It is impossible to write the history of the Bartle Wines Factory and the Food Industry in the province without referring to the life and work of Odelmis Méndez Polanco, and I am not exaggerating. In her work trajectory, there are enough arguments to support my assertion.

“Don't talk about me, talk about the workers”, and she only agrees to tell her story after exalting the values shared by the 55 men and women who under her accurate guidance make science and innovation the compass that guides them.

Odelmis with her example has founded a cohesive collective, very capable and with a great sense of belonging. “There is no fluctuation because they feel motivated. We have built a great family based on good human relations, friendship, seriousness, responsibility, and humanism, expressed in the careful attention to those who play a leading role in the productive process”.

FROM THE ACADEMY TO THE WORK SCENARIO

In 1991, after graduating as a mid-level technician in Industrial Chemistry at the Mario Herrero Toscano Polytechnic, in the city of Nuevita, in the province of Camagüey, she entered through the wide doors of the factory, her first and only work center.

She began as a chemist in charge of quality control in the laboratory, a responsibility she assumed for almost a decade. In 2000, she became a technologist and spent 22 years in this key position in a plant of this type.

In 2022, she was appointed director, a position to which she never aspired, but without intending it, her daily performance paved the way for her well-deserved promotion. “At that time, the factory was a basic business unit (UEB) attached to Camagüey Beverage and Soft Drink Company,” she recalls.

THE LABORATORY

“In 2007 I graduated from the University of Las Tunas with a degree in Agricultural Engineering, although what attracted me and what I wanted was Industrial Engineering.” However my mother's love was stronger, "I had a little girl and I could not travel to the universities in Holguín or Camagüey where it was taught."

The many passions that animate her find breeding ground in the laboratory, where she combines her knowledge of industrial and agronomic sciences: “I have always liked to be part of everything and I have been at the head of that team, made up of great specialists and chemists, as in the part of technology that are guarantees of progress and support me a lot with their innovative ideas”.

In this scenario she feels fully realized, “and the formulations of new rums and wines have in their composition a part of her dreams, her wisdom and her investigative zeal, that ‘little bug’ that takes her out of the administrative office and brings her to the small room, where ideas find tools to flourish.

She is an innate innovator and never ceases in her eagerness to improve. She became a Maestra Ronera, a title coined in 2007 by the prestigious Central University of Las Villas, Martha Abreu, and crowned after beating several courses on this specialty.

EMOTIONS...

During those 34 years, Odelmis has performed in a scenario full of adversities that have not dented her creative spirit, and her incessant search for alternatives, and she continues to do so with the same energy of the early days.

These experiences support the certainty that: “The Food Industry can do more amid shortages of resources, inputs ... and we have to respond to the demands of the economy of the country and the population. She and her collective prove it in Bartle, that urban town in Las Tunas municipality.

That is why, despite her current responsibilities, she has not stopped looking, entering, and working in the laboratory, scrutinizing opportunities with her insightful eyes. Odelmis continues to grow as a professional and cadre and as a person admired and loved by her work colleagues, which gives her peace of mind and opens the doors to new horizons for the sector and its unit to continue contributing to development.

She has approached rum technologies, including aging and manufacturing processes, and continues to consider the need for constant learning: “I would like to earn a master's degree in rum. I'm willing to study at this age,” she says as if her creative spirit, energy, and enthusiasm do not reveal that her ability and faculties make a mockery of the calendar. This is how her subordinates see her, and honor her virtues with their daily efforts.

Odelmis has motivations that drive her. “Always, when I leave the house and arrive at the factory, I feel new emotions. Every day, I get more excited, and from those impulses, new ideas are born," she reiterates and says goodbye with that frank, sincere smile that has always characterized her and denotes her humility and simplicity.