The Westchester Hispanic Chamber of Commerce recently honored several corporations, business owners and professionals for their contributions to the county”™s Hispanic community.
Corporate honorees were:
Goya Foods Inc., headquartered in Secaucus, N.J., a company started in lower Manhattan in 1936 by an immigrant couple from Spain that has grown to be the largest Hispanic-owned food company and leading source of Latino cuisine in the U.S with 3,000 employees and more than 1,500 product offerings and distributed brands.
Prudential Rand Realty, a family owned company started in 1984 in New City that now employs more than 700 sales associates in 21 offices in the lower Hudson Valley region. Chamber officials said Prudential Rand was the first company in its marketplace to develop a full-service bilingual division that includes www.randlatino.com, a Web site offering more than 100,000 property listings in Spanish, and 50 bilingual agents and loan officers throughout the region.
The chamber”™s Trailblazer Award was presented to Soto, Sanchez & Negron L.L.P., a Yonkers law firm established in 2004 by founding partners Wilson Soto, Felix Sanchez and Wanda Y. Negron. All of the firm”™s staff are bilingual and conversant in English and Spanish. The law practice, which counts small and mid-sized businesses, individuals, lending institutions and charitable organizations among its clients, served the Hispanic community.
Peter Herrero Jr., president of New York Hospitality Group in White Plains, received the chamber”™s Businessman of the Year award. Herrero at 15 began his restaurant career as a dishwasher and at 24 bought Sam”™s of Gedney Way in White Plains. In 1986, he founded New York Hospitality Group, which has four subsidiary companies and employs 51 full-time and 150 part-time employees.
The chamber”™s Businesswoman of the Year is Amparo Krestin, a Colombian-born dentist who established a predominantly Hispanic-based practice in White Plains that serves the growing community. Krestin, a Scarsdale resident who earned degrees in dental surgery in both her native Colombia and from New York University, recently expanded her practice when she established the Dental & Cosmetic Group of Westchester.
Honored by the chamber with its Community Service Award were Ray Negron, an actor, personal consultant to New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, community relations director for Spalding, the sporting goods company, and author of children”™s books, and Martha López-Hanratty, Westchester County director for Hispanic affairs and co-founder of the Hispanic Resource Center of Larchmont/Mamaroneck.
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