The good work

In 1987, in the small colonial town of Nochistlán de Mejía, in the southern region of Zacatecas, Mexico, a 15-year-old Elias Mejia was weighing options for his future. He’d been doing some form of farm work, growing corn and beans with his family, since he had the “ability to lift and push and grab,” he says, which was the cultural norm. As the fifth child of six, and the youngest of five boys, he had witnessed four older brothers leverage their work ethic to venture off into the world to become self-sufficient between the ages of 14 and 16. At the same time, he’d watched community members attend university and struggle for work.

Elias wondered what his path would be. He wrestled with the options.

He knew one thing for certain: “School wasn’t difficult,” Elias recalls, “which is a problem, because you don’t put out a lot of effort.”

He wanted a challenge, so leaving school wouldn’t be so terrible. He also wanted to follow the tradition of his brothers. But he didn’t want to leave his mother, father and younger sister.

“It was a difficult decision because I was the last boy at home. There was some guilt and pressure, but at the end of the day, the decision was to venture out,” Elias says.

Thirty-seven years later and 1,500 miles away from his childhood home, the now 52-year-old Elias is the vice president of horticulture and planning at Costa Farms in Miami — the same business where he landed his first job in the U.S. as a plant puller.

His is an extraordinary American immigrant story: A kid from Mexico with a brief formal education works his way up to the executive levels of a major American plant brand. But Elias is incredibly humble about his success. He’d prefer to talk about the problems he’s solved alongside his team and all the fascinating puzzles he’s tackled in his 37-year horticultural career, including the advent of computing in the growing operation, market fluctuations and hurricanes.

While he may not say it, those he works with are happy to: Elias’ curiosity and hunger for challenge has made him an exemplary leader who has not only shaped Costa Farms and the careers of his peers, but also influenced aspects of the entire horticultural industry.

From plant puller to problem solver

The lure of America for a kid in Nochistlán is strong. Elias remembers seeing people return from America looking downright wealthy, so the idea that it would be easy to make money was pervasive.

“When I landed here, what I expected and what I found were totally different,” he says. “We were six or seven living in a two-bedroom apartment because we couldn’t afford anything different. I often questioned if I made the right decision. By that time, there was no choice of going back.”

Back in the late ‘80s, prior to the development of big-box home and garden retailers, Costa Farms’ primary customers were interior landscape designers. The plants were high-quality and big. Elias spent his days lifting 6- to 7-foot-tall plants that weighed 60 to 90 pounds while simultaneously learning what a good plant should look like.

That learning and labor became the foundation for his career and the inspiration to develop it. While he toiled, wrestling with the heavy plant material, he realized he didn’t want to spend his days soaked and tired. There was more to the industry. The problem was how to get inside.

“I wanted to learn who puts these picking lists together. So, I went into the office and talked with those people to learn how it worked,” Elias recalls. “I saw that I would be better off if I were writing these picking tickets than doing the labor.”

Three years later, after gaining some exposure to the processes involved in Costa Farms’ model, Elias became a liaison reporting to the sales manager. At just 19 years old, he was starting to understand supply management but was struck that improvements could be made to the existing, sometimes chaotic production planning system. Although it wasn’t his responsibility as a liaison, Meija dove into learning how long it took to produce the product and how to influence the production plan to take corrective action.

“That triggered my creativity. I’m passionate about problem-solving.” Elias says. “I realized what I could do with a computer to improve the processes. The opportunity was unbelievable.”

With that realization, Elias did what was only logical for him. He taught himself computing. There were no formal classes or training. He simply started studying and experimenting and taking in every bit of information he could about the way computers could help Costa Farms improve.

After three years in the liaison department, Elias was moved to shipping. There, just as business computing was beginning to boom, he began working hand-in-hand with the IT department to build Costa Farms’ first enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to drive efficiency in the company. And all of it was driven by an insatiable curiosity and a drive to improve logistical processes.

Growing a career — and a family

For Elias, growth isn’t about motivation and striving. It is a natural byproduct of a desire to learn — one of his defining character traits.

“He doesn’t like to be stuck,” says Norma Vega, Mejia’s wife of 28 years. “He’s always learning. If he’s interested in something, he’ll read about it; he’ll talk to people about it; he’ll be hands-on trying different things. He doesn’t give up. He’s driven.”

Elias met Norma at Costa Farms when they were both teenage employees. It seems that when he became interested in the lovely young lady working part time in sourcing and inventory management, the drive to learn kicked right in.

“I had not even had a boyfriend,” Norma recalls, laughing at the memory. “He was after me for three years, and I did not want to start a relationship with him because we were good friends, and I was scared of ruining our friendship.”

Norma says that the three years of friendship were enjoyable, and Elias remained persistent about his intentions for a romantic relationship with her throughout. But eventually, she notes, he became impatient enough with her to start dating another girl.

“And I was like, ‘No, I’m not having this. I don’t like this.’ So, I called him and told him I’d like him to break up with her, and we’ve been together ever since,” Norma says, noting that the courtship is indicative of Elias’ persistence. “You see? He never gives up.”

That persistence led to marriage and two daughters now building their own lives in the world. And it led Elias to a leadership role at Costa Farms. It’s been a career that Norma, now Costa Farms’ executive assistant after 30 years in the organization, has been proud to witness. She’s observed the way he’s regarded by both those who work for him and the executives to whom he reports.

“A lot of people look up to him, because he doesn’t look at people like they’re less than him,” she says. “He likes teaching other people when they have questions about what’s going on in the company and how things work. He just wants the people around him to grow — not only the people that directly report to him, but everyone. He’s always up for challenges.”

And that’s true whether the challenge is a courtship or a hurricane.

Overcoming Irma

In early September 2017, Florida Governor Rick Scott set the state into action as the Category 5 Hurricane Irma barreled toward the U.S. Atlantic coast. Like millions of Floridians and Florida businesses, Costa Farms and the Vega-Mejia family were in the crosshairs.

They would need to evacuate. But first, there was preparation to be done. Elias and the Costa Farms team worked feverishly to move the plants that could be moved and protect the rest to the best of their ability. Then, before it was too late, he and his family headed north to wait for Irma to pass.

Elias had already experienced three hurricane recoveries in his career. The first he experienced, Andrew in 1992, tore the roof off his house. Then came the dual wallop of Katrina and Wilma in 2005. But Irma was the first time he’d lead the recovery as director of operation for the indoor segment of Costa Farms. Notably, the size and scale of the company had quadrupled since his days as a liaison.

Once Irma passed, Elias was lucky to return to Miami to find his house intact. But the same could not be said for the growing operation.

“There was a lot of devastation to the farm. It was the closest thing to ’92 that I remember,” Elias says. “I knew I had a big responsibility on my shoulders.”

That responsibility was perhaps a bit weightier considering Markel, a global specialty insurance provider, had acquired a majority interest in Costa just six months prior. But in Elias fashion, he started solving problems and working his recovery plan: standing millions of plants back up, finding every piece of shade possible and reactivating irrigation. His office became a command center of sorts, and shortly after the recovery started, Costa Farms CEO Jose “Joche” Smith and one of the owners of Markel stopped by to ask that he “rethink” the labor force and how many people he really needed.

After looking at several factors, Elias’ response was both direct, brave and unexpected.

“I told them I truly need them to authorize me to hire more,” he says. He had a good explanation. And Joche trusted Elias’ experience and insight.

In the end, Costa Farms spent nearly $20 million on recovery over five months. Despite having to rebuild roofs and irrigation and hire more people to help those efforts, by the next spring they had only missed sales goals by 10 to 15%.

“My only driver at the time was the thousands of families that were counting on checks from our company every week,” Elias says. “When you know your decisions can make a difference, you’d be surprised how you challenge yourself.”

Influencing a business and an industry

Before the word “influencer” was coopted by kids with selfie sticks and Instagram accounts, Elias was making the kind of influence on people and his company that drove lasting and systemic change. It’s a kind of influence that is deeply felt in his peers and which resonates outside of Costa Farms in the horticulture industry at large.

“Elias has always been a mentor and a teacher,” says Costa Farms Chief Operating Officer Jose Daniel Rodriguez. “Learning from him is like learning from three different people at the same time, all of whom have 30 years of experience and expertise.”

But Jose, who is Elias’ direct supervisor, notes that experience is just one part of the equation. Elias is more than a walking trove of information. What sets him apart is how he leverages the experience he has to take bold risks that buck traditional practices.

“He’s always opted for the bold approach,” Jose says. “Because he knows you have to be bold if you want to discover.”

And those bold approaches were on display when Jose was working beside Elias in the wake of Irma. The COO says that just three days after the hurricane, with Elias driving the process, Costa Farms was shipping its first truck of plants. And that speed was due to Elias making some radical choices, including changing growing recipes that had stood for 20 to 30 years.

“We lost a lot of our shade houses,” Jose recalls. “He made a proposal to grow Boston ferns under the full south Florida sun, and we all thought he was crazy. But we gave it a shot, and it worked out.”

Jose calls Elias a “natural problem solver,” and he admits that sometimes those solutions can seem reckless. But while his moves may be unconventional, they are informed by a well of knowledge that make the risks far more manageable and the outcomes far more valuable.

“When I have a really tough challenge that would take a bunch of people in a room several meetings, I love to give it to him, because that’s what keeps him going,” Jose says.

Elias is also known to be a sought-after mentor at Costa Farms — partly because he’s seen almost every area of the industry from within the business, which makes his insights into career development in the horticultural industry incredibly valuable to his colleagues and employees.

“He doesn’t have a lot of turnover,” Jose says. “Staff stay with him because he’s got a high bar. He’s going to be nurturing and a good mentor, but he’s also going to expect you to deliver. People who want to grow tend to do well under his management.”

For his part, Elias explains that it’s incredibly important to him to take care of his team. He is as focused on their growth as he is on the plants and business. “I value the relationships with people — friends, family, coworkers. It’s very important to me that people have an opportunity to succeed and that they get recognized and motivated,” he says.

Costa Farms SVP of Supply Chain Fabian Saenz experienced the kind of growth that Elias inspires. His own career at Costa Farms started well after Elias had already become a leader in the company. He remembers being right out of school and “naïve” when he approached Elias about some shipping projects. Fabian was taken aback by the insightful questions Elias had for him.

“I thought to myself, man, I need to come more prepared to meet with someone like Elias. He truly understands the scope of what he’s involved in,” Fabian recalls with a chuckle. But he says that the surprise and slight discomfort of Elias’ probing inquiries led to growth. “He helped me mature professionally just by asking the right questions.”

But Fabian also stresses that Elias’ influence isn’t confined to the business of Costa Farms and its employees. In fact, it’s been felt quietly but crucially industry-wide.

In the last few years, shipping for Costa Farms and the entire horticultural industry has become incredibly expensive. That created the kind of complicated and complex problem that Elias likes to tackle: How do you get more plants on a truck without changing the volume of media required for the plant material?

“He was the leader of a team that created the new shape for a plastic pot,” Fabian says. “He looked at payload and started changing the shape of the pot until we were able to keep the same liquid volume but ship more per truck, per rack, per shelf, to the point of millions of dollars in savings.”

The solution was so significant that Costa Farms went to their vendors and asked them to start producing the new pot shape. Once the vendors started manufacturing the new pot shape, they began offering the solution to other companies. Now, those pots have become an industry standard because they can hold the same liquid volume while enabling companies to load more plants per truck.

“We did that based on his initiative,” Fabian says. “That came from Elias getting into the details and seeing what he could influence.”

More for Mejia

Ask anyone, including Elias, and they’ll say he’s fulfilled with the challenge that Costa Farms continues to provide his ever seeking and curious mind. Retirement is not likely anytime soon.

“I think he’ll be at Costa until they kick him out or he finds a passion doing something else,” says Norma.

That’s unlikely, according to Elias. “Health will be the determination of that,” he says. “I enjoy what I do every day. And as long as I can make a difference, I’ll be here,” he says. So, he’s reluctant to do any future gazing on where the next 10 years will take him.

Elias is a man who lives in the moment. His focus is on the people here and now and the next problem in front of him that he needs to puzzle out. That said, he does know when it’ll be time to move on. “When I get tired and cranky and can no longer tolerate change, then I’ll know,” Elias says. “The only thing that is constant is change. And as long as I continue to drive change and embrace change, I will continue to work.”

That work, in the end, is the most important thing to Elias. His drive isn’t in promotions or moving up the ladder. Those things come with doing the work, he says. “Good things happen to hard-working people. That’s my truth. That’s my story.”

Patrick Alan Coleman is editor of Greenhouse Management magazine. Contact him at pcoleman@gie.net.

Meet the other members of the HILA Class of 2024:

• Mark Sellew, Prides Corner Farms
• Jim and Kathy Deal, Pender Nursery
• Christa Orum-Keller, Midwest Groundcovers
• Ieda Del Bianco, Van Belle Nursery
• David van Wingerden, Express Seed