EPC Leadership Class Unlocks Insights at Workshop

The seventh Eastern Produce Council (EPC) Leadership Class received training on developing great leaders from the Rutgers Office of Continuing Professional Education. The training event was held on September 30, 2025 at Holly House inside Rutgers Gardens in New Brunswick, NJ. The180-acre botanic garden provided an inspiring backdrop for the class experiential learning opportunity.
 
“Our group consists of a lot of young tenacious representatives from our industry,” said Tyler Schneider, regional sales director (based in Philadelphia, PA) for Cleveland Kitchen of Cleveland, OH. “It’s been great to hear what others have to say,” he said. “Being able to collaborate with them is very impactful and it’s definitely growing my perspective. It makes you feel good to have an exchange with people who are moving toward similar goals.”
 
Patty Reger from PKR Consulting Group presented a dynamic workshop to guide the class in unlocking leadership insights and led them through a hands-on exercise. The session began with participants sharing challenges, opportunities and outlook in their business over the past year. Reger discussed challenges for the future leaders of 2030: to futurize their business and to humanize their business. “We need to be thinking about how to intentionally step away from the day-to-day and allocate time to consider that future,” she said. “There is also more priority moving forward about making the organization human.”
 
The hands-on team project sparked conversation around how people work as teams and what goes into decisions explained Susan McAleavey Sarlund, EPC Executive Director. “In building a tower, what they imagined would be the best tower often isn’t,” she said. “Many times new ideas are too focused on being grandiose and they end up not being executional. This was a great demonstration of that.”
 
Reger also talked about situational leadership, the importance of networking, and optimizing LinkedIn as a tool. With respect to managing others, she posed nine tips for giving great feedback. “Feedback giving and receiving can be an art form and most people don’t do it very well,” she said. “If you don’t get clear feedback you don’t know what to do with it. Try to give feedback frequently and keep it specific and constructive. Building a culture of feedback makes the process easier for your entire team. You want to turn feedback into feed-forward.”
 
Marcus Albinder, operations manager at Hudson River Fruit Distributors based in the Hudson Valley, NY, benefited from interacting with other classmates from different aspects of the industry. “Many of us are going through similar issues,” he said. “It allows us to learn from each other. I’m a manager at my business and these trainings give us guidance on how to approach certain situations on resolving conflicts or encouraging employees.”
 
The EPC’s esteemed program provides a dual-medium learning environment and includes various tours and classroom learning activities throughout the year. Participants selected for the 2025 Leadership Class include: Marcus Albinder of Hudson River Fruit Distributors; Susie Alvarez of Dayka + Hackett; Christine Consales of Dole Fresh Fruit; Geoffrey Gero of House Foods; Garrett Josephson of Farm-Wey Produce; Drew Koeppel of Katzman Distribution; Nathan Kreiser of Four Seasons Produce; Justin Leis of CJ Brothers Inc.; Michael Lovera Jr. of JOH; Kyle McDevitt of Pennrose Farms; Emily Naples of JOH; Tyler Schneider of Cleveland Kitchen; Taylor Sears of LGS; Aleksander Skarzynski of Wakefern Food Corp.; Casey Spencer of John Vena, Inc.; Paul Williamson of Highline Mushrooms; and Matt Zapczynski of Idaho Potato Commission.
 
Also participating in the event to support the leadership class were: Vic Savanello of Katzman Distribution, EPC Leadership Committee Chair and past EPC President; and Al Murray, EPC Board Member.