Mary “Bess” Lewis joined the Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development team as a management development specialist, according to a news release from Cornell University.

Lewis, a bilingual educator, will teach supervisory and leadership skills to Spanish-speaking team leaders, supervisors and managers to help grow their farm careers and to contribute to a stable and successful New York farm workforce, according to the release.

Born in Maryland but raised in Bolivia, South America, Lewis studied at the Universidad Evangélica Boliviana then transferred to Greenville University in Illinois. At Greenville she completed her bachelor’s degree in Spanish with a minor in communications and earned a master’s degree in teaching. Lewis and her family have managed their own grain farm and owned a fertilizer, chemical and seed business in Southern Illinois. They moved to New York in 2019.

For more information about Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development, part of Cornell Cooperative Extension and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, go to: agworkforce.cals.cornell.edu.

—by Jonelle Mejica