‘Often unseen’ category of essential worker during pandemic gets a Stanislaus honor
Razo Barron has been a field worker since the early 1970s. His office is the outdoors. No clustered cubicles with coughing co-workers. No recirculated air system with filters that maybe needed replacement years ago.
Still, in the first couple of months of 2020, when the orchard supervisor with Blossom Hill/Beard’s Quality Nut in Oakdale started hearing how serious the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was becoming, he took action, said his job assistant and daughter, Alex Barron.
Her father and company owner Bruce Beard instructed her to do research and create an employee training, she said. “I worked along with our HR consultants to get current and precise information from county public health and the CDC,” Alex Barron said. She shared what she learned with her father, and they introduced the information to employees. “He then made sure to follow up, ensuring social distancing and sanitation at our sites,” she said.
When so many of us were sheltering at home, “they were out there providing us with food,” Karen Williams of the Modesto Rotary Club said about the crucial role of agricultural workers during the pandemic. She was speaking Tuesday at the Farmworker of the Year presentation, where Razo Barron was the inaugural recipient of the award from MoRo, the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau and AgSafe.
The award arose from MoRo’s desire to honor the essential workers who have kept the necessities of food, shelter, supplies and health care in place during the pandemic, said Williams, who is executive director of LearningQuest-Stanislaus Literacy Centers.
Members agreed that farmworkers are an often overlooked category among the workers. They “are often unseen and unfortunately, not thanked enough,” MoRo President Ryan Dziadosz said in a news release when nominees were being sought.
Stanislaus County Farm Bureau gets word out
The Farm Bureau also used its mailing list, social media and email blasts to get nominations, and Razo Barron was nominated by his daughter and Beard.
“Razo’s work ethic and values are hard to come by,” Beard said in nominating the company employee of 35 years. “He oversees all of our orchard operations and labor from beginning to end. ... Razo takes it upon himself to motivate the crew and guide efficient activity. Many times, we find out about challenges out in the orchard after the fact, because Razo troubleshoots on his own and is able to execute with limited resources.”
Alex Barron agreed that it’s her father’s nature “to motivate everyone and bring out their best.”
Throughout the pandemic, said Beard, Barron worked quickly and diligently not only to protect workers but also to promote crop growth, “covering all bases.”
Alex Barron said she and her dad are proud of the workers’ efforts to keep themselves and their colleagues safe, which has resulted in none of them falling ill.
Razo Barron said he realizes how fortunate he is to have a working environment that’s been relatively safe from the coronavirus and a career that wasn’t interrupted by the pandemic. He also said he couldn’t believe it when he was told he’d won the honor, which the Rotary says comes with $1,000.
That her father was honored means so much to her whole family, Alex Barron said. “He’s so professional and he’s so detail oriented with his tasks and his knowledge in farming,” she said. “He’s so grounded with nature and the orchards” and he had the wisdom early on to get into an occupation that truly makes him happy.
Video from the Farmworker of the Year Award presentation, which also honored second- and third-place winners Joe Brazil and Ted Voss, can be viewed at bit.ly/2Pb2H5n.
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
