Salinas, CA (April 14, 2009) – California Florida Plant Company, L.P. is pleased to announce the addition of Meng Tee to the company. As General Manager, Tee will continue all the traditional areas of Cal Florida's business while taking the company to ambitious new heights. He's looking forward to streamlining everything at Cal Florida: business and operations management, sales and marketing, technical applications, research, production and labor. His approach looks like an ideal blending of the tradition for quality and innovation as envisioned by founder Yoshimi Shibata.

Most recently Tee was employed at Speedling, Inc. where he was responsible for the company's nurseries in San Juan Bautista, Watsonville and Nipomo in California and in Alamo, Texas. Over his 10-years at Speedling, he held successive positions of Production Manager, Nursery Manager and, finally, West Coast Division Manager.

Cal Florida is a much smaller facility than Speedling's 2.8 million square feet, but is more diversified and offers more challenging opportunities. At Speedling, Tee proved his ability to manage large operations efficiently, but his main drive is his vision. He recently said, "I like growth. I get bored with the status quo." Tee is fluent in five languages and is expanding his beginner's knowledge of Spanish in anticipation of Cal Florida's expansion into the Caribbean and South America.

Tee was educated in his homeland, Malaysia. He then went on to Kansas State University at Manhattan, Kansas, where he earned a B.S. in Horticulture Science in 1995 and a second B.S. in Agriculture Technology Management a year later. His studies toward an MS of Agribusiness are ongoing and expected to be complete sometime this year.

Before coming to Speedling, Tee was Farm Assistant Manager and Research Assistant Manager at Sime Darby Plantations (Malaysia). This company is a Division of Southeast Asia's largest multinational conglomerate, Sime Darby Berhad. There, he developed greenhouse and nursery growing systems and convinced top management to purchase the French RICHEL greenhouse with cooling pads and movable shading as a nursery to produce vegetable transplants — the first installation of its kind in Malaysia. He developed accounting systems for the company's new venture in high tech agriculture and developed a production cost simulation model and worked on budget and productivity analyses.

With all his drive, vision and success, Meng Tee is described by one colleague as "a humble man". That sounds good to us. Welcome to Cal Florida, Meng!

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California Florida Plant Company is known for its breeding of potted carnations, primarily the Adorables^TM series. They also have expanded their custom laboratory, advanced propagation and horticultural technologies in response to national and international demand.