AgGateway Members Honored for Outstanding Service

Honoring Excellence

AgGateway Members Honored for Outstanding Service

By Paul Schrimpf, Director of Marketing and Communications

During the recent North America Annual Meeting and Conference in Austin last month, AgGateway leadership set aside time to honor outstanding work by some of its most active volunteers. A special awards presentation honored six individuals in four categories.

“Dedicated volunteer time and talent is how our work on interoperability and digital connectivity gets done, and we are pleased to highlight those who have done exceptional work with honors that recognize both long-term, sustained contributions as well as specific projects over the past 24 months,” says Brent Kemp, AgGateway President and CEO.

The 2024 honorees included the following:

The AgGateway in Action Award is presented to individuals for high activity and dedication to the mission to promote and enable the transition to digital agriculture in at least two activities over a two-year period. One recipient is chosen from each of AgGateway’s regions. The 2024 recipients were:

North America | Zach Leiser, GROWMARK

Europe | Johannes Sonnen, DKE Data – Agrirouter

Latin America | Flavio Barros, Proagrica

At the ceremony, AgGateway Executive Vice President and COO Jeremy Wilson praised Barros and Sonnen for their organizational involvement and championing of AgGateway work in their respective regions. In North America, Leiser provided leadership throughout 2024 on specific efforts in the field boundaries working group.

“Zach took the reins leading field boundary at a time when it needed some direction,” said Wilson, “and more importantly he went back to a number of members and asked questions and challenged people to provide us input because we were making decisions that would impact them. Without question, Zach has led this with great authority.”

The Ron Storms Leadership Award is also dedicated to recent work with a focus on leadership and collaboration across AgGateway teams that delivered specific results. The 2024 recipient, Kelly Nelson of FarmBelt North, received the honor for his leadership and effort on the ADAPT Standard v1 project that was completed earlier this year.

“He’s not only been an incredible contributor to our organization, but he was also involved in a lot of the development work we did with the ADAPT Standard, serving as a consultant and creating the ADAPT plug-in to the standard,’ said Wilson. “He’s facilitated countless meetings and been not only a great volunteer but exemplifies the leadership that we need to bring consensus to our work.”

Kemp presented the President’s Award to Theresa Fitzsimmons of Bayer Crop Science. “Over the last several years, Theresa has worked to build consensus around significant business problems. She has also made positive changes working with other members and working with committees to make sure that digital resources are stewarded through process,” he said.

Finally, the Ron Farrell Attitude Award was presented to long-time volunteer and contributor Stuart Rhea of Endless Wonder Consulting.

“Ron Farrell came into every situation in this organization with the feeling that his positive attitude was going to make a difference in how things went, no matter how difficult,” said Kemp. “Likewise, this award recognizes work that goes beyond what is expected, work that is a personal reflection of attitude. Stuart has gone above and beyond to move the industry forward toward interoperability, and has put forth superlative personal effort over the last year even in the face of professional transition. He’s engaged with the industry to make the work of AgGateway more widely known and brought more people to our organization.”