Washington is home to a unique leadership program – taught in both English and Spanish – that focuses leadership principles on the realities of working in agriculture. 

Founded in 2020 by the Washington State Tree Fruit Association and the Washington State Department of Agriculture, the Agricultural Leadership Program, or the ALP, seeks to train agricultural leaders and managers. 

So far, 188 managers from 42 different companies have gone through the program. 

Ofelio Borges, manager of the technical services and education program with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, said the ALP had been an idea for nearly 10 years. 

He’s worked in several different areas of agriculture, including as a farm supervisor and an inspector with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

“I learned that most people were kind of in the same position I was as a farm supervisor with very little training and leadership skills,” he said. 

Borges knew a program like ALP needed to be created for supervisors in agriculture, “but for one reason or another, it was not materializing until Jacqui came into the picture,” he said. 

He’s referring to Jacqui Gordon, director of training, education and member services with the Washington State Tree Fruit Association. She and Borges submitted a grant proposal four years ago to kickstart the program.

Now, they both lend their time and talents to the ALP, including seeking further training and helping to teach the program. 

The Agricultural Leadership Program rotates between the Tri-Cities, Yakima and Wenatchee. Ofelio Borges, left, and Jacqui Gordon are two of the ALP’s trainers.

| Courtesy Agricultural Leadership Program

Learning leadership

The Agricultural Leadership Program is a three-month program to teach agricultural supervisors and managers key leadership skills specific to their roles. 

It’s a course in two parts: for the first six weeks, students participate in 40 hours of courses. Then they practice what they’ve learned.

During the instruction period, the class meets one day a week for about six to seven hours. The schedule is intentional so that the program isn’t “pulling farm supervisors and managers three days in a week, where they can’t really leave their workplace for three days,” Borges said. 

The spacing also allows participants time to digest and review the information throughout the week, Borges added.

During the courses, participants learn about improving communication, managing stress and conflict, emotional intelligence and embracing change. 

“We focus on leadership skills, but they are highly customized to agriculture,” Gordon said. “So, all the examples that we use in the program are about real situations that happen in the field, in the packing house, things that they face day-to-day regarding communication, regarding conflicts, that they find in the farm, in the packing house.”

Then, they spend the next six weeks of the program practicing their leadership skills. The participants come back together in the 12th week for graduation, where they each give a brief presentation on what they’ve learned.

Upon graduation, participants receive a certificate from the ALP, the Washington State Tree Fruit Association and the Washington State Department of Agriculture.  

The courses are held in person, with the location rotating between the Tri-Cities, Yakima and Wenatchee. A course is set to run in Yakima this November, and one will be held in the Tri-Cities in May 2025.

Ideally, there will be at least two programs each year, Gordon said, but since the ALP is run using grant funds, that funding will determine how often the program can take place. 

Instructor challenges

The courses are split into two sessions, one Spanish-speaking and one English-speaking. It’s part of what makes the ALP special.

“It’s taught in English and Spanish because we have a very big Hispanic community in the agricultural industry. So we have to make sure that we provide this training in a language that our people can understand as well,” Gordon said.

The two sessions take place at the same time and in the same place, and each is capped at 20 participants to maintain an interactive environment. 

Viridiana Acevedo Saucedo

“As of now, there isn’t very many, if any at all, programs that are designed to talk about leadership in agriculture that are for our Spanish-speaking community,” said Viridiana Acevedo Saucedo, an office operations manager with Zirkle Fruit Company. She works at the company's Royal City office as well as the Othello branch, and went through the ALP in 2022 after being invited to attend by her boss.

The next year, she was asked to mentor a colleague going through the program, and later, Acevedo was asked to become a trainer.

It’s a difficult position to fill. The number of overlapping skillsets required makes it hard to find instructors – they must be bilingual, familiar with leadership skills and understand the ag industry.

Gordon and Borges have applied for funding to develop instructors. They have both served as two of the nine trainers – in addition to holding down their full-time jobs.

Both have a background in agriculture and understand industry needs, and both are bilingual. “We are working on our leadership skills … we’ve been taking these courses, certificates, working with Gonzaga University, (University of Washington), (Washington State University),” Gordon said. 

They all put in a lot of effort to make the program a success: Acevedo said that while the days spent teaching are paid, “there are endless of hours that we all contribute to creating the slide shows, making sure all the material is prepped.”

But the work is worth it. “Now being part of the trainers, I’m filled with hope,” Acevedo said. “I see the undeniable path we’re on to change lives.” 

Life-changing

The ALP is about leadership skills, but it’s also a program focused on personal change.

“We teach them all these skills and we start with this concept of how to embrace change, how to create a change in your personal life that will eventually journey to a change in their work environment and with their families,” Gordon said. “We have seen effects of the ALP in all levels.”

One thing Acevedo has appreciated is the openness the program encourages among participants. 

“This program creates a unique space where everyone feels heard … In our Latino community, we often carry the weight of cultural expectations that discourage vulnerability. Yet within this program, we embrace it,” she said. 

The effects are visible on an organizational level as well. Since program participants are leaders in their workplaces, their changes affect those they manage and work with.

Because the participants are working toward a larger goal instead of focusing on regulations, “we see this ripple effect of improved safety, improved efficiency, reduced turnover,” Gordon said.

“You get to talk about on-site issues that happen, how do you try to resolve it? And then you also talk about just bettering yourself as a person, for you to be a better leader and come back and practice that, live it,” Acevedo said. “Because if you’re not good with yourself, then how are you going to be able to manage the people?”

Since it was founded in 2020, the Agricultural Leadership Program has trained 188 supervisors from 42 different companies. Above is the winter 2024 graduation group.

| Courtesy Agricultural Leadership Program

Future plans

In the future, Gordon and Borges hope to increase the capacity of the program and expand the mentorship reach.

Currently, there is at least one check-in during the practice portion of the ALP, and participants can reach out with questions as they complete their assignment, Gordon said. Participants also are encouraged to find a mentor, like Acevedo was for her coworker. 

“One of the things that we really have to work on is kind of monitoring what happens to them after the three-month period,” Borges said. “Do they go back to the old habits, or do they continue to work on different leadership skills?”

It’s an area where they don’t know much at the moment, he said. 

“Our idea would be that we can have a mentorship program and the program would run for an entire year,” Gordon said. “… We believe that we need to support the participants of the program so they don’t go back to those old habits and keep working.”

They also hope to get permanent funding from the legislature so that they can hire a program director and an instructor who can dedicate their full time to the program, Borges said. 

“We have been able to keep this program going with a lot of sacrifice from Jacqui and I, where we have full time jobs and we’re adding all of this to our responsibilities. But hopefully we can find a way to make this program sustainable so that it grows,” Borges said.

Courses cost $600, which covers the materials and food provided during each in-person session. Call 509-452-8555 or go to: wstfa.org.