Fall Creek Farm & Nursery announces leadership succession plan

FallCreek Farm & Nursery, Inc., has announced succession of its top leadership. After 40 years, company co-founder and blueberry industry innovator Dave Brazelton will step aside as chief executive officer (CEO) to assume a new role as executive chairman of the privately-held global company’s board of directors.

Effective Jan. 1, 2019, Amelie Brazelton Aust and Cort Brazelton will assume the roles of co-CEOs. In addition, Oscar Verges, who joined Fall Creek as chief operating officer (COO) in 2016, recently was promoted to president and COO of the blueberry breeding and nursery company. The three executives will lead the company’s strategy and growth, and the team of functional and regional directors will continue to report to Verges.  

“We have experienced tremendous growth at Fall Creek during the past years. Our ‘go where our customers grow’ strategy has led us to new geographies and has required us to continually reinvent the way we do things,” Brazelton said. “This transition of leadership is really about commitment to our customers. It gives us a top-level leadership platform to launch the company’s next chapter of growth and to serve the industry in the transformative way our mission calls on us to achieve.”

This unique leadership model was recommended by Fall Creek’s board of directors after assessing the company’s growth plan, internal talents and team-based corporate culture.

“I’m looking forward to seeing each member of the new leadership team work together while they also develop their individual areas of focus: Cort, on global business development and key relationships; Amelie, on strategy and company culture; and Oscar, on the management of a growing global entity,” said Roland Wolfram, the newest member of the Fall Creek board, a past vice president at Nike, where he worked under co-presidents. “Their biggest challenges in the coming years are to continue to drive growth and build a global platform of people, culture and process, while also driving product innovation on the licensing side. They’ll also need to develop strong regional teams to successfully manage at the global scale. There is a lot of added value with their three perspectives and diversity of talents, so the team is poised to meet these challenges.”