Clarence Beckwith Distinguished Alumni Award: Sam Monte

Monte of Riverside is president and owner of Monte Package Company, a company that he has taken from being a local agricultural supplier to a national provider of produce packaging. 

Sam’s parents established the company in 1925 and in the early 1960s, passed it on to him and his wife, Connie. Sam expanded the business in 1969 and again in 1990 by establishing allied companies to Monte Package Company. In 2001, further growth led to a distribution center in Lakeland, Florida.

In four decades of management, Monte has diversified the operation from specializing primarily in wood containers to now handling America’s largest line of produce containers and providing many agricultural packaging-related services. Sam graduated from LMC with an Associate in Arts degree in 1954 and went on to Michigan State University to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 

Demonstrating their commitment to the future of agriculture through education, Sam and Connie recently established the Tony and Rose Monte-Monte Package Company Agricultural Scholarship to provide recipients with full tuition for two years at LMC and two years at Michigan State University in an agriculture-related major.

Sam Monte received the Clarence Beckwith Alumni Award in 2005.