Meet the Innovators: Tom Raymond
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / December 19, 2023 / Hormel Foods CorporationTom Raymond, director of environmental sustainability at Hormel Foods, is focused on helping the company achieve its environmental sustainability goals.Tom Raymond has more …
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / December 19, 2023 / Hormel Foods Corporation
Tom Raymond, director of environmental sustainability at Hormel Foods, is focused on helping the company achieve its environmental sustainability goals.
Tom Raymond has more than 25 years of experience in environmental management. He is responsible for managing the company's environmental compliance and sustainability efforts, and under his guidance, Hormel Foods has made significant progress toward achieving its environmental sustainability goals. He started his career with the company in 2005 as a senior staff engineer at the corporate headquarters in Austin, Minn. He was promoted to principal environmental engineer in 2007, to manager of environmental engineering in 2008 and to his current position in 2010. He has a law degree from Seattle University School of Law, a master's in environmental management from Samford University and a BES from Saint Cloud State University.
Can you describe your role at Hormel Foods and how it supports the Originate initiative and our overall innovation efforts?
My role at Hormel Foods involves primarily two functional areas: energy and environmental management systems. By environmental management systems, we're talking about air, wastewater, the things that we interact with in our communities and manufacturing organizations. On the energy side, we focus on how we obtain energy and how we use it efficiently. There are complexities in both programs, which brings innovation into the scene. We're not just innovating products as a company, we're innovating our processes. And that's how we approach our environmental and energy management systems.
What is the 20 By 30 Challenge, and what is the role of innovation in meeting these ambitious targets?
The 20 By 30 Challenge is an extension of our long-standing tradition of corporate responsibility. It's 20 goals that we intend to meet by 2030 covering the spectrum of our products, our people, our environment and our society. Innovation will be necessary to achieve these goals because they are aggressive, and aggressive targets require new ways of thinking and doing things, which means innovating the processes that we have in place now.