most recently was with C&S Wholesale as a national buyer.
Cory-Ann Wind, Clean Fuels Alliance AmericaJeff Rowe has been selected as the new CEO of the Syngenta Group, effective Jan. 1. He currently is president of Syngenta Crop Protection. Before that he was president of Syngenta Seeds. Last week, Erik Fyrwald, Syngenta Group’s current CEO, announced he would be stepping down at the end of the year after seven years with the company. He will remain as an adviser and continue serving as chairman of the Syngenta Group’s board of directors. Hengde Qin has been tapped as the new chief financial officer, replacing Chen Lichtenstein, who is stepping down to “pursue other business opportunities.”
Tony Zuccato has been hired as the new chief operating officer for Prophet. Zuccato has over 30 years of experience in software development and project management, previously working for Produce Pro Software as the vice president of operations.
Andrew Noyes has joined Daily Harvest as the new vice president of communications and corporate affairs. He previously was at Zero Acre Farms as an adviser and before that was the vice president and head of global communications and public affairs for Eat Just.
Clean Fuels Alliance America has promoted Jeff Earl to director of state governmental affairs and is bringing on Cory-Ann Wind as the new director of state regulatory affairs with a West Coast focus. Wind begins her role on Jan. 8. Earl succeeds Floyd Vergara, who retired at the end of September. For the past two years, Earl served as the director of state regulatory affairs for the organization. Wind most recently was the clean fuels program manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
USDA’s Animal Plant Health and Inspection Service has made senior leadership changes to its staff. Associate Administrator Jack Shere has been asked to move into a senior leader role where he will focus on recruiting veterinarians and identifying current and future staffing needs for the agency. Donna Lalli will become associate administrator. She had been serving in an acting associate administrator role since late February after beginning a stent as the Wildlife Services associate deputy administrator in 2021. Sarah Helming has been tapped to serve as the deputy administrator for the Emergency and Regulatory Compliance Services. She joined APHIS in 2014 and has held various positions, including associate deputy administrator for ERCS and chief of staff for the Office of the Administrator. Lastly, Wendy Anderson has been selected to serve as the new director of Wildlife Services for the Western Region. She has worked for Wildlife Services for the last 25 years and previously served as the Western region assistant director and was the policy and science adviser to the deputy administrator.
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Janet Riley has started her own consulting business, Janet Riley Strategies. She brings 30 years of agricultural and food industry communications experience, including working for Maple Leaf Foods and the North American Meat Institute.
Former California State Assembly Member Cindy MontañezKeegan Kautzky is now a senior adviser for research, education, and economics at USDA. He previously was a consultant for the Center on Global Food and Agriculture at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Before that, he worked for the World Food Prize Foundation as the senior director of global youth programs and partnerships.
Alison Bentley has been selected as the 2023 Borlaug CAST Communication Award recipient. Bentley is a plant geneticist and a Bayer visiting scholar in the Plant Breeding Center at the University of Minnesota. She is being recognized for her contributions to wheat research and her dedication to science communication.
Former California State Assembly member Cindy Montañez died on Oct. 21 in her home in San Fernando after battling an aggressive and terminal cancer. She was 49. She was elected to San Fernando City Council at the age of 25, and then became the youngest woman elected to the California State Assembly at 28. She was a fierce advocate for environmental justice and her focus was to help decrease pollution in underserved communities.
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