business backgrounder | education & workforce
Upward Mobility in the Orchard
Wenatchee Valley College turns ag workers into managers
Christine Pratt
Since the start of the Hispanic Orchard Employees Education Program at Wenatchee Valley College in
1994, some 1,300 workers have completed a certificate program that helps them become managers.
By 8 a.m. on a typical summer day, orchard workers in North
Central Washington have already been on the job three to four
hours.
They balance on ladders or move platforms, picking cherries,
apples and pears. They drive tractors to collect full fruit bins
and haul them to staging areas for transport. They apply
pesticides, repair irrigation lines and thin fruit. Their days
and the size of their paychecks are measured by bins filled and
work completed.
But on one day a week, 8 a.m. is class time for about a
dozen of these orchard workers. Chosen for their initiative
and interest in the orchard business, these men are studying
their way to more responsibility and higher earnings thanks to
the cooperation of growers around the region and Wenatchee
Valley College (WVC).
“This course is designed to develop people into supervisors
and managers,” says Leo Garcia, lead faculty of WVC’s tree fruit
and viticulture workforce-education programs. “We train them
in the basics of horticulture and viticulture. Many of them
know the ‘how.