Oregon H-2A Summit 2023

November 2, 2023

Salem Convention Center in Salem, Oregon

Thank you for joining us in Salem for a day of labor and immigration updates, breakout sessions, and networking! See below for conference materials.

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Agenda

Presentations & Booklet

General Session

General Session Presentations

Labor and Employment Law Booklet - Oregon 2023

Financial Literacy Handout

Breakout Track 1 Presentations

Don't be a Headline

H-2A Workers Off the Clock

Breakout Track 2 Presentations

Oregon Employment Department

Oregon OSHA

Supporting Workers (Off Duty)

Breakout Track 3 Presentations

How Software Can Lighten Your Workload

Don't Do That, Do This - Wafla Visa Team

Northern Triangle Opportunity (El Salvador)

Speaker Biographies

(Alphabetized by last name)

Adam Belzberg is a partner with the Stoel Rives law firm. He represents and advises employers across the United States, from small businesses to international corporations. Adam has particular experience representing agricultural employers throughout Washington and Oregon in all aspects of labor and employment law.

X/X/2016-- Seattle, WA, USA

Photograph by Stuart Isett. ©2016 Stuart Isett. All rights reserved.

Jacob Boston serves as a visa account manager at wafla. He was born in Oceanside, California, and grew up in Lacey, Washington. As a first-generation high school and college graduate, he understands what an opportunity can provide. This has led him to pursue a career where he can give back to his community in the best way possible.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer is proud to represent Oregon’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lori was elected in 2022, and she is one of the first Latinas and is the first Republican woman elected to Congress from the state of Oregon. Lori started her public service career in 2002 on the Happy Valley Parks Committee. Later, she won a seat on the Happy Valley City Council and became city council president. She was elected mayor in 2010, becoming Happy Valley’s first female and Latina mayor. She was re-elected in 2014. She is married to her high school sweetheart, Dr. Shawn DeRemer. Together they founded an anesthesia management company and opened several other medical clinics in the Pacific Northwest. Lori and Shawn are parents of twin daughters.

Riley Clubb is a cofounder of Harvust. His family has been in the agricultural industry for three generations with Seven Hills Vineyard and L'Ecole No 41 winery. Riley is a graduate of MIT Sloan and Whitman College.

Jeane DeLaney recently retired from a 30-year career in academia focused on Latin America. She grew up on a family farm, and her experiences in Mexico and Central America made her keenly aware of the region’s poverty and the importance of migration to the U.S. as one of the few paths people have to a better life. DeLaney has volunteered to help on several wafla projects related to equitable employment.

Scott Dilley is the public affairs director at wafla. Scott has 20 years of experience in public policy and has expertise in labor and employment matters. Scott received a bachelor's degree in government from Centre College and a master's degree from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. Scott is a native of Oxford, Mississippi, and now lives on a farm near Montesano with his wife and children.

Guadalupe Diaz is an account executive at wafla.

Jenny Dresler is the director of regulatory affairs and a lobbyist at Public Affairs Counsel. She has represented the interests of clients at the state capitol and within the executive branch as agencies adopt rules to implement law since 2014. Jenny previously served as director of state public policy at the Oregon Farm Bureau. As director Jenny oversaw state lobbying on key issues—tax, employment, environment, and regulatory—and was the organization’s grassroots coordinator. Prior to Farm Bureau, Jenny worked for the Oregon Senate Republican caucus office and focused on natural resources policy. She began her professional career as an aide to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) in Washington, D.C. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Master’s degree in environmental science with a focus on general business.

Rebekah Finn was born in the South Pacific island kingdom of Tonga and grew up in California’s Silicon Valley. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Westmont College and an Editing Certificate from the University of Washington. Rebekah’s professional experience includes nonprofit communications, government accounting, and freelance writing and editing. As the visa program senior analyst at wafla, she guides employers through the H-2 visa process and keeps the visa team educated on relevant program updates.

Enrique Gastelum is the chief executive officer at wafla and is a champion of promoting the sustainability of labor-intensive agriculture across the Pacific Northwest. His background in a farmworker family, his time spent as a government labor law regulator and educator, and his work as CFO of Washington Farm Bureau have provided him a unique perspective that balances the labor needs of seasonal employers with the rights and dignities of workers. He holds a Bachelor of Science in zoology and an MBA in public administration.

Luis Guitron is wafla's field services director and the housing manager for Riverview Meadows, wafla's 160-bed housing project near Okanogan, Wash. His experience in agriculture began in 2012 when he learned to prune, drive tractors, and spray pesticides for Stemilt Ag Services. He spent two years in the carpenters' union and has experience managing H-2A crews for wafla.

James Hall, as co-owner of Harvust, builds tools for professional farmworkers.

Dora Herrera is an H-2A housing expert with the Oregon Employment Department.

Dillon Honcoop hosts the Real Food Real People Podcast and is the communications director for Washington state-focused advocacy nonprofit Save Family Farming. Honcoop grew up on a family red raspberry farm near Lynden, Wash. After working for over a decade in media, Honcoop joined Save Family Farming to advocate for the farming community through public outreach. As part of that effort, Honcoop launched the Real Food Real People Podcast to share farmers’ authentic stories and tackle important issues around how our food is produced.

Pall Kvaran, manager with Labor Mobility Partnership’s private sector solutions team, helps build market-driven solutions to challenges within migration systems. He has been leading the development and deployment of a worker voice tool with wafla and CSI, focused on recruitment. The tools is designed to help increase recruitment transparency and ensure worker satisfaction.

Richard Longo currently serves as the Deputy Regional Administrator for the Western Region of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Mr. Longo graduated from Fordham University in February of 1991 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics. He began his federal career with the IRS in 1995 where he served as a Revenue Officer in Brooklyn, NY. In 1997, Richard began his Wage and Hour career as a Wage and Hour Compliance Specialist in the White Plains, NY Area Office. He transferred to then Las Vegas Field Office in 2002. In 2004, he was promoted to Assistant District Director in St. Louis, MO where he served until 2006. Richard left federal service for 16 months to pursue a career in the private sector. He served as Director of Wage and Hour Compliance and Director of Policy for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. In 2007, Richard returned to Wage and Hour as Assistant District Director in the San Francisco District before being promoted to Director of Enforcement of the Western Region in November of 2009. In November 2016, Richard was promoted to serve in his current role as Deputy Regional Administrator for the Western Region.

Roxana Macias is the chief people and community officer at wafla. Macias is a first-generation daughter of Mexican farmworkers and a University of Washington graduate. She has worked on all angles of the guest worker programs, including wage determinations, filing H-2A and H-2B contracts, human resources, foreign recruitment, and program compliance. Her role at wafla involves developing and implementing programs to help growers and workers navigate the complexities of state and federal laws and regulations and work in cohesion toward a shared goal.

Sherri Marks works for the Oregon OSHA Consultative Services Section, where she provides consultations to help employers comply with state and federal occupational safety and health laws.

Michael Marsh is president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers. Michael earned bachelor’s degrees in history and accounting from the University of Wyoming, where he also studied law. He is a certified public accountant. Although Michael started his career in public accounting in Casper, Wyoming, working for a CPA firm that had many farm and ranch clients, his career changed dramatically when he began to focus on the areas of forensic accounting and fraud investigation. It was a fraud he uncovered at the National Potato Promotion Board in Denver that tied him inextricably to agriculture. He was subsequently hired as the Director of Finance for the Almond Board of California. He later became the CEO of the largest dairy producer trade association in the US at Western United Dairymen in Modesto. After consulting for a few years in the areas of litigation support and complex financial transactions in Federal District Court, Michael returned to his true passion, advocating on behalf of America’s farmers and ranchers at NCAE.

Guillermo Mathus is the CEO of CSI Visa Processing S.C., one of the largest H-2 foreign visa processing and recruitment firms based in Mexico. Guillermo has seen the H-2 visa application process evolve over the last 23 years, while assisting H-2 employers nationwide with visa processing and recruitment across six different countries. Guillermo oversees 12 agent-processing offices strategically located in Mexico’s agricultural regions and consular cities. Guillermo has worked in every aspect of foreign visa processing, including compliance, recruitment, visa application completion, and foreign travel logistics.

Julia Medrano serves as an account executive at wafla. She was born in Juarez, Mexico, and later moved to Colorado, where she spent most of her childhood. During her upbringing, Julia spent the summers with her parents, working in the fields planting onions, picking tomatoes, and weeding asparagus. After high school, Medrano enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving two combat tours in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and providing humanitarian relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina. She earned a bachelor's degree in health care management from the University of Maryland.

Renson Miranda is a field services manager for wafla. He specializes in H-2A worker onboarding, supervisor and manager training, housing inspections, and conflict resolution in the orchards. Miranda is a graduate of Prosser High School with various skills in the agriculture sector. He was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, and came to the United States at three years old with his pregnant mother.

Ryan Ogburn is the wafla visa services director. He graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts and cum laude honors. While at PLU, Ryan spent over six months studying in Cuba and Spain and speaks fluent Spanish.

Anita Panko is a senior account executive at wafla. She has dedicated her career to helping farmers get apples into kids’ lunch boxes. She attended Idaho State University, receiving an Associate of Arts degree in paralegal studies and her Bachelor of Arts in pre-law. She earned a Master of Arts in paralegal studies from George Washington University. Panko served the ag community while working for the Montpelier (Idaho) Police Department as their coordinator of victims' services.

Daron Prara is an Oregon Department of Revenue tax policy analyst in the Personal Income Tax and Compliance Division. He graduated from Oregon Institute of Technology and has been with the department for over 19 years working out of the Medford and Salem field offices and now the Salem main building. He has been an auditor, senior auditor, and policy analyst in the personal income tax and corporate activity tax programs.

Leon R. Sequeira is an attorney with more than two decades of experience advising employers and industry associations on employment and immigration matters involving foreign workers. He represents clients across the United States, from small family farms to some of the nation’s largest employers of H-2A and H-2B guest workers. In addition to defending employers in government investigations and litigation, he also represents employers on public policy, regulatory, and legislative issues in Washington, D.C.

Harrison Steed co-founded PickTrace, a workforce and harvest management enterprise platform for large-scale farms. Together with his co-founder and brother, Steed has grown PickTrace from a software tool for the family farm to a high-growth, venture-backed startup working with some of the largest produce growers in the world.

Sean Worley is a litigator at the Stokes Lawrence Yakima office and represents private and municipal employers in labor and employment matters. Sean represents employers before state and federal agencies on cases involving wrongful discharge, discrimination, harassment, hostile work environment, retaliation, wage and hour issues (including class action defense), whistleblower conduct, breach of contract, non-competition, FMLA, ADA/WLAD, as well as matters involving unions and collective bargaining. He is a former Deputy Prosecuting Attorney with the Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, where he worked in the Corporate Counsel Division, District Court Unit, and Special Assault Unit.