Charles (Chet) E. Townsend, Jr.
Mobile Phone: 863-673-1374 ¨ E-mail: chet@ultimatecitrus.com
A highly innovative and experienced Senior Executive with more than 29 years of successful, progressive experience in all aspects of citrus industry management, including information systems, operations, marketing and futures trading. Uniquely effective in the development of useful management information tools through the use of a wide area network and intranet. Hands on, pro-active manager recognized for exceptional ability to create and implement successful marketing programs.
·
Introduced soil moisture monitoring to the Florida Citrus
Industry using C-Probes and AgWISE.net.
·
Help developed and directed the fresh fruit
business-to-business on-line trading system for eFruit International, Inc.,
FruitMarketplace.com.
(www.efruitinternational.com)
·
Maintained excellent customer relations, expanded orange
juice concentrate sales from $5 million to over $16 million in annual sales,
with overall fruit and juice sales combined in excess of $40 million.
·
Developed corporate Intranet to allow easy access of data,
HR policies, marketing, and weather information for production and other
personnel. Facilitated data linkage and communications between all divisions of
the company. Developed juice inventory, production and sales spreadsheets to
manage growth in sales.
·
Added $1.2 million to bottom line in 1997 by conservatively
hedging orange concentrate inventory on the OJ Futures Market and managing
pricing of fruit and juice.
·
Directed a unique pounds solids management program to
accurately estimate the company’s fruit crop and to maximize returns by
managing the harvest of the crop in a scientific manner.
·
Through quick innovative negotiations, was able to salvage
the company’s orange crop, after the January, 1997 freeze, by contract packing
orange juice through several processors and selling the juice directly to end
users for a profit.
·
Successfully negotiated multi-year fruit contracts with
major processors at favorable prices.
·
Active in industry affairs representing the company and is
well respected.
eFruit
International is a business-to-business web site for trading fruit and fruit
juices on-line.
Turner Foods Corporation was a
subsidiary of the FPL Group, Inc., trading on the NYSE (FPL), with annual
revenues exceeding $6 billion. Turner Foods Corporation annual revenues were in
excess of $40 million.
Vice President, Technical
Services 1997 to 1998
Reporting directly to the CEO, responsible for OJ Commodities Futures Trading, FCOJ Sales from Toll Processing Inventory, Internet and Intranet Web site Maintenance. Direct reports in the Information Systems Group included a Director of Technical Services and two technicians.
Reporting directly to the CEO, responsible for revenues in
excess of $40 million annually by directing all corporate marketing strategies
including Fruit Marketing, FCOJ Sales and Futures Trading Fruit Harvesting and
Contract Negotiations. Direct reports included a marketing manager, a harvesting
manager and a staff of 5 harvesting superintendents.
Education
Bachelor
of Science, Agriculture,
Attended
George Washington University, 1971-1973
Areas of Effectiveness
·
Public Relations with the Citrus Industry
·
Orange Juice Marketing and Commodity Futures Trading
·
Contract Negotiations
·
Project Management
·
Windows 95/98/NT/XP and NT Internet Services
·
Microsoft Office Pro Suite; Excel, Word, Powerpoint
·
CorelDraw Graphics Design Software
·
DreamWeaver HTML Web
Authoring Tools
Web Sites Published
·
The Ultimate Citrus Page:
http://www.ultimatecitrus.com
·
The Story of
·
Citrus Industry Magazine: http://www.citrusindustry.net
· DISC - Decision Information Systems for Citrus: http:// www.ultimatecitrus.com /disc/
· The Gulf Citrus Growers Association: http://members.aol.com/gulfcitrus
· Florida Science Source, Inc.: http://www.ultimatecitrus.com/fssource
· AMS Engineering & Environmental: http://www.ams-ee.com
Professional Affiliations
Gulf Citrus Growers Association
Director 1986
to 2001
Chairman,
Community Relations Committee 1996
to 2000
President 1991
to 1992
Director 1989
to 1992
Citrus Administrative Committee
Grower Member 1988
to Present
Chairman 1992 to 1993
Member 1988
to Present
Chairman
1994