AppHarvest now has 500 employees in Kentucky. Two are former top Trump aides.
The Kentucky-based mega greenhouse company AppHarvest now employs two key aides to former President Donald Trump.
Derek Lyons was the White House staff secretary and counselor to the president. Jordan Karem was the director of Oval Office Operation.
Lyons began working for AppHarvest on Dec. 21 as general counsel. He left his position at the White House in December, ahead of Trump’s term ending, according to a Bloomberg news report.
Karem, who was considered Trump’s “body man,” left the White House in January 2019. He started working with AppHarvest on April 12 as the chief of staff.
“AppHarvest has worked to assemble a diverse management team and board of directors that span the political spectrum and who are passionately united in the mission to solve the challenge of building a resilient food system for the U.S. while creating good jobs in Appalachia,” Travis Parman, the company’s chief communications officer, said in a statement.
Last month, ”Hillbilly Elegy” author and early investor J.D. Vance exited the AppHarvest board, days after making controversial comments on Twitter. Parman, at the time, said he would not comment on Vance’s motivations for his exit.
AppHarvest has grown its workforce significantly in recent months, to 500 employees. The greenhouse company produced its first tomatoes in January and became publicly traded on Nasdaq in February. AppHarvest has two facilities under construction: a 60-plus acre facility outside Richmond and a 15-acre facility to grow leafy greens in Berea. The company plans to have 12 farms in Kentucky and Central Appalachia by the end of 2025.
Earlier this week, AppHarvest announced it generated $2.3 million in net sales and sold 3.8 million pounds of tomatoes in its first quarter.
“At our flagship farm in Morehead, Ky., our expert growers have ramped up production of the full 60 acres as of the first week of May,” AppHarvest Founder and CEO Jonathan Webb said Monday. “The team is putting in place the right infrastructure for growth, taking employment from around 20 a year ago to 500 by the end of the first quarter.”