Isabel Bautista has been working at Superior Farms in Denver since Sept. 19, 2000. Her mother worked in the harvest department at the time and encouraged Bautista and her brother to join her at Superior. The two siblings began the same day. She was a single mom with a three-month-old baby in a new city and spoke only Spanish.
Bautista said her intuition from day one was that Superior Farms was a good company. She stayed and worked on the cleaning crew on the harvest floor. She and her mother and one other woman were the only three females in the harvest department. Learning English as she worked there, she was promoted to quality control.
“They always, always try to promote within the company,” she said. “They get to know the employees and if they have potential, they support them, coach them, and be sure they are promoted and that’s what happened to me.”