Willy Ramirez-Lopez

When Willy Ramirez-Lopez takes his daughter to school, the same elementary school that he attended, teachers there who taught Willy tell him that they’re proud of him. “They see my Clover sweatshirt and my Clover hat and they’ll say how great they think it is that I work at Clover.”

He started on the night shift and is now on the day shift. He works in milk receiving and essentially makes certain that the milk that comes in and the milk that leaves meets federal requirements, and also Clover’s requirements. “My job,” he explains, is “to make sure it’s clean.”

Willy is from Santa Rosa and worked with another creamery that cold packed yogurt and kefir for Clover. When he came to Clover with licenses for “receiving, pasteurizing, etc.,” Clover noticed and put him in this position because, as Willy explains, “They want people to grow and evolve.”

It’s a job that Willy enjoys doing, in large part because of the opportunities to learn from “being around and getting to look at the other jobs people are doing at Clover.” But what he appreciates most about his job is the trust that Clover puts in him. He describes himself as a gatekeeper in terms of quality control, as the first and last line of defense on the product. “It’s a big responsibility,” Willy says. “I work in a position where everything starts.”

And it is good, Willy says, “having that trust from the company. It made me feel welcomed right away.”

Willy joined Clover in 2015 and considers himself a newbie compared to many of the other Clover employees. “A year or two goes by for me and it’s nothing compared to everybody else,” he points out, “because nobody leaves Clover.” And he adds, “I get along with everyone really well.

Willy is only 25 and tells himself to take his time, that he’s doing good, but being at Clover, he says, “makes me want to give more. I just want to give them my best work.”

When asked to identify his favorite Clover product, Willy says that he doesn’t really have a favorite but that doesn’t matter because, as he explains, “You can’t go wrong with milk.”

Willy likes the rebrand and the growth that Clover is experiencing, along with the changes that come with growth. “We have more products now, which is good.” And when people ask him where the new products come from, he tells them, “They come from Clover. And we don’t cut it close with our standards.”