By Stephanie Johns
Staff Writer

Sonny Pennington shared the details that he has about the changes happening at the Madison location of Pennington Seed.
Pennington retired as president of Pennington Seed, Inc. in Madison about five years ago. He now works at the Pennington Land and Investment Office and serves on the board of directors for Central Garden & Pet Company, the company that bought out Pennington Seed in 1998.
Pennington said that Central Garden & Pet is getting around to changing things and that instead of having two or three locations around the country doing the same tasks they will now have one location – a shared service center in Boise, Idaho.
A “significant number” of jobs will move out of the Madison office to Boise, according to Pennington. Finance and customer service positions are still in Madison and the Boise office is “open and running,” which means that at this time both offices are open.
Those Madison employees whose jobs will be transferred to Boise have been contacted, Pennington said. Some employees have elected to move to Boise and some have not. Those who have chosen not to move have received their termination dates.
Pennington said that the decision to eventually move all shared services to Boise was made by Central Garden & Pet out in Walnut Creek, Calif., not by the board of directors.
Steve Zenker, Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications at Central Garden & Pet, said that there are no plans to phase out the Madison office.
“Our Madison office remains an important part of our company,” he said. “We’re appreciative of the hard work of individuals and their contributions to our company.”
Zenker said that the company’s Madison location is not the only one of their locations being impacted by the merger and added that he did not have a specific number of Madison individuals affected.
According to a September press release, Central Garden & Pet provides items for the lawn, garden, and pet supplies markets. That same release shared that “its Garden segment results have been adversely impacted by several factors.” These factors include the drought and lower seasonal décor sales.

Printed in the October 11, 2012