U.S. Sugar Recognizes Two Railroad Employees For 50 Years With The Company

CLEWISTON, Fla. - June 19, 2013 - PRLog -- U.S. Sugar Corporation President and CEO Robert H. Buker, Jr. honored two of its railroad employees for 50 years of dedicated service to the Company.

“Fifty years with the same company is increasingly rare in business today, so we were particularly proud to recognize and honor Edward Brown and Jimmy Langston for their long service to U.S. Sugar, and we also honored nearly 60 others with 5-35 years of service,” said Robert. H. Buker, Jr.  

Brown and Langston (50 yrs) were honored at an Employee Service Recognition luncheon for both U.S. Sugar RR and South Central Florida Express railroads held at the Clewiston Elks Lodge last month.  Also honored were Selby Reese (35 yrs); James Hardy (30 yrs); Guadalupe Paniagua, Merle Phillips, Vernon Sullivan and Bruce Wilson (25 yrs); Otha Carter, Roy Facey, Corey Ferguson and Mickey Watson (20 yrs); Johnny Jones, Franklin Kendrick, Eddie Parker, Mario Tomas and Johnny Welborn (15 yrs); Benjamin Escorcia, Antonio Rodriguez, Josue Simon, Andre Snead, Ray Holcomb, Sam Mallo, Marvin Rivera, David Romero and Matthew Wiggins (10 yrs); Douglas Angram, Adrian Arnold, Jeremy Brown, Ismael Ceniceros, Jaqurral Hale, George Hernandez, Jessie Herring, Peter Johnson, Henry Mason, Anthony Pugh, Matthew Simmons, Adan Rico and Lorenza Williams (5 yrs).  

Harlem resident Edward Brown started at U.S. Sugar in 1963 as part of the “bull gang” in the Clewiston Mill, cleaning up spilled cane in and around the railcar cane dump.  He later worked as a Mechanic’s Helper and then was promoted to Mechanic.  Today, Brown is a Multi-craftsman for the U.S. Sugar railroad.  Over the years, Brown said that the building of the Clewiston Refinery and the big upgrades in the railroad tracks and equipment are the biggest changes that he’s seen in U.S. Sugar’s operations.

Clewiston resident Jim Langston’s career at U.S. Sugar began nearly 51 years ago as an office messenger. Over the course of his career with the railroad, he held the positions of Yardmaster and Engineer.  Presently, Langston is a Locomotive Engineer for U.S. Sugar’s railroad.  He says the biggest changes over the past fifty years have been the move toward world class equipment and the building of a much stronger relationship between U.S. Sugar and its workers that exists today.

“U.S. Sugar’s railroad operations delivered 33,000 tons of sugarcane to the mill every day during the 2012-2013 harvest season within 7.5 hours of harvest, an unprecedented “cut to crush” time in the Florida sugar industry,” Buker said.  “This allows us to extract the maximum amount of white sugar from the sugarcane in our fully integrated process.”

“We certainly appreciate everyone’s hard work,” said Buker.